I was listening to a podcast called Sugar in the Raw with Kendra and Hannah recently.  The episode was titled The Things We Love About Fall that We Actually Hate (a must listen…they had me cracking up!) and it inspired me to write this post about things I love about midlife that I actually sometimes hate.  I can’t say I always hate them because that seems so strong and if you look hard enough, you can find the good.  So, I shall add a Pollyanna twist to the idea and just say I sometimes hate them.

Without further ado…

Things I Love about Midlife That I Actually Sometimes Hate:

#1 – Being 40 is like some distorted form of tweenaged girlhood that left for a while and has snuck back up on me in the last couple of years.  Here’s a couple of examples:

• Your body isn’t what it used to be…true when you are 13 and true when you are 40.  I won’t explain – if you are in the neighborhood of midlife or beyond then you get it and if not then you will soon enough.
• There is some process of emotional, mental, spiritual self-discovery going on.  It’s sort of like things plateaued for a while through my 20s and 30s and now that my kids are old enough to need less of me all the time, I have more time to focus on myself which is good and bad.

#2 – I have wrinkles.  While I am thankful for the opportunity to be alive long enough to earn some wrinkles, I also wish I didn’t have them.  And why are crinkly eyes sexy on men and not women?  Gray hair too.  Here is the first picture of me where I noticed my wrinkly eyes.

#3 – Having teenagers in my house.  As a gal who will confess that having babies wasn’t my favorite phase of parenting I do enjoy my older kids most of the time.  Lately however it’s felt like feast or famine with them.  I’m either on the floor laughing about something hilarious they have said or enraged at the attitude someone has used when speaking to me…I’m grinning from ear to ear at their progress and growth or staring in astonishment at something one of them has just said.  Seriously there doesn’t seem to be much in between some days.  The even more troubling part is that when I’m angry I find myself at times talking to them like I’M the teenager and rolling my eyes and jumping right into the drama.  Heaven help us all.

I am enjoying some of the fruits of living for 40 years but also stumbling through some of the challenges and hopefully growing through it all.

What do you love but sometimes hate about midlife or the phase of life you are in?