As power in a digital society cascades younger and more of us are going to make it to 100, it might be that midlife lasts from 35-75. Our 50s may not just be midlife but might be mid-career. The fact is, midlife in the modern day can feel like a run-on sentence without punctuation. Perhaps, adding some celebratory and revelatory rituals could add just the punctuation we need to experience our humanity in what’s now a longer story.
We’ve welcomed “compadres” (our name for our students) from age 30-78 with the understanding that MEA was created to help us navigate our midlife transitions. Just as it’s been shown that training and running for a marathon is more effective when you have training partners, MEA offers a safe and nurturing crucible for people to stretch themselves.
Isidra Mencos arrived at MEA grieving the recent loss of her mother and depleted from four months of caregiving a very sick friend. She writes about how MEA offered a new “meaningful path,” almost like a midlife pitstop that gave her a “second wind” and allowed her to embrace the marathon with a new sense of vitality.
How are you preparing for your midlife marathon?