This is not a midlife crisis – it’s a moment of identity adjustment

This is not a midlife crisis – it’s a moment of identity adjustment

I write a lot about midlife women. Midlife women are my people. I speak their language. I know what ails them and what inspires them. I understand their dreams, desires, wishes, joys, fears and quiet despairs. I know the language of menopause, of an unexpected but insistent chin hair, of the whole let it go grey debate versus the increasingly frequent and expensive ritual of colouring, of embracing wrinkles versus sneaking off for botox, and so on. I know the pure joy of the empty nest and the secret delight of the boomerang child’s return (just for a few months mum…). I know the freedom that midlife can offer – time, choice, perspective, agency and the outrageous courage that comes from having a lot less shits to give.

How do I know all this? Because I am a midlife woman.

At least, that’s what I thought – up until today. There I was, happily posting on my Facebook and Instagram accounts (follow me!) about something midlife’y that had happened to me recently, when I was shaken to the core by a random comment by Torben from Copenhagen:

“Midlife????? You older than 40 dear !!![Text Wrapping Break]But love your work.”

It was the “but love your work” that sent me on a spiral to be honest. Was it meant to soften the blow? Was he trying to make me feel better? Less old? Less ‘not’ midlife?

Am I having a crisis? 

Last week I had cortisone injected into my ‘golf elbow’, despite never having swung a club. While my elbow now feels fantastic, my sense of certainty feels a little less so.

What I think I am suddenly wrestling with is not so much a midlife crisis, as more an identity crisis. While I am on the record (in my book The Life List) for despising the term ‘midlife’ as a label, it at least provides a sense of placement, an anchor to a point in time – that is, the middle of your life.

According to Torben’s maths however, I am no only NOT in the middle of my life, but 15 years well past it. What. The. Actual?

So, if I’m not middle aged, not midlife, does that make me….old?

The Data (because in times like this the data matters) 

Let’s all take a deep breath and calm the hell down. I needed to google this, right away.

According to Britannica, while the definition of middle age is somewhat arbitrary, ‘…it is generally defined as being between the ages of 40 and 60.’ Ok. Phew. According to Britannica, at 55 years of age I fall within the (admittedly upper) limit of the middle aged range. I am, however, based on Britannica’s current thinking – at the upper limit of the period that ‘…immediately precedes the onset of old age.’

That’s cheery. Shoot me now Britannica.

But, things got worse as Britannica sagely offered: ‘In middle age, the relative potencies of past, present, and future are altered as the individual increasingly directs effort to the process of reminiscence and recollection of the past, rather than anticipation of the future.’

Slightly bruised by such an uplifting perspective, I felt the need to dig a little deeper into the data. Data more in my favour. Soon I found data produced by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (and let’s be honest, you have to love a government agency for really, really good data) which states that the most common age of death for women in Australia is 91 years of age.

Excellent – at 55, this puts me a little older than the middle of middle (age).

Not quite satisfied, I kept digging and finally struck gold. Psychology Today states (quite convincingly if you ask me), that midlife refers to the ‘middle years of life or middle age, which ranges from approximately age 40 to age 65.’

Yes! Great! Gold! This places me even closer to the middle of the middle (age). Thank you very much.

No need to look any further into the data, I think. I have the answer that I need…

Living in the Middle of the Middle 

So, what does all of this really mean for me? I am not really in a hurry to label myself by terms or numbers or statistical endpoints. I am not ‘middle aged.’ I am not ‘midlife’. I am simply not as young as I once was—and not as old as I plan to become. I am fit, curious, ambitious, and still building a vision for the many wonderful years ahead.

Forbes describes women over 50 as ‘super consumers’ – the healthiest, wealthiest, and most active generation of women this age in history. I find that term more uplifting. This next chapter for me is about agency, vitality, and claiming my space in the world.

Midlife, Redefined 

So, for anyone else wondering if they are ‘too old’ or ‘too late’ for the ‘midlife’ label: let me be very clear. Midlife, middle life, was never meant to be a destination or a deadline – instead, it is a territory that is broad and rich and marked by our years of experience and wisdom and sparkling with audacious future possibilities.

And while I may sit comfortably (slightly to the right of) the statistical centre, I have the mindset, motivation and momentum to keep moving forward with energy, wit, perspective, and an abundant enthusiasm for the next 55 years or more.

Thanks for the existential crisis Torben. I’m all good now.

Written by Kate Christie. Have you read?
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