Midlife Doesn’t Have to Be a Crisis

The more hours you’ve put into this chaotic business of living, the more you crave a quieter, more nurturing third thing, I think. This needn’t mean dull. The friends I have now, who’ve come all this distance, who are part of my aging plan, include all kinds of joyous goofballs and originals. There’s loads of open country between enervation and int... See more

Getting older is a relentless process of paring down. Getting older is an exercise in letting go. Let go of anger: “I’m at the age now where you just—you’ll die.” Let go of fitting in, of going up to Rao’s with important people. Let go of other people’s opinions: “That doesn’t mean you don’t take advice and you don’t discuss and argue, but at a cer... See more

“The thing that happens in midlife is you start to feel the weight of accumulation of what you’ve acquired throughout your life. I don’t mean just physical things, I mean friends, responsibilities, the identities, and the invisible name tags that define who you are in the world. You frankly start to feel overwhelmed by all that accumulat

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