The Journey

Inventing the Rest of Our Lives: Women in Second Adulthood
by Suzanne Levine

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So, we are a new kind of generation. At the same time each of us is a new woman to herself. No wonder the journey begins in a torrent of confusion. Many women find themselves at the edge of the cliff before they even realize something is happening. And looking down, they can't imagine what ropes and pulleys will guide their descent.

They are propelled only by a funny feeling - like the first inkling of pregnancy. It is a mixture of dissatisfaction and fear - and a panicky sense that it is time to do something. Sooner or later each of us does do something. The something is different for every woman I talked to, as minor as throwing out that pillowcase full of mismatched socks once and for all, or as major as interviewing for a new job, getting divorced, or going back to school. But in each case, the ripples set off by those first almost random acts move out into unexpected corners of their lives. In the course of Second Adulthood every aspect of our being - our intimate relationships and our public selves, our professional commitments and our secret dreams, our drives and our fears - will be washed by those ripples; some may even be washed away. But the momentum that has been generated, disorienting as it might be, is driving us toward a wider horizon. As my friend Elizabeth reassures me when I feel atomized by the centrifugal force of events in my life, "a person who isn't expanding is a person who is contracting."

Since my week in the wilderness, I have switched careers, though not entirely by my own choosing. I have endured the tumultuous adolescence of my son while on the alarmingly parallel track of menopause. I lost twenty-five pounds (and, alas, gained a few back) and have begun to work out in a gym for the first time in my life. I have become a feisty big-mouth, in stark contrast to the conciliatory smoother-over of my first fifty years. I have undertaken the renegotiation of a thirty-five year marriage. I have made as many sardonic jokes as anyone about sagging flesh and memory lapses. And I am still trying to figure out how I am going to cross the shifting tectonic plates that lie between who I have been in my assimilated roles of daughter, friend, employee, wife, mother - and who I am becoming as I tap into my inner resources.

To illuminate my own journey and to clarify the promise and pitfalls of this stage of life, I have asked practically every woman I encountered over the past two years to tell me about her life at this moment in time. Even the experts I was consulting about their research dropped their professional distance once I explained what I was writing about and shared their personal expertise as well. Each is in the midst of her journey. Their stories are as worn around the edges as yours and mine. They have no neat endings or surefire tricks to offer; in most, the plot line meanders and doubles back and even disappears for a time. There are highs and lows. When I talked to them, some were euphoric because I caught them on a day when they had glimpsed a light at the end of a tunnel or when some piece had finally fallen into place or when they were simply having a good day. Others were feeling lost, desperately searching for a pattern, for a game plan.

But everyone found our conversation a rare opportunity to share personal discoveries, connect with what other women were experiencing, and take strength from that. And I'm sure you know how that strength expressed itself. Not in choruses of "I am woman, hear me roar!" but in laughter, our secret weapon. I cannot imagine getting through the day, let alone Second Adulthood - or this book, for that matter - without an ascerbic "are you ready for this?" from a friend or a hysterical dead-on observation about forgetfulness in an e-mail or a collective guffaw with my best once-a-month dinner friends over one of aging's absurdities. I would never leave home on any kind of journey without the friends I laugh with. They, along with the women I interviewed, and you the reader, are on this adventure with me. By sharing information and telling the truth, we will figure things out together.

So, with the understanding that this is a process and not a program, I can assure you of two things: you are not alone, and the trip will definitely be worth it.

An Itinerary

However much of the statistically projected quarter of a century any of us actually does get, it will be spent wrestling with The Question (what am I going to do with the rest of my life?) in its serial form - what matters? what works? and what's next? If I am not who I was, we inquire with apprehension, who am I now? Who do I want to become? How do I get there? What will that person make of her days?

The answers are different for every woman and even for the same women at different points along the way. In many ways, Second Adulthood is a mystery cruise to an undisclosed destination in wildly unpredictable weather, calling on ports dangerous and idyllic. And while The Question may drive the ship, the answer for many of us will lie not in a particular harbor but in the journey itself.

If it was possible to chart the journey in a formulaic way, it would go something like this: The You're-Not-Who-You-Were, Only-Older phase is totally discombobulating. Not only do you not know what is happening to you, but you don't even know what words will come out of your mouth next. You may hear yourself accept an invitation you were sure you would decline; or, instead of abjectly apologizing for a misstep, you hear yourself simply acknowledge it and move on. My early encounter with the euphoria of saying no is characteristic of the surge of defiance many women experience at first.

The confusion that results from such inappropriate and out-of-character behavior - the sense of falling - eventually gives way to a floating sensation in a gravity-free zone I call the Fertile Void. That is where we begin the process of sorting things out - and shaking things up. We shed the voices of shoulda-woulda-coulda thinking and begin to sense the presence of an internal compass, our own voice. With its guidance, we can zero in on our personal truth - to distinguish between the fire of an authentic drive and the drone of automatic pilot. Little by little, we get in touch with that elusive essential - our passions.

Emboldened by these important discoveries about ourselves, we enter the recalibration phase. There we become engaged in the delicate business of revising our priorities and renegotiating our relationships. This is when we look at our worklife and our love life and take stock of our circumstances. Initially, most of us think the decisions we need to make about the future are practical ones, along the lines of changing jobs or taking up woodworking, making to-do lists and cleaning out closets, but the Fertile Void soul searching reveals that we are really confronting multiple versions of The Question. Some versions are metaphysical, some practical, some emotional: How do I take care of my body for the rest of my life? How will I manage my finances? What activities will make me feel productive and successful? How do I cope with adversity? And, most painfully: How do I love? There is nothing harder than trying to convince a bewildered partner or child that you are discovering new ways of loving them. But we are.

© 2005 Plume, a division of Penguin Putnam, used by permission.

About the Author

Suzanne Braun Levine is a writer, editor, and nationally recognized authority on women, media matters, and family issues. Editor of Ms. magazine from its founding in 1972 until 1989 and editor in chief of the Columbia Journalism Review, she is currently a contributing editor of More magazine . The author of a book about fatherhood and numerous articles and essays, she has also produced a Peabody Award-winning documentary about American women. She has appeared on Oprah and the Today show and has lectured widely.