Somewhere around forty-five, I thought I’d have this figured out. Instead I’m standing in the middle of two things at once: my own body and brain shifting into a new decade, and child number four packing up a life we spent two decades building. Nobody warns you that midlife and launching a kid can land in the same six months. You’re supposed to be steady enough to send them off well, and most days I don’t feel steady at all.
The strange part isn’t the sadness, though there’s plenty of that. It’s the disorientation. I know how to do this. I’ve done it before, but doing it while my own hormones, memory, and patience are all in flux makes the familiar feel unfamiliar. I’ll be filling out a housing form or packing a box of mismatched dorm supplies and suddenly feel like I’m the one leaving something behind, not just helping someone else go.
What’s helped, so far, is not expecting the two things to make sense together. Midlife doesn’t pause because your kid is leaving, and launching a child doesn’t wait for you to feel ready. I’m letting them run alongside each other, messy and overlapping, instead of pretending I should have one part handled before the other starts. That’s the whole practice right now: showing up for both, imperfectly, at the same time.
Leave a Reply