51

I’m almost done,

As I write today,

Being 51,

And I have to say:

I’m not near done,

And that’s OK.

My divorce and my rebirth from it, my utter shock and delight at finding that I was not only still alive but that I was deeply engaged in a joyful miracle, was a miracle in which I could perform a version of myself that was so much closer to the person I felt like on the inside. The joy of that miracle was indescribable, though I found myself describing it pretty regularly. Look! I get to be happy! I get to put down the burden of constant disappointment in myself for not successfully turning myself into somebody else! I can be happy being me!

To be honest (and there’s no such thing as full honesty in writing, though I’m still trying, mostly), I’m a people pleaser. I get deep personal satisfaction from meeting, and especially exceeding, other people’s expectations of me. I’m conflicted by this self knowledge, because on the one hand, it really does bring me joy to be of service. On the other hand, I don’t want my definition of my self to be rooted so deeply in other people. That’s more or less how I became so unhappy in the first place, by rooting my definition of myself so deeply in someone who found me to be frustrating, disappointing, inadequate to the task of being who she wanted me to be.

Now, 8 years after the divorce was finalized, I’m once again learning the lesson that I’ve learned so many times before in my life: there is no finish line. When I said, “Look! I’m happy!” and then found and cultivated a healthy romantic relationship in which we each love the person that’s there with us, and not the person we hope they’ll become, I didn’t break the tape across my chest, wipe my brow, and say, “Whew! Thank God that’s done! And we all live happily ever after!” No matter how many times I’ve discovered this isn’t how life works, I still am caught off guard when I realize, oh wait, there’s more work to be done.

I don’t know if this is a second mid-life crisis for me. I’m assuming the existential dread of the early days of the divorce was the first. I’m struggling. Not floundering. Not drowning. Not terrified. Struggling enough, though, that I’m looking for some changes. Somewhere along the way I lost the feeling that I’m growing and changing and getting better and better all the time, and I miss it, that feeling.

Part of my feeling of stagnation is a lack of creative outlets in my life right now. I watch a lot of TV, and I play a lot of video games, mostly ones that are themselves a medium for storytelling. I haven’t read regularly in years. I haven’t written regularly, either. Some, but not a lot. So I took some steps. I started a creative writing program online at the local community college, because I think I benefit from structure and deadlines. And it worked! It got me reading again, and it got me writing again, both academic papers and short fiction.

The monetary cost didn’t make sense, though, and the challenge was mostly in balancing school/work/family, not in the academic rigor, so I stopped. I told myself I could maintain it on my own, simply by continuing to read and to write. But I mostly went back to watching TV and playing video games.

Not anxious enough, I suppose, about creativity, and money, I also decided to worry more about my health. Watching my parents age and feeling the effects of aging myself, I started criticizing myself quietly for not doing enough there, too. Sure, I run, but not as much or as fast or as far as I did 10 years ago. I should be doing more weight bearing exercises, and stretching! Why aren’t you stretching? So there’s that.

In my life, I do not research my options carefully and pick a direction intentionally. I move on intuition and instinct, and whim. Sometimes I fall flat. Sometimes I walk blindly right into disaster. Mostly, though, I find exactly what I need somewhere right along my path. Because of starting, and stopping, college courses, I started reading more through my local library’s online offerings, checking out books and trying to finish them in the two weeks I get, pretending it’s like a class deadline. I’ve mostly been reading fiction, sometimes searching for authors I know and love and sometimes picking randomly from what’s available now, or picking something that was mentioned in a podcast I heard.

A couple of weeks ago, I inexplicable browsed available titles in self-help. I don’t often read self-help books, or new age spiritual titles, and when I do read something like Wayne Dyer, I find it hard to read while rolling my eyes and side-eyeing the author through the lens of capitalist exploitation (you know, where the culture tells you you’re not good enough, and every product and service and content creator steps up to sell you the thing that will make you a little bit closer to good enough, and by the way take a look at my other 27 titles I’ve written to tell you what’s wrong with you and how to fix it), so I tend to quit on it long before I finish it. But there I was, scrolling through self-help, kind of half thinking about health, and maybe yoga again, maybe not, when this image caught my eye.

Yoke by Jessamyn Stanley

I know as a cis-gendered heterosexual white American male that this book is not for me. I have learned a little bit in the last 51 years about the damage my people have done and continue to do in the world. I am not Black. I am not queer. I am not female. I have also learned a little bit in the last 51 years about insecurity, body shame, and other things that have no finish line to cross, like health and fitness. I may be the mediocre white man, but I’m at least sometimes not the overconfident mediocre white man. I could use some self-acceptance. So I checked it out. And while I didn’t make it 10 pages into Wayne Dyer’s Excuses Begone!, I finished Yoke with time to spare in my two weeks. If I had not, some time during the lost COVID year, participated in an online book group reading of Me and White Supremacy by Layla Saad, I might never have made it to, or through, the chapter titled “Mama Always Said Never Trust a White Boy.” But I’ve learned a little bit in the last 30 years about the white supremacy in me, too. I’m glad I found Yoke at just the right time in my life, and not earlier. It’s a remarkable piece of writing, and I aspire to write with the same level of openness and honesty that Jessamyn shows.

I’ve tried yoga a handful of times in my life. I’ve taken classes here and there, and sometimes I’ve even loved them. But I’ve never sustained them. I’ve been self-conscious in a YMCA mirrored fitness classroom at 5:30 in the morning, struggling in a room full of thinner, fitter, younger, women to get lower, hold it longer, transition more smoothly. I know it’s not the same. I know I get a certain amount of “Aw! Isn’t it great that he tried?” credit that marginalized people do not get. It’s the same kind of credit I used to get when I was a stay-at-home dad. For me, just showing up usually gets “Look at you! You’re doing great!”

But still. Resonance is resonance. She talks about masks, about imposter syndrome, about performing a version of yourself. She talks about things I know in my head but struggle to know in my heart, like how everything I need is already in me, like how sacred texts are only sacred for what they say that you recognize because you already know it. She talks about meditation in a way that I recognize, not as a magical means of quieting the mind, at which I’ve never succeeded, but more as a means of letting that noise wash over you without getting all caught up in it, at which I’ve become much better over the years, whether I call it meditation or not.

And she talks about breath. Breath has been a struggle for me my entire life. Part of my narrative, though I’ve put some work into changing my narratives over the years, too, is that I caught pneumonia when I was two, was hospitalized, and spent some time in an oxygen tent. The narrative goes that my lungs are damaged, scarred from that experience, and I have always had, and thus will always have, trouble breathing.

But somehow, 15 or 16 years ago, I decided that I would run. And I did it. And I continue to do it. And it requires breath. A lot of it.

Still, breath is a constant presence in my life, and not in an intentional, paying attention to it in a yogic kind of way. So I’ve tried, here and there, to get a better handle on it. I have tried, and rejected, every asthma and allergy medication ever made. I have tried humidifiers, and dehumidifiers. I’ve tried nasal dilators and lung exercisers. 20 or 25 years ago, I was even drawn to the idea of yogic breath control as a means of improving my lung health, buying a book called The Yoga of Breath: A Step-by-Step Guide to Pranayama by Richard Rosen. In those 25 or so years, I’ve done little more than flip through the pages. It’s still on my bookshelf and looks brand new.

So Jessamyn talking about disregarding the aspect of breath in her yoga practice at first? Resonates.

Her yoga really has nothing to do with me. Nor mine with hers. But I loved her book. I’m working on my own yoga of self-acceptance, and it resonates when Jessamyn says that yoga is everything. You’re doing it right now, wherever you are, in whatever posture your body is right now, breathing however you’re breathing. Right now, in this exact moment, my yoga of self-acceptance is sitting on my couch writing, every so often remembering to pay attention to how my breath goes into and out of my body. Not planning to write tomorrow. Not planning not to write tomorrow. Not trying to change everything. Maybe I can come to a point of not trying to change anything, but not yet. Maybe tomorrow. Or maybe not. I’m good right now. And I just remembered my breath again.

But I’m telling you about it because I’m still performing. This is my mask. And maybe by chasing self-acceptance whether I change or not, that will make me feel like I’m growing and changing again, and that will make me worthy. Right?

Ah, well. 51, almost 52. Work in progress.