Trying on different hats, and marriage as a container for personal change
I spent the last week in White Rock, B.C. for my parent’s 60th wedding anniversary celebration. It was pretty low key without a ton of extended family. Nice to see my brother and sister and have a little mini-return to our core family unit.
It’s strange to reconnect with that but have it be in a much different context. We’re all older of course, each with their own health concerns, our concerns shaped by our own families and homes in different places. It’s odd to sit in that duality of “Me/Not Me” with personal histories and behaviors that we share yet with lives and individuality that are wholly separate.
Earlier in the year I wrote about how therapy had left me rudderless and wondering who I was. This trip was similar. Perhaps through family history and epigenetics our family tends to set out on our own and move around the continent in a little Dobson diaspora: that has meant that we generated a good deal of separation in our lives and histories. We drift apart for long periods and then come together to share progress. It’s different than a traditional close-knit community but the love still remains.
On this visit I was a different person in many ways. I spent lots of time explaining why we’d moved again, how I had gained a bunch of weight, why I preferred a hotel instead of staying at Mom and Dad’s, and that no I wasn’t retired rather that I had started a new career as a writer. I also spent my share of mental cycles back in “autonomous Brad travel mode” as opposed to traveling with my wife Minette. It was a bit of a wake-up call as to how much we rely on each other for the little travel things: I am out of practice.
In many ways we are defined by our relationships and how we interact with people. As a self-identified introvert much of my life has involved keeping people at a distance. I’m not a hermit but people are like touching fire for me. I love making people laugh or talking with them about deep concepts, while simultaneously struggling with groups and noise and self-consciousness and the fear of saying something wrong. That’s why writing is so appealing. Perhaps the introspection and “Brad as an island” is the problem and I’m better off taking a page out of Minette’s book of life: “connection is everything”.
Over the last year I’ve been working closely with Minette to retune her target audience for coaching. We keep coming back to women in mid-life who are trying to figure out their next steps in life: so-called “queenagers” or “women in their 2nd act” or “women in the 3rd quarter of their lives”. At 55, that transition is something I can relate to: mine was when I stepped away from software and became primarily a writer. The unexpected (and in retrospect quite predictable) side-effect of the end of structured Ironman training, a career change, moving to another state, becoming an empty-nester, and the associated tearing down of old structures and patterns has opened up a deep questioning of my identity.
A big part of Strong99 is about trying on new hats: placing myself in varied contexts, and writing about how it can help out with the next 50 years. My parents and their 60 years of marriage provide a great example of a container where partners help each other through changes. As Minette and I celebrate our 27th year together we are doing the same, each of us growing with the knowledge we have the support of our partner. And that means my questions about identity get to be an exploration and not a full-blown crisis.