In June, I went through a mid-life crisis. There was no ridiculous sports cars. I didn’t leave my partner for someone younger. But I did experience all the symptoms of restlessness and anxiety. And it wasn’t the first time.

What used to simply be called a mid-life crisis, has matured to a “mid-life crisis of identity.” On the surface, it looks like depression, and the studies have mostly focused on men as its victims. Women were not viewed as having mid-life crises because so many of the symptoms could be explained away as a byproduct of menopause (Jesse Bering, Scientific American), if explained at all. It is only recently that women have empowered themselves to talk about menopause in a full voice. I first overheard whispers of the change when I was a young girl. This scary sounding time of life kept company in my family’s conversations with menstruation, which was called the curse. It is only recently that issues particular to women have been normalized enough that they have entered the field of common discourse. Now women benefit (?) equally from all science knows about a true mid-life crisis.

In June, I had one. The trigger is often a significant life event, like kids leaving home, a career coming to an end, the loss of a loved one, etc. (webmd). I call it, the world tilting, after Kay Ryan’s poem, “Grazing Horses.” I’ve never heard the effect of a significant life event explained with more clarity. In the poem, the horses are thoughts, grazing “the green pasture of the mind” when “the mind tilts abruptly,” turning from horizontal to “nearly vertical.” When this happens, the horses “struggle crazily for purchase…Their / furniture-fine / legs buckle / on the incline, / unhorsed by slant / they weren’t / designed to climb / and can’t.” Some major event happens and it is like the world we have known, our inner identity, doesn’t quite fit, anymore. It’s threatened in some way or it just doesn’t match with the image we have created and sat quite comfortable, thank you, with for quite a while. We are forced to open our eyes, ask big questions, and adapt. Some, like the horses on their smooth hooves, cannot adapt, and they slip and slide and fall right off the face of the planet. Or find some outcropping that will hold against gravity. Or discover some superhuman, Wonder Woman power that lets them dig in and hold on and maybe climb a bit higher. The brave and the lucky adapt, say good-bye to the identity that no longer quite serves, and find new and wonderful pastures as a result. But no one survives unscathed or unchanged.

So, June. All at once, I found myself staring down a heard of grazing horses all running my way, shifting the gravity of the world, and causing me to struggle for purchase. It was the end of the school year, and as I wrote about on June 13, it is a time of loss and grief for me as I say goodbye to students I love and may very well never see again. One pony. I was also grieving the loss of one father whose memorial falls in June, right before Father’s Day. Two horses. My other dad, my biological father, has been battling a second round of cancer, and it was stressful not knowing how he was doing, what the prognosis would be and constantly waiting for phone calls from doctors. Three horses. A family member, who I loved and thought loved and respected me, chose to unload decades of frustration and disappointment via text…on my father’s memorial day. (Just an aside, don’t ever do this.) Four horses. My twins were finishing up their last year of middle school and transitioning into high school, including trying to finish their eighth grade year strong, register for 9^th grade classes, auditioning for drill team (and making it!), and gaining independence by leaps and bounds. It was the first stage of them leaving and going to college, as far as I was concerned, even though they would be spending the next four years in the high school where I teach. Five horses. And then, out of the blue, the job I had always wanted opened up. Just as I had started to really look forward to my kids attending my school, watching my daughter perform at assemblies, games, competitions, etc, helping my son with his honors science work after school in my room…I was faced with possibly not being there. Not there with my kids. Not there with my work family. Not there with a new crop of students. I’ve been in my same job for 26 years, so I had no idea what it would be like to not teach. And it scared me. Six horses. And finally, I was faced with the disappointment of postponing my dream wedding to my dream guy for at least another year. Is there such things as a baker’s half dozen? So seven life events had me off balance and trying to figure out who I was in the midst of it. Quite literally, my identities as daughter, sister, mother, teacher and wife were all being threatened. That’s a lot, right?

I was completely overwhelmed and flummoxed. I was restless and anxious and spinning. Maybe it’s called a mid-life crisis because of this swamping. When I was 20, crises tended to show up one at a time, but as I’ve gotten older, they herd.

As June passed into July, things settled pretty much back to normal, or, should I say, forward to normal. A new summer schedule has taken root. It has felt good to be in the garden and both murder and midwife new plants.I am spending time with friends, eating whole, fresh food that I have time to cook (or not cook). I am enjoying a schedule with no alarms, and sunny days filled with possibility.

My grazing horses have found new purchase in a slightly remodeled pasture. The tilt forced me to examine who I am and who I want to be.

I am a daughter. I miss my father every day, but, but July is not as intense as June. My dad is doing well. The treatment is working, and he feels strong and happy.

I am a mother. My kids are showing total teenage independence, which means I haven’t seen them much, but the time I do spend with them feels especially sweet and good. With summer, I have more time to be a deliberate mom, spending time listening and doing, rather than just reacting.

I am a teacher. I did not get the job, but I went into the interview feeling solid in either outcome, and when it didn’t happen, my heart swelled with the knowledge that I would be there for my kids high school years, that I would fall in love with a new group of students, and that I would be doing a job I absolutely love.

I am a partner. My wedding is on hold, but my life isn’t. I have the pleasure of living every day with a man who loves me, and that will not change with or without a ceremony.

I am a member of a family. With all its complications. I will patiently let that evolve.

So, I’m

through this one with a greater sense of self. It feels good. It feels like I have been given a gift. After turmoil, I have worked my way to a deeper understanding of myself, my purpose, and my relationships with others.   So I say, a mid-life crisis is a good thing, if we take it for what it is — an opportunity to grow. I’m fine having some time before another one hits, but when it does, I’ll re-read this post, take a deep breath, and dig in.