Rachel Malcolm

April 26, 2024

It’s been years since I’ve written a blog post. My life took unexpected twists and turns. Grief and joy. Loss and also arms full of beauty. Isn’t that life? Especially middle-aged life.

At this point, in the 40s, you can kind of see who a person is by the set of their face. Decades of smiling and laughter set the cheeks high and plump, and laugh lines radiate from the eyes like the rays of the sun. Whereas someone who has spent years criticizing and frowning has a pucker between the brows and a bottom lip tucked and pinched.

By the time we reach midlife, we’ve faced countless disappointments, we’ve been wounded, there are regrets, missed opportunities, haunting loss. What’s true of the face is even more true of the heart. Have we been hardened by life or deepened by it? It’s a question we all must ask. Midlife is a time for soul-searching and assessment. Are we who we want to be? Have we become jaded and miserly little by little—day by day?

Enter the midlife crisis. Super cliché, but all too real to those caught up in the drama of uncertainty and those who are creating upheaval they’d never dreamed of. I just completed year two of my social work degree. And yes, trying to balance school, work, and family in your 40s—especially while doing a social work degree, will almost certainly throw you into a midlife crisis.

I went to a writer’s conference in October. Hundreds of writers convened to learn more about the craft and to be inspired by those few who are “making it.” Those who are writing full time, making an income, and seeing the spines of their books tucked in close with others on the shelves of their local bookstore—the dream.

Each meal, I sat down with strangers, and we spoke of our projects and a little about our lives—our families, work, towns we lived in or grew up in. And again and again, I heard people speak about their existential crisis. I came to the conclusion that while the rest of the world experienced midlife crises, the writing community–especially poets—had existential crises en masse.

With an existential crisis, the questioning goes deeper than the situation of life you find yourself in, to core questions of existence. “Who am I? Does God exist? What is the meaning of life?” Writers are great at self-reflection. As we tease out our characters and uncover what motivates them and what is the secret longing of their hearts, we become aware of our own hauntings and longings and our own regrets. (And when you let that stuff out, it’s Pandora’s box—you’re not getting it crammed back into your subconscious.) I remember sitting at the conference, surrounded by the murmur of hundreds of voices, with a laugh of discovery bubbling up within me. I know what’s wrong with me. I thought. I’m a writer.

But understanding the source of an existential crisis doesn’t make it go away, and I still had to walk through mine. Seven months after catching hold of the term “existential crisis,” I am separated from my husband of 27 years and on the journey to become a surrogate so a beautiful couple in Australia can finally hold a baby in their arms. That’s a lot in one sentence, right? But this post isn’t about the crisis. It was an introduction, because this new chapter of my life needed an intro.

So this is me, dipping my toe into the water of blogging again. At my core, I’m a storyteller, but the quandary is how to tell my story with authenticity and integrity without injuring or exposing those who are close to me. This is the reason I stopped blogging for so many years. As my children got older, their challenges and mine were more complex, and I realized that our stories were entwined and that in telling my story, I was also publicly airing theirs. It didn’t feel respectful. I face the same difficulty now, but I trust that I can find a way to respect and honour those in my life while honestly sharing my own story. It will be imperfect, but I will seek to choose my words with love. Until next time.

❤ Rachel