Love Ceremony and Moving Forward

It is interesting, but I have this new perspective as one who almost got caught in the spider web trap of middle age encroachment and dissatisfaction.
Once you have kids, it is hard to have Wide Horizons all the time because logistically you just aren't mobile anymore.
No one really talks about that part of child rearing...but one sees evidence of it in those empty nesters who tend to retire and bop around the country.
What I am learning is that you have a choice to get old and stale and stuck or to Not.
Marriages can do that, too, which is interesting.
Or...there is another way...
Maybe that is partially what midlife crises are about: feeling stuck...because once you have kids it is just plain hard to make Big Career Changes. One needs the house, the car, the ability to buy food and clothing and to be Stable.
But if you are not in a city that you love with friends that you love, god help you!
* * *
The reality is that you don't have to feel stuck, though. You can take up new sports and hobbies. You can have new loves--like skateboarding. Or opera. Or whatever it is that you want to explore.
And you can have dates. With real babysitters and involving music, martinis, and Actual Adult Time.
You can also make big changes as long as you do it as a partnership. I think if I were not adventurous, my marriage would be blowing to bits right now--between the changes in me and Brian's new career, which is going Swimmingly...and the water company, which Donna and I have decided to take on Together (how cool is that?)
But it's all SCARY.
And that is the thing I learned: Lots of people opt out of the adventure and decide to Hold On Tight to whatever it is that they HAVE in mid-life.
People tend to get stuck. It is human nature and entropy and the results of child rearing (which is SOOOOO entirely awesome and wonderful) but also which logistically results in people settling. In all sorts of ways--not only settling down but settling for a Not Great marriage (luckily NOT SO in my case) or a not so great job...or...Fill in the blank.
* * *
My message for today is that SO does not have to happen.
We are making a huge leap, and it is scary.
Truly.
My colleagues tease me and try to send me subliminal messages as in my colleague who told a story of a woman who quit her job as a tenured prof and then had to work at the Gap.
She told me this while fixating her gaze on my face...
And in front of other people.
My best friend says this was Rather Hostile of her. And it was.
But it didn't bother me. Rather, it made me see how stuck some people are.
I am sad to be leaving my job...in so many ways it is liike a little death.
I have grown to love my students, and I have so many fine colleagues like my chair, who Rocks.
But I'm trying to see this being pulled out of my job as a gift.
I can always get another...
But I've decided to be a full time novelist for a while.
I told this to a clerk in my favorite consignment store, and I had her laughing.
Good for you, she said.
She was a person who did not get stuck.
She was a minister's wife and said she was stuck in so many ways: into roles, into ways of being and dressing...
And then when her husband died, it was heartbreaking...
the way death is...
But then she healed and now she dresses in riotous colors and dyes her hair.
She's in her 70s.
We recognized each other in that moment, gave each other a little nod, and honored Not Being Stuck.
May you all find ways to keep your lives and jobs and loves fresh and open, free and unencumbered...
And may you all have the Guts to Take Risks because otherwise...
Is that living?