Tag: middle age

“When you wait until momentum is well underway before you are aware that you are moving in the direction that you don’t want to go, sometimes the momentum is too strong and so that negative momentum just has to play itself out. But . . . .There is always another opportunity to direct your thoughts and accomplish momentum in the direction of things that you do want.” – Esther Hicks

My daughter got her driver’s license permit earlier this spring. She and my husband (driving lessons have always fallen under my husband’s “list of familial duties”; the experience of our kids learning to drive, wreaks such havoc on my nerves that I am more likely to cause an accident, than to teach the kids to prevent one) will soon be “all-in”, with my husband teaching my daughter the driving skills that she will need to get her safely to where she wants to go. These lessons will get her motor-motor skills to a certain precision level, in which my husband and I won’t have to hold our breaths, every time she drives somewhere, until she comes home. I remember when I learned how to drive, my dad had to keep emphasizing to me, that driving is really a series of “small corrections”, instead of big swerves or trying to change lanes instantly. This lesson came to mind recently, as girlfriends and I were discussing the changes and sometimes tumult, summertime can bring to family life.

By middle age, we all have hopefully matured to a level where we have tried to hone our communication skills. We have learned to be better listeners. We have made the effort to become more self-aware and to find healthy ways to understand and express our needs and concerns while empathizing with the fact that others’ needs and concerns must be considered, as well. But sometimes . . . . sometimes all of that learning, and all of that practicing, and all of that patience, goes flying out the window, and momentum kicks in, and like a horrified spectator, we see ourselves moving into the “no turning back zone”, where we act and react emotionally, forcefully, and sometimes even, slightly out of control.

That’s why it is so key in life to have a circle of friends, with similar lives, who can validate your experience, laugh along with your stories in a knowing way which makes you feel less freakish and alone, and to remind you that you can “bring it back to center”. You can get centered because you have the long practiced skills, and these good friends always remind you, that it is all going to be okay.

Summer, in all of its fabulous-ness, requires a fair amount of adjustment. Schedules change. There is a lot more free time. It’s really, really hot outside. Kids away at school are suddenly home again, but in the habit of living their own rhythms, which are not often on the same circadian rhythms as their parents. If you go at this seasonal adjustment, with small corrections – kind, but assertive reminders of expectations and requests, the adjustment may not be seamless, but it is often painless. However, many times in summertime, with everyone going in many different, random-by-the-day directions, and then all of the sudden, coming together into very close, sweaty quarters, like small summer rental cottages, or cars full of people and luggage, all that pent-up emotion, and unspoken frustration comes out like a long-dormant volcano, and the eruption is shocking to everyone, even to the erupt-or(s). But as the above quote reminds us, once the eruption is over, once the lava has cooled, we have the ability to change the momentum. We can change the momentum to a positive outlook, newly cleared air, and a reminder to make small corrections, so that the momentum does not build to create another Vesuvius-like eruption. One major display of fireworks is good enough, for any particular summer.