The Middle Years

small_2142478943Time To Wear A Tutu

I was sitting in a light filled room, on assignment for an article I was working on, gazing at a dozen ballet students as they moved to the music and listened to their teacher’s direction. Not sure if it was the music, the light, the energy or watching these young girls that stirred my intense desire to put on a tutu and challenge myself. I could see some of the girls struggling with their positions. Ballet is hard and even at that age I was as flexible as an iron pipe and still am. Yet, I’ve always loved to dance, although most of my dance moves were developed in discos, just moving put a smile on my face. I thought maybe I would enroll in a class. Why not?

As I watched the girls experience the highs and lows of their exercises, the intensity, frustration, pain and pride, my mind wandered off to the possibilities of my own life at my age. Part of a generation that did not automatically get “signed up” for an array of classes, I always reveled in most of the classes my children took, especially anything creative. I want to engage in new endeavors before it’s too late.

I’m no fool. I know where I stand, sandwiched between my growing more independent children and aging parents – in my case in-laws and one parent. I also know what it’s like to never reach these years, my mother dying at 45. As I think about my mother’s untimely death and watch my father’s descent into dementia and in-laws ailing health, my despair has turned to desire. I can feel it intermittently, during assignments for my work as a writer but also during college tours or watching my son read a classic I haven’t found my way to yet.

Perhaps I’m naive but I don’t feel the middle years should be anything but exploratory, our offspring are moving on and so should we. These are our years, as the demands of childhood wane, to do the “things we’ve always wanted to do” even if it means delegating to handle elder care or liberating yourself from laundry. We all know the laundry isn’t going anywhere.

I want to paint, dance, love great literature and write forever. What do you want to do?

 

photo credit: <a href=”https://www.flickr.com/photos/cybertoad/2142478943/“>cybertoad</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com“>photopin</a> <a href=”http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/“>cc</a>

 

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