Reading · The Mother Lode

Since starting a relationship at the end of February, and falling truly, madly, deeply in love, I’ve been faced with an uncomfortable realization.

Maybe marriage is something we embark upon because we are afraid of acknowledging all things end.

One of the most uncomfortable parts of being in a relationship and going about it in a way that veers off script, (aka we are not looking to be life partners, we are not looking to ever cohabitate, we are not pursuing monogamy but dear God this is far from casual) is there are no longer benchmarks along the way. Because the goal is not marriage. Instead, there is just this blank space of unknowing. Will we be together in three months? Three years? Thirty years? I don’t know. I don’t need to know. Part of what we are trying to do is enjoy the now. And not get ahead of ourselves.

And yet there is a part of me that hates this uncertainty. That either wants to end things or wants to know when this ends. If this ends.

Of course there is no knowing. No one has a crystal ball. But I can see now why our instinct is to commit to each other. And I’m not entirely sure if it is a signal of our undying devotion. Or the part of us that wants to predict the future.

Perhaps the impulse to lock things down is a response to fear. Commitment a container for our anxiety.

Now, I recognize that our society has set things up to prioritize and protect the nuclear family. It’s a tool of the patriarchy as well as capitalism, a nice little system of creating a worker bee out in the world and a worker bee managing the home. Marriage and commitment are the current structures for how we procreate. (Stay tuned for a future post about how we might organize our lives if we are trying to decenter romantic love but still crave motherhood).

But let’s think about our romantic notions of engagement. Engagement means asking: will you be mine, for the rest of our lives? We have been taught that those words are a measure of love. But it is also saying: by taking this ring, I’m going to lock this down, bank on this and make this work. Let’s white knuckle ourselves to solidity, so-called security, a set future.

But we never know, do we? Very rarely does marriage equal being together until death do us part. Maybe half of marriages survive. But I have seen, in talking to my friends, in reading your marriage diaries, that often even in those 50% that last, there is the desire to leave. But the fear of what comes after the leaving is what prevents some people from taking that step. Better to know the hell you are in than step out into the darkness.

That is what divorce does. It takes what you thought your life was and was going to be, and that future evaporates in smoke. In its place, is nothingness. The unformed. It is full of potential. It could be anything. But for many, that darkness, that abyss, is too much to face. So, they stay. In situations that are slowly killing them. But it is death by a thousand cuts. It feels tolerable.

But as someone who has come through to the other side, who faced her uncertainty, I would never go back to those tiny pin pricks, slowly seeping the life force out of me.

In some ways, I wish every mid-life woman had the chance to get divorced. And no, I don’t wish that kind of pain on anyone unless it is necessary. But the reset that I witness mid-life divorcees enjoy is unparalleled. We get to rediscover ourselves. We get to realign, resurrect, reattune to who we were meant to be. I think all mid-life women have the chance to do this, but it’s potential is accelerated when it is paired with divorce. Because in divorce, you don’t have to calibrate your metamorphosis around anyone else.

For me, it has meant giving my wild one some airtime. This is a part of me (yes, I’m talking IFS parts, but you can understand the sentiment without understanding the theory) who had to go into hiding very early in my life. And that was then reinforced by becoming an evangelical Christian. Working at an evangelical church. Then working at a religious publisher. And becoming a wife and mother.

But I have a wild one within me. And I have begun to let her out. It started with beginning to date. Getting a tattoo. And then low and behold, I found myself in not one, but two bands. Returning to my musician self that was cultivated in my childhood and adolescence but who I’d drifted away from in adulthood. Being a little bit (or a lot) rock and roll. I never could have forecast this. But it is 100% one of my favorite things about my divorced life.

I’ve recently taken a burlesque dance class, not to learn to dance for the gaze of men but to dance for the gaze of me, to lean into my seductiveness and cultivate that skill, again, for me. To see what untapped powers I have within that were waiting for permission.

All of this is to say, the unknown can bring you exactly what you need, even if you never expected it. Out of the darkness can come the brightest light.

The Power of Midlife Recalibration

September 16, 2025

I was recently interviewed for FORTYsomething, a Substack where women discuss their experience of middle age. I love talking about entering my forties, because it has coincided with growth, reinvention, and a total recalibration of who I am and what I want from my life.

Is Marriage a Temporary Balm for Our Fear About the Future?

The Power of Midlife Recalibration

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