Twilight

I feel a great sense of twilight recently. It's everywhere around me; twilight years in the elders, twilight childhoods in teenagers, and my own prime-of-life twilight. There's no fighting it, it just IS. It's a fusion of beauty and sadness; a fresh dose of reality that doesn't wake you up, but reveals a melancholic authenticity with which to spend time and energy as you face the days with grief and wondering. Heartache-Lite, releasing the years spent in a joyful search for meaning and purpose while tenderly announcing the arrival of "is that it?"

Twilight has always been my favourite time of day - soft endings portending new beginnings, perhaps, or just endings, known into unknown. Giving birth in my 40th year spared over a decade of personal decision-making as I was too busy chasing toddlers and helping children grow up to consider what I was going to do for 'the rest of my life' afterwards. It's time to rest and reset.

What now then? You would think that being-of-a-certain-age would present a sort of edification to help younger generations through their own search for meaning and purpose, and to aid older generations as they near the finish line. It doesn't seem as easy as that because it's noisy out there - everyone is clamouring for glory while they can. It feels like sitting quietly at dusk, in a catharsis after sobbing, as a whirlwind of desires and dreams retreats like a dying tornado, reminiscing the day's storm and waiting for silent night to fall. Though, I will do my best to support as many people as possible and hold space for those who want it - it doesn't appear to be as necessary as I thought it would be. Twilight is for poets and philosophers, there is a grace and depth about it, and I wish I had paid more attention when I was younger.

Seasonal changes, the ebb and flow of historical progress and relapse, midway through chasing puppies and comforting old dogs, the point between thinking you know and learning just how much you don't know... it's a sacred appreciation of time and space and growth and change and decay. There are different times to really sense these twilight moments: after high school, before adulthood - during pregnancy - between jobs - and as in my case right now, a middle age crisis that feels more anticlimactic than critical.

So, instead of running about filling my time making plans for the future, as I have in all the other twilights, I will pause to take in this particular twilight with the sense of reverence it deserves.

Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans ~John Lennon

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