I am sitting outside in the sunshine with my matcha and my laptop waiting to go into the gym. I feel terrible. My body is sore and aching from being up all night (again) as 2 of my children wet 3 of the beds in our house, the puppy constantly whining, needing attention and reassurance during the wee hours of the morning plus the declining oestrogen inside my own body preventing any form of deep sleep to be had. I attempted to meditate when I arose this morning, but was only met with that groggy, hungover feeling even though no alcohol has touched my lips for weeks. I could not pull myself out of my pain body, my emotions running themselves ragged inside my mind during breakfast whilst I was busy getting the girls ready for school.
I am burnt out, I can feel it. Every part of me feels weary, exhausted and like giving up. I am tired of holding a heavy, overburdened heart. Hopefully this gym session will sort out my mood and get some endorphins firing again because, God knows, I need it! I am trying. Hard. Too damn hard.
I feel desperate in this messy middle - discombobulated, unclear, helpless. And I put an immense amount of pressure on myself to not fall apart, I think we all do to some point, our inherent conditioning urging us to solider on, keeping to the tune of “I’m FINE”. When we are, in fact, not fine, not fine at all.
I got onto socials this morning which obviously was the wrong move and which of course, I already knew but I overrode that inner wisdom and went to feast on the highlight reels like a full blown addict desperate for a small hit of dopamine. I follow a lot of climate people, UN organisations, politicians, artists, activist groups, you know, just trying to keep myself socially and culturally informed, but today it was such a shit show.
The pure devastation of human and planetary suffering almost rendered me entirely useless and unable to leave the house. The agony of watching the greatest horrific catastrophes playing out in front of my very eyes on this stupid tiny screen that I am shamelessly addicted too. I cannot fucking bare it. How are people going about their day as these atrocities are happening? I somehow managed to get the girls to school and now I am sitting here with my matcha, in my gym gear that’s too small for my expanded perimenopausal, middle aged body going through a complete shame circle inside my own thoughts whilst trying to process the atrocities of the world as we know it.
Deep sigh….. 🤬🫠🙈😫 “DON’T MIND ME” I want to scream out, “JUST A MIDDLE AGED LADY HAVING AN EXISTENTIAL CRISIS ON AN ORDINARY TUESDAY MORNING”
There is a lady opposite me also sitting in the sun waiting to go into the gym. She is truly gorgeous, at least 20 years younger than I am. Her skin is so shiny, almost translucent, that glazed donut look. Her hair is washed, bouncy and cascading down her back like she is modelling for a shampoo commercial. She is taking selfies, working the angles to enhance even more her youthful features. It looks like she is flirting with the phone, blowing kisses, head tossing on the right cute angle, a popping of the shoulder, a coy laugh, a flexing of her bicep. Snap, snap, snap she goes. She really is spectacular and I find myself staring at her unable to look away.
Did she see what I saw in her social feed this morning, I wonder? Forests being raped by billionaires, children starving, people killing each other, bombs going off, racial fury, oil spills in the oceans? Or is she locked down in her own apathetic bubble? I wonder, I truly do because to look at her you could easily assume she doesn’t have a care in the world apart from a quick fit check to make sure her gym attire is on point. But I know this is perhaps, entirely untrue. Because so much lies in every single one of us beneath the surface. Constantly we are processing our fears, our insecurities, our conversations, our emotions, our history, our desires, our thoughts, toxicity, the collective consciousness!
There is always so much energetic data coming into our layers of consciousness and on days like today, for me at least, it feels overwhelming and burdensome to try and metabolise it all at once.
I know whenever I am in this threshold of the messy middle it always feels ‘too much’ and the desire to just turn away and numb myself is strong, and the fact that I can do that if I chose, well that’s my privilege.
The messy middle is that place where you are not who you used to be, but you are not yet who you are becoming either. It’s like a waiting room of uncertainty, deep questioning, renegotiation. The place where the life we thought we wanted no longer fits yet we do not really know where we are going either.
The young, shiny girl walks over to me and asks if I can take a photo for her. ‘Of course’ I say and she hands me her blinged up phone and gives me specific direction for our impromptu photo shoot. She explains to me she needs the content for her socials. “I get it” I reply, because I did! She is a professional at this, being both the director of this shoot and the subject.
I politely do as I am told praying the photos are what she wants. I ask her what she does for a living, “I am a Manifestation coach” she replies and I have to fight every ounce of inner judgement I have brewing inside of me and stick to the job at hand. She explains to me how she mostly works with people who are feeling stuck in their lives and not getting what they want, she teaches them self worth and marketing to gain followers on instagram. “My latest course is enrolling today and I am just grabbing a few last minute snaps to send out for more traction and sales”.
“I get it” I reply, because I did!
She is very sweet thanking me yet quickly rushes through an insincere goodbye brushing me off for a boy she had just spotted walking into the gym. She puts her phone in her tiny little gym bag and literally runs after him.
I get it, I think to myself.
This really is the messy middle, for me right now. Where I have to learn to hold the small mundane pieces alongside the gigantic ones all at the same time. The invitation truly is, just;
BE.
HERE.
NOW.
Always. Just feel it.
To let myself hold the complexity of it all at once. My aching, tired body and the collapse of civilisation as we know it. My personal confusion as to where I am in my life and the alarming climate crisis we are so deep in. Deciding what to cook for dinner for my family alongside the enormous question of what kind of world we are going to leave behind. The 20 something girl in front of me who’s youth is blossoming and my own 20 something year old inside of me whose youthful moments have passed.
Just let myself be here, holding it all.
And somedays, it feels impossible to carry it all, and perhaps we are not meant to. Perhaps, those of us who have the deep privilege to be in a position to, should give ourselves permission to just put some of it down. To close socials down, drink the matcha, go to the gym, to inhabit the strange and ordinary life that is so uniquely ours with a deep presence and a deep love. To stop comparing or judging others. To be so completely present that the raw beauty of the moment starts to reveal itself to us. If we blink or turn our presence away for even a moment, we will miss it.
To accept that we are all at different stage of existence inhabiting this giant rock we call home, some of us are full to the brim with youth and confidence, and some, like me, having a mild mid-life existential crisis on a Tuesday morning before a gym session I am forcing myself to go to. And it’s all ok. All of it.
So we remain messy; not having arrived, just learning to be with it all, as it comes, the Red, Hot and Holy Glory-ness of it all.
A little wobbly, a little uncertain, a little more human and hopefully a little more willing to love ourselves and each other harder!
Onwards we go, loving harder
Love Kate