Standing in the Middle of Life With My Pains Behind Me!

Chrissie Hynde

“I’m not the cat
I used to be
I’ve got a kid
I’m 33 baby…”

I was 19 when I first heard “Middle of the Road” by The Pretenders.  Since Chrissie Hynde was my idol, I thought she must be right about being in the middle of life at age 33.  Then, I approached age 39, and I knew she had to be wrong.  Now that I am a little bit older than that (I’m not saying exactly how much), I can tell you that I still don’t think I have hit the middle of life.  AND, I can definitely tell you that my plans are not behind me.  If you ask Chrissie, she would probably agree.

Plans are never only behind you.  And what about pain?  Is pain ever only behind you?  No!

It’s funny, actually!  When I first stated writing this post, it was on the premise that the lyrics were “Standing in the Middle of Life with my Plans Behind Me,” but as I verified them on Google, some versions said that it wasn’t “plans,” it was “pains.”  It’s that little change in word that has inspired the rest of this blog post.

As I was saying, your pains are never behind you.  Neither are the happy times.  It’s all mixed in together.  And guess what,  no one is ever going to warn you that a curve ball is coming your way.  It’s up to you to handle them as they come, and it’s only natural that you are going to handle some better than others.

As for me, I have definitely had my share of curve balls.  Some get thrown to me, and some get thrown at me.  While I prefer the kind that I can catch, others are thrown so hard that they knock me to the ground.  When that happens, I am not sure how to get up right away.  So I sometime lie there on the ground until the breath finally begins to flow in my lungs again.

Right about now you are probably wondering where I am going with this philosophical ranting about curve balls.  The truth is, I am not sure myself.  Let’s just say that I was recently knocked to the ground by a curve ball, and I can’t quite get up just yet, but I am trying…

“But, I got a smile
For everyone I meet”

This is me trying to compartmentalize.  I don’t always do that very well, and I had to confess to someone on Friday that I really wasn’t quite myself.  I also shared that I might not be myself next week either, and that sometimes that’s just the way it is.

I guess I kind of thought that as I approached the middle of life that my dreams would magically surrender themselves to me, and that would be it.  As it happens, I have absolutely no basis for thinking this, I just thought that this would be the case.  In reality, the closer you get to realizing some of your dreams, the further away they seem to become.  (Or, is that just me?)

“In the middle of the road
You see the darndest things”

But at this very moment in time, I do see myself standing in the middle of the road.  And I do see the darndest things almost every single day.  But  it’s also there that I have the clarity to even begin to see why certain events have occurred.  And it’s there that I can see that there are many positive outcomes that have somehow managed to claw their way out of some very negative situations.

“Come on baby
Get in the road
Come on now
In the middle of the road, yeah”

 

3 Comments

  1. Maybe plans and pains sometimes end up being the same thing. Funny how things you thought you were certain of turn out to be something else entirely. Lets hope thats the wisdon of middle age in a good way! Thanks for sharing, Michelle!

    1. Thanks Cheryl! I appreciate you stopping by….hope to write more content soon. Still tweaking the look, etc.

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