the middle skinny

Lately, I’ve been picturing life as an hourglass, with middle age as the skinny part. (And yes, I get the irony of being a menopausal woman in the skinny section of life.)

Just for anyhow (and the leftovers): January turkey dinner.

Lemme ‘splain. 

While I was raising kids, each kid served as a contact point with the broader world. Four kids, four connection points, via their activities, relationships, work, emotions. My life was fat with connection and activity. There was a lot to manage, and I spent much of that period of life craving solitude and quiet. (Case in point: see the quote under my name at the top of this blog page.) But then the kids peeled off one by one, and my world diminished accordingly. Now I am my own main connection point to the broader world — and if I don’t make the connection, it doesn’t happen.

The irony here is that parenting often feels like an isolating experience, especially at the start, but then when it’s over, it’s isolating once again, but this time by the absence of parenting. It’s disorienting. 

And while we’re pointing out ironies, here’s another. Now that I have all the freedom in the world to dedicate to my art, I feel trapped.

Back to what I said about being in the skinny part of the hourglass. I have a theory. Based on the people ten, twenty, even thirty years ahead of me, I do believe my connection points will expand again — if I play it right. 

Take my parents, for instance. For a number of years after my brothers and I left home, my parents’ world grew quiet. They lived their lives and we lived ours. (I don’t know if that’s how it felt to them, but that’s how it seems to me, looking back.) 

Woodsplitting December 2025: my parents’ place.
^{(photo credit: my nephew and younger son — they stole my phone)}

Fast forward 25 years, and now they’re in the midst of the hubbub: community involvements, artistic endeavors, grandchildren, making and creating and building and doing. Looking at all their points of connection, at all the people who need them, it’s kinda overwhelming. 

Also, it’s exactly the full sort of life I want to build next.

So here’s what I expect. The kids will continue to find their way apart from me — they’ll form relationships, find meaningful work, put down roots, and make new humans — and I will do the same. (Minus making new humans. Been there, done that.) 

In many ways, it’s like I’m starting over again, though this time with a house and history. If I’m lucky, one day I’ll look up and realize that I am, yet again, in the fat part of the hourglass.

Handmade favor from this weekend’s mother’s blessing: babe’s a-coming!

In the meantime, here I sit in the skinny phase. It feels predictably narrow and constricting. Boring. A bit bewildering and lonely. I’m stuck with myself, bouncing off the walls, doing my work, feeling trapped by my freedom, rolling my eyes at myself.

But I won’t be in The Skinny forever. This squeeze is normal. I’m just passing through, and then eventually I’ll pass over and that will be that.

Amen and the end.

This same time, years previous: cold plunge, fermented lemon honey, two worlds in one week, the quotidian (1.24.22), four fun things, pozole, overnight baked oatmeal, doing stupid safely, women’s march on washington, the quotidian (1.15.16), just do it, hobo beans.