An excerpt from the article I wrote on my coaching website for my Midlife clients, as part of a workshop.
If you are in this group category, you are either a few years from hitting the 1/2 century mark, you are passing over the 1/2 century or you have waved goodbye to the 1/2 century and are rethinking your life or hoping there was something more you could do. This fact is not, should not be a tabu but an object of our pride and honor. Being in our 40s, 50s, 60, and even beyond does not mean that our life is in decadence.
We are the in-between generation LOL Yes! We are between the Millennial and our precious senior citizens. And, oh boy, oh boy! Are you always being torn between the two! On one hand, we are parents of college kids who either left home and left us empty-nesters, or we are parents of kids that went and came back home, especially during this pandemic times. Or we have students or some relatives in this age groups. They look up to us, I know it; even if they don’t want to admit it. They don’t like it when we speak and then don’t like it when we stay quiet, thinking that we have a double agenda or that something must be coming after our silence subsides, LOL.
Then, we have our elderlies, who don’t concur with everything we do because we agreed at some point in time with something our kids did. They are quick to judge us and fast to point out the things we missed or did not do as they expected us to do. Oh, but don’t we love them dearly? And we are there for them because we know that they need us, even when they don’t agree with us; they need our love and they know we will always be there to show them how much we care. So, yes! we are the in-between generation. The one who is wrong if we speak up and is also wrong with we stay silent; wrong if we offer a kiss and a hug, and wrong when we pretend not to care at all (thinking that we better hold our uncontrollable desire to show affection).
So, because we live years of worries, of daily startles, of not knowing what we should know and knowing what we should not know, we have left us behind. Yes my dear Mid-Lifers (my daughter says that "midlifers" is not a good word, LOL , but I can’t find another one for us right now). We have abandoned our own core desires and dreams. We have lived, and continue to live for our young ones and our elderlies. And what about us!??
It is time we have our golden voices heard, even if we are the only ones who are listening. It is time to bring our dreams from the back burner and start baking them again. It is time to open that business you always wanted to open, to learn that instrument, to cook a new recipe, to sing that song, to dance that dance again. It is time to dress up, to travel the world (whenever and wherever possible), to quit that job, to start a new project, to repaint your house or change your environment all together. To move away, to buy new clothes, to cut your hair or let it lose! It is time to take classes, to get coached, to create something to invest in yourself!
It is time because only one thing is for sure. We will never stop caring for our millennials or our seniors; but, if you don’t make significant change, you will never accomplish that goal, or live that dream, or have that improved life you always envisioned for yourself.