Tunnel Vision

So lately I've been thinking about age. It's been coming up a lot in conversations. It seems to be that at some point everyone goes through a type of awakening. I guess some would call it a mid-life crisis. One of my friends says it happens around 31 or 32 and that sounds about right to me.

So this is what my "awakening" was like. By the time I was 32, I had 4 kids. But I kept wondering when being a mom was going to start feeling real to me. I felt like I was just pretending. I also felt like I didn't know any one who was in the exact same situation as me. I just didn't fit in anywhere.

I have come to believe that most women around this same age feel exactly the same way. "I just don't fit in. Everyone else seems to have it together or know what they're doing and I'm just winging it here."

And then comes the flip.

I'm not sure what happens, maybe life just gets so busy that you stop thinking about yourself and move on and before you know it, it's different. You no longer walk on a college campus and wonder if you still fit in. You walk on it and think, "these kids are so young". You no longer are one of the younger people in your ward. You are in the group that the younger moms look up to.

The reason I call this tunnel vision is because at the beginning of a tunnel you still have the light from behind you to guide you (the way things have always been). But somewhere in the middle that light is too far away to see and you have to start looking for the new light which lies ahead (the way you want to be).

I think of the women I look up to. Moms, grandmas, "older" sisters. And it must be that the closer you get to the end of the tunnel the more sure you become. I'll call it wisdom.

I'm not in a hurry to get to the end of the tunnel, but I am looking forward to that wisdom.