Cynthia Harrison

Before reading Joan Anderson’s An Unfinished Marriage yesterday, I had never read a memoir about marriage at mid-life. I just had to guess that mine would work out or not, guess whether others felt sometimes disappointed and sometimes hopeful. Guess if I had a prayer of staying married AND being happy at this point in my life.  After reading Joan, I can say see that Al and I are doing okay, that it’s normal to still have growing pains, and that things will change even more when he retires.

I wish I had a list of memoirs published by middle-aged women who are not movie stars. I would read them all. Here’s who I’ve got:  Ann Lamott, Abigail Thomas and Joan Anderson. Am I the only woman going through a midlife transition who is hungry for more guidance or at least companionship on the journey?

Naturally, I talk to my friends, but really they seem as clueless as me about where life is heading as we go into this next stretch of time. Detroit is a nervous city right now. Friends who planned to sell their homes and retire elsewhere for the winter are stuck in a stagnant real estate market. Friends who planned to work a few more years are faced with daily cutbacks and the threat of layoff. We’re in the same boat, but what can you do? Not much about the outer world, that’s for sure. So I’m focused on the inner life, on listening to my body, my heart, and quieting my always busy mind. Anderson helps.

With the two previous titles I’ve written about, I also finished Anderson’s A Year By the The Sea. That makes July the month of Joan Anderson! I still have one more: a new title called The Second Journey, released this year. It’s about how Anderson retreated again after her life got crazy due to the success of her renewed and transformed writing career and the workshops she gives on Cape Cod for women seeking change. I’ll be sinking into that one before the end of the month.

What I’ve learned so far from Anderson’s hard-won wisdom is that I’m not the only one who thinks she making positive changes only to stall and sputter on the way to them. I’m not the only one with the fears that come from having new dreams at an older age. But she’s inspiring as she lets the present moment do its work, as she strives to replace old habits of impatience and control with a looser, easier way of being. That’s exactly the path I’ve been walking and it feels so good to hear from someone who has successfully come out on the other side.