A few times each month Midstory publishes Midstory Reads, a roundup of essays on Substack written by writers from our Midstack community, particularly from our Friday Midstack share threads. Midstory Reads is a small selection of the powerful writing each week from our Midstack community.
I also invite you to go directly to this week’s Midstack share thread to learn about more midlife voices.
“At 5:25 this morning, AJ was asleep.
His heart rate hovered in the fifties. His oxygen levels looked good. A cool cloth rested across his forehead. The room glowed with the soft light of monitors and infusion pumps. His hand was wrapped around mine.
For a few minutes, everything felt still.
Peaceful, even.
And yet, less than twenty-four hours earlier, we had been told to prepare ourselves for the possibility that he might not survive what comes next….”
“I threw out my shapewear.
I’d amassed quite a collection. Spanx. Flexees. Wacoal. Expensive. Off-brand. Bargain brand. Spandex. Bone-in. Rib-eye.
We’re told shapewear makes clothes look better. That’s the line, right?
Entire industries are devoted to convincing us that the female human body contains an unacceptable number of female-human-body-shaped features.
Their solution was to invent body-squishing devices that relocate flesh to less politically sensitive regions of the body….”
“After 100 recorded incidents, based on real events, there is sufficient material to assemble an interview.
Interviewer: The Terrible Daughter
Interviewee: KJ
Interviewer: How would you describe yourself?
KJ: I’m a good man. At the end of the day, I’m a nice guy. I don’t think people understand that.
Interviewer: You first met my mum while claiming you’d seen Jimi Hendrix.
KJ: I did.
Interviewer: You didn’t.
KJ: That’s not the point…”
“Of all the promotions and roles I ever took, every single one happened because someone else pushed me toward it. I never believed I was ready. My husband reminded me how good I was before a negotiation. A mentor told me to go for the role before I had talked myself out of it. A colleague saw something in me that I could not see in myself at the time. And when I finally got to the biggest role, the CMO of an IPO ready company, I sat in that chair full of self-doubt that I could not do the job, that I was not smart enough, that sooner or later they would find out….”
‘“Why is each song like 8 minutes long?” my 10-year-old asked.
“Because that’s what Dave Matthews does,” I said. We were driving to our friend’s house, and I was giving my daughter a crash course in one of the bands that defined my teens and twenties.
“I’m just really excited about the party bus!” she said with a squeal.
She paid no attention to the violin solo in “Crush,” which I maintain is one of the best things Dave Matthews ever recorded….’
“Father’s Day is coming up next weekend, the first one Mike will spend in memory care. I’d already decided that I wasn’t going to say anything to my adult children about this; managing their relationship with their dad is still their business, not mine, even in this complicated context—and I know from experience that it isn’t helpful to have a parent around who’s constantly telling you what you need to do.
The only thing I’ve said to my kids about visiting Mike is that they need to manage this time in a way they’ll be able to live with, since they will be the only ones living with the choices they’re making now. Mike isn’t usually aware of who’s visiting him—sometimes he seems to recognize me, but often not—and he has no concept of how often this happens or how long those visits last…”
“Have you, personally, ever been impacted by gun violence?
Pausing, my eyes drifted to the red recording light blinking in the corner of the screen.
I pictured the Uvalde parents. I flashed to the families of my patients. Those are the people personally impacted by gun violence, not me.
I almost told the journalist “no”. But that’s not true. I have been…”
“Maybe I’m not just meant to be a driver.
I thought this while openly sobbing in the passenger seat of my instructor’s car as he drove me back from the test center. I had just failed my third UK driving test, and I couldn’t remember the last time I felt so incompetent. I could prepare for the meeting. Edit a doc. Get my kids to school on time (most of the time). Why couldn’t I do this?…”
“I want to tell you about a conversation I’ve been having lately. It usually happens in the stolen moments between meetings, or over a glass of wine that we’re both too tired to finish, but too grateful for the company to put down.
She is a friend, a colleague, a mirror. She is in her mid-fifties. She has the titles, the CV that commands respect, and the office with the view she worked twenty years to earn. She has done everything “right,” and she has done it with a grace that hides the cost.
But one day when she looked at me, there was a softness in her eyes that wasn’t there a decade ago. She laughed — that quiet, knowing laugh we use when the truth is a little too heavy to carry alone. And she said, “I finally arrived. I’m exactly where I aimed to be. So why does it feel like my purpose is still somewhere out there, waiting for me to find it?”
“I didn’t think I’d ever want to get married again. Two failed marriages had put me off the idea.
And yet. There I was, on the back of Chris’ Harley, cruising down Beach Road in Cape Town. Arms wrapped around his waist. Wondering when he was going to propose.
I knew he wanted to. But he was deep in a house renovation that was draining him financially and emotionally. A proposal would have to wait.
My logical brain understood that completely. But my self-doubting voice was having none of it. It turned his financial timing into evidence that I didn’t matter…”
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