THE MIDLIFE WOMAN’S NEW BEST FRIEND
I hung onto midlife for all I was worth. On the brink of 70, I thought of myself as middle-aged. Not that I planned to live till 140. I just didn’t want to lose the sense of a groove that was mine, in which I would glide on hard-won self-assurance toward an infinitude of possibility. I would tell younger women, without the merest flicker of doubt, that the forties were “magic years” because that’s what they had been for me.
With no child at home, I could devote myself to a pinnacle job, editing a magazine. Unlike many women my age, I didn’t have to manage the care of frail parents; mine were both gone by the time I turned 40. I went where I wanted to go, bought what I wanted to have, cosseted by the illusions of fate and privilege. I knew as much about what we call “midlife” as a frog knows about the geography of its pond. And if you had tried to tell me so, I wouldn’t have heard you.
There is no ignoring Ann Douglas — bestselling parenting author turned champion for a new vision of midlife. In her brave, candid and radical new book, Navigating the Messy Middle, she topples the myths that cast the 40s and 50s as either the sad, sour fizzling of beauty and sexual possibility or the triumphant rebirth of a whole new self. Douglas interviewed more than 100 truth-telling women of various races, classes and sexual orientations. Their voices draw you into an imaginary family room where there’s always another comfy chair for one more person with an insight or a story to share.
Some of those you’ll meet here would never cross your path in the so-called “real world,” or in magazines like the one I used to edit. For all their differences, they have much in common. They have no use for bubble baths, scented candles or any of the tricks that purport to lift women’s spirits but are really just distractions from the culturally ingrained commandment that a woman must forever put others’ needs ahead of her own. If you feel like the only reasonably smart, constantly stretched midlife woman who hasn’t nailed “self care” and is not on track for a well-earned retirement, this could be your most bracing book of the year. (Click the image to see one of the year’s great covers.)
Halfway through, I know this much: I will never again think of midlife — or any life stage — as a predictable passage with ground rules. You find your own way. There are as many paths as there are are individuals. The way forward is to listen to your sister explorers — and then to share your discoveries. That’s the real magic, and it can be ours at any age.
