There are lots of humiliating things about being a middle aged woman. Starting with the graying and thinning of those once long, silky, sexy tresses, to the middle aged spread, drooping bustline, and finally picking up your mate’s foot fungus! Add the hormonal roller coaster and the loss of the body you once knew so well and you’ve got all the ingredients for a truly humbling existence.
One of the advantages of middle age though is perspective. The ability to learn from your mistakes and the mistakes of your friends. The ability to put all of those huge so-called tragedies into the perspective of time. And the ability to finally be able to look at old age with some benefits and as something to look forward to instead of something that will never happen to ME!!
What I find frustrating now is not being able to SHARE that perspective with someone who could benefit from it or who, in my opinion, could use it!! I find myself saying about points in my life, “I wish someone would have told me about ________.” Fill in the blank. It could be about men, or about financial planning, or about church teaching… anything. I can look back and see that a hand on my back and some sage advice is something that would have benefited me at several key points in my life.
On the other hand, would I have been open to such advice at the time I needed it? Would I have been too stubborn, or too emotional, or so egocentric that I wouldn’t have known a bit of good counsel if it came around and bit me on the back side? Perhaps… OK at some points… PROBABLY!!
And so while I wish that counsel had been there, I think maybe I just would have been too foolish to take it!! That’s frustrating. It’s equally frustrating though to be at the other end of the spectrum – the wiser and older woman who has the advice to give but can’t find any eager takers.
There are two examples in the blogdom tonight that give me a heavy heart. I see myself a bit in both of these young women. One is very smart, very pretty, very confident and thinks she knows it all. Any perspective that differs from hers is just wrong. What she doesn’t know, what she can’t know because she is only 20 something, is that her own perspective is only part of the big picture. I could write 1000 well written and reasoned words on the topic, but I think like me, she’ll have to learn that with time. The other blogger is going through a heartbreaking situation, has made a heart wrenching decision, and doesn’t want to hear any more advice, regardless of how gently it is delivered, perhaps because at least having made a decision gives back some sense of control.
Part of me keeps hearing my own voice, “If only someone had told, me, if only someone had told me.” And I feel an obligation to BE THE SOMEONE to tell them. But the older, wiser, ever slightly more mellowed me is starting to see that just because a “SOMEONE” is needed, doesn’t mean it’s always wanted or appreciated. And then an even sadder me thinks, maybe my SOMEONE was ready to show me, teach me, lead me, but could tell my heart wasn’t really open to it, and so they didn’t share.
I don’t know what the answer is. Titus 2 tells the older women to teach the other ones. There is a verse in Sirach that also says that young ones should beat down the path to the wise man’s house. I’m taking that to mean, make it known where you stand, and where you live, and if they want your help, they’ll know where to seek it out! That’s how I am rationalizing my decision not to “share” any of my perspective on those blogs for the time being. They know where I live (blogospherically speaking) and if they want my advice, they’ll ask for it. God I hope I’m making the right choice. I sure wish an older wiser woman of God would give me their perspective on this one!
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