Middle Age
Last week, I got an unwanted dose of reality when someone told me that I had officially entered middle age. Well, technically, she didn’t tell me – she told me the age range and I realized was already in it. I was so unpleasantly surprised that I ranted to a friend, to which he replied: “But haven’t you already accepted the fact that you’re a ‘tita’?” He was right of course but I’d always considered ‘tita’-hood voluntary not biological.
How does one get to be an adolescent, a young adult, and then a middle-aged adult in the blink of an eye? The answer is: one doesn’t. At least not for me. It hasn’t felt like it’s only been a blink of an eye. It feels very much like a long process. A long one, but a good one too. Like all the worthwhile things, growth also takes time.
I can no longer count the times when I tried so hard to hasten the process of growth. I’d hope and pray for the difficult and challenging moments to pass me by and for the wonderful moments to stay longer. And they never did. Time and divine providence seem to have their own agenda. However, I’ve realized that if the process hadn’t taken as long as it did, I would not have been able to reap its rewards or watch it bear fruit. There’s probably a reason they use so many agriculturally related idioms when speaking about growth. It just seems to be the nature of the earth to allow things to grow in secret.
Sometimes, it is only through the passage of time that things are allowed to bloom. Take relationships, for example. I cannot precisely pinpoint when and how a friendship starts. I can’t predict how it will end, either. Oh, I have some control over the matter when I decide if I should take the effort to keep in touch or to be lazy and let the other person do all the work. But how the person wants or does not want to keep the friendship is completely out of my control. A one-sided relationship, of any kind, simply does not work. And so we submit ourselves to the process of willing and at the same time waiting for friendships to grow and deepen or to be cut off and fade into memory.
It is normal for people my age (sigh*, middle-aged and younger) to have gone through several jobs at this point in their lives. It’s all very exciting when one is young and adventurous, but I’ve learned that staying in the same job or the same company has given me rewards that I would never have considered when I started my career. For one thing, it has given me the opportunity to hone my craft. Because I do not have to start from scratch again and again, I am able to polish my skills, to look for ways to get the job done better. One does not master something unless one is willing to invest time in it. For another, staying in the same profession for a long time, has allowed me to see my effect in the workplace. More and more, I begin to see the changes I help create. The changes may not be as significant as I’d thought but they have proven what I’ve always believed: one person can make a difference. Especially if given enough time.
Growing up and older, I have been surprised to find that time is actually my friend. That it has given much more than it has taken. That although I wish my skin can remain taut and supple and my metabolism always effective, I would not trade them for the experiences I’ve had. And if sometime in the future, I ever regret saying that and jump headlong into a midlife crisis – I’ll just have to remind myself to wait it out a little longer until I’m at home with myself again. In any case, I have until I’m 60 for life’s next official upgrade.