Several factors contributed to the want/need to write this post. First, was the previous two blog posts that had focused on astrology, but actually the focus was on me and the toolbox for analysis was astrology. Second was a conversation I had with a good friend of mine today. Third was that I have been journalling and speaking about related issues - on-and-off - for quite some time now.
It is important to set more of a scene. Astrologically, I am going through a set of transits more commonly known as 'mid-life'. Also referred to in non-astrological circles as 'mid-life crises' years. I'm in the middle of Pluto square Pluto and I'm soon-to-hit Neptune square Neptune. I also turned 40 at the end of last year. This is the time in a woman's life where she starts to come to term with the decisions she has made throughout her life and feels the consequences of those decisions. For most women, one of these key decisions revolve around whether or not they did or did not have children. I have plenty of reasons why I haven't become a mother, but time is running out if I wish to have my own biological children (unless I decide to freeze eggs any time soon). I'm also running out of similarly-aged female friends who, like me, have chosen not to have children.
This, in itself, can bring on some mid-life moping. I am unable to deflect attention from my own development (or lack of) to my children's development. I am also unable to throw myself into a PhD as I already have one. I am also living through a pandemic so I can't exactly go to the nearest bar, get drunk, take someone home and start the project of a new relationship. I've got me, my family and the friends that already know me. So, I'm living in an insecure present where my current ties to 'normality' (for me) are in my past. This can lead to some serious navel gazing, especially when you have recently made some serious changes to your life, i,e. seven months volunteering and travelling in two continents, getting a new job and moving city. I officially start my new job on the 9th of this month.
Unsurprisingly - given the introduction - what I've been reflecting on of late is the direction of travel of the second half (hopefully) of my life, one where I am unlikely to have my own biological children. I have also been wondering if women who have children, especially those who have young children like some of my friends, experience mid-life the same way because they do have children. At present, the second part of their life very much has the label of 'mother' at the centre, which is both a stabilising and de-stabilising label. But, it's front-and-centre, whichever way you cut it. The child(ren)'s wants and needs, and futures, are a fundamental part of my friends' futures now. Their own wants and needs fit around their children in different ways, shapes and forms. So, what do you do if you don't have children, and have no plans to have them?
I've been discussing this with a very good friend of mine who is in the same scenario. We have both agreed that we have turned 'within', towards our inner child. This is what truly resonates with what I have been writing in the last two posts; especially regarding North Node and South Node paths. I would say since the death of my father (late 2015) I have been experiencing an increasing process of going inward to find out what I really want from life. Many methods of doing this involve your 'inner child' and what it wants. Since my dad's death, and particularly since the end of my PhD journey in early 2018, this has journey has gained increasing weight in my life, and was central in my decision to take a year-long career break to get more in touch with what I wanted and needed. Surprise surprise, it mostly consists of the things I loved to do as a child and a teenager. Which made me smirk as the stereotype of those going through middle-age is a pre-occupation with trying to re-live their youth. True what they say about stereotypes having some element of 'truth' in them.
But, this 'regression' back to youth is also, on the whole, derided. It is seen as immature, a reluctance to 'grow-up' and accept life as it is. Especially when those experiencing mid-life are in committed relationships and have children. In the movies, those experiencing mid-life may go off the tracks for a while, but the movie usually ends with the protagonist recognising the value in what they have, and to not throw that all away on a fantasy that might not make it into reality. But what do you do when you are not in a committed relationship and nor do you have children?
For my said friend and I, we started having increasing in-depth conversations with our inner child. Taking seriously the howls, the tantrums and the emotional discomfort... and sitting with it. At first you don't trust it. It's a negative critic; an internalised parent / friend / ex, etc. Through the meditations, the yoga practices and the volcano walking (in Ecuador!) you realise that you have more than one voice inside you. You have an inner critic (and sometimes more than one, including your own construction of an inner parent / friend / advocate) and then you have something else. That genuinely does howl. You start asking it what it wants, and you have to shut up the other voices before it feels comfortable, and secure, enough to tell you (and, let me tell you, it ain't easy shutting up those voices).
Now, I'm working to integrate those wants and needs into my life. Even five years ago, I would have been more black-and-white about this. I would have thrown my current life to the wall and let those needs and wants consume me. But, thankfully, somehere along the line in the last five years I've learned that I can grow more if I try to integrate both. I'm proud of what I have achieved in my life. I'm proud of the decisions I have made and who I have become as a result of those decisions. There is a sadness in me. It is the sadness of a young girl who wanted a bit more time to pursue her dreams, and wants to see if she could have made some of them manifest. It is not a huge ask at all.
So, in a way, I have actually become a parent. I've become a parent to my own inner child. I hope I will be a good parent. A kind and compassionate parent. She wants some of my time to write more (and not that 'boring' academic stuff - she doesn't think it is boring, she just wants to write different things), to play guitar, to draw and get lost in the fantasy of even one image. Magic. She wants magic. She knows that she'll never be able to get bolts of lightning to come out of a piece of wood shaped like a wand. But she understands that if she keeps wanting something badly enough, and will put the hard work in to get it, she just might get what she wanted all along. Still, she needs my help. It is time to give it to her.
The good news about such realisations is that I'm not going to project my inner child on to another child. Having worked with children and young people for such a long time, I have had many a conversation about parents unfairly placing their (unfulfilled) dreams on to their children under the guise of it being in the child's 'best interests'. Often, this results in a tension within the child / young person concerning who they want to be and who their parents want them to be. Leading them to some destructive behaviour, or some deep sadness, and to my professional doorstep.
Maybe biology has gotten it all wrong? Maybe for parenting, children and humanity as a whole it would be best to extend the capacity for women to have children past their mid-life years? Five years ago I would have been that parent that pushed their kid into music lessons, singing, creative writing and acting. Not knowing it was actually my own inner child that wanted that for itself. I think I'm going to like my mid-life years. I think I'm going to like myself a whole lot better at the other side of them.
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