The Quiet Work of Not Disappearing (and why I’ve started writing)

Imagine trying to run your life at half capacity, but everything else expects you to be at full strength. No allowances. No shortcuts. The pace, the responsibilities, the expectations - they don’t slow down. You just have to keep going. This, to me, is what midlife feels like. Even while unraveling quietly, the days keep asking things of you.

You don’t get to go live on a deserted island and ride it out in solitude. No, you still have to get your butt out of bed, go to work, and figure out what to pack for lunch. Not just for yourself, but for the other human riding to school with you. Some days, despite the kitchen full of groceries, you still have to put money on her lunch account…because, because.

Systems suffer. Some days, life feels like it’s being held together by the tiniest thread.

My husband and I were driving home from a funeral this week. Funerals are so sobering, aren’t they? They make you want to never complain about a single thing ever again for the rest of your life. And yet, they also make you aware that you’ve been a grumpy, moody version of yourself. Our conversation on the way home was reflective and full of gratitude. We reminisced about that small window of time when all three of our babies were in diapers simultaneously. Lord, have mercy.

For most of that season, my husband was home with them more than I was because it was summer and I was still working (this was before I started teaching). He remembers wearing our youngest in the sling, pushing #1 and #2 in the stroller, two dogs on leashes - just trying to get out of the house for a little while.

He also remembers teaching, working on his master’s degree, running a mowing business, coaching, raising three babies, and driving a 60-mile round trip every day to pick them up after school.

After sitting with the weight of all that, I paused and said, “That was a very different kind of tired. I thought I was tired then, but it doesn’t compare to the tired I am now.” The tired I feel now is linked to the way hope feels thinner - more slippery - than it did twenty years ago.

Midlife, for us lucky females, comes with all the physical and mental challenges of a hormonal thunderstorm. On top of that, there are the external pressures: being more broke than you’ve ever been, everyone you know and love getting uncomfortably older, teenagers leaving the nest - one gone, one nearly there, one not far behind. Nothing new or different about your tired house. Your 15 year old cat is losing her hair. You’re secure and content most days in your job, but the thought of doing it for twenty more years before retirement feels unbearable. On top of that, your face is melting off your skull. Your hips are done. The pain is chronic. And aren’t hip replacements for old people?

I find myself questioning the authenticity of my faith when I feel this sad about the reality of aging. Shouldn’t I feel more excited about growing closer to the restoration of all things? How do I shake off the awareness that everything feels like a dead end?

When everything feels held together by the tiniest thread, making space becomes resistance. Not the loud kind. The kind that doesn’t announce itself. The quiet, adult kind that happens inside a life you’re still showing up for.

Sunday, I asked thirty perfect strangers to make art with me.

Imagine walking blindly into a room, having no idea what you were about to experience. I felt all the emotions - for myself and for the people in the room - that come with that kind of vulnerability. The juxtaposition of people from very different walks of life coming together was palpable. What feels like walking to me could easily feel like free-soloing Tapei 101 to someone else.

It made me pause and wonder what that same scenario would look like for me. What would I have to do to trust and let go of my insecurities? Singing, maybe.

After it was over, an elderly gentleman came up to thank me. He had been one of the few who said out loud that he didn’t have an artistic bone in his body and that he was going to be really bad at this.

I said something like, “It wasn’t so bad, was it?” And he said, “It was just really nice to think about something else for a while.”

I don’t know what this man was dealing with in his personal life. But I can’t stop wondering if that is what creativity as resistance looks like. Or if it’s creativity as care. Or if, in this season of life, the distinction doesn’t matter nearly as much as the relief.

Creativity, for me, is no longer about ambition or output. It’s a refusal to disappear under the weight of responsibility. It’s making room in a culture that constantly tells you to fix yourself.

Because how does one navigate everyone on the internet telling you to make more money, change your career, have more energy, or fix your chronic hip pain - while you’re just trying to stay upright inside a body and life that feel increasingly unfamiliar?

I’m writing to save my life - not in a dramatic way, but in the most ordinary one. To give the tired somewhere to go. To loosen my grip on systems that demand constant endurance. To make room inside a life I’m still living.

I don’t need a new life. I need room inside the one I already have.