In Between

I am feeling In Between.


I am fifty - which gobsmacked me, frankly. 


As expected fifty is a time of taking stock, of reevaluation, of deciding what really matters and what needs to go, about the road ahead. It is a time of realization - I am in the middle of my life.


Where I have been is done, where I am going is undetermined. I am stuck in between. And it is an uncomfortable place for me.


I am reading Aloft by Chang Rae Lee and I came across this:


'... But that's the case with almost everyone in the broadening swath of middle age, isn't it, that we're all fatiguing in some critical way (sex, job, family), some prior area of happy vitality and self-definition is now instead a source of anxiety and dread.'


and it struck a chord


it struck the career/job chord


it may have even broken the strings


I know that I have an awful lot to be grateful for and I am, truly.


But where the heck am I going from here?




                                               *   *   *   *   *


My sister T. is recovering at an amazing rate. The first 24 hours were very scary but from then on she has soared.

My sister's heart

At approximately 8:30 central time on Tuesday morning, May 11th my lovely sister T. Marie will undergo open heart surgery. It is estimated to last 3 hours. There is a 95 per cent chance they will be able to repair her prolapsed valve. She is in terrific health otherwise and the prognosis is really good.


I have heard about several open heart surgeries on friends parents or grandparents. All seemed to have good outcomes. Most of them were double or triple or quadruple bypasses. Comments were made.


It is so routine these days.


Happens all of the time.


They've really gotten it down to a science. (?)


It surely seems different when it is my younger sister. It is hard to imagine them cutting her sternum and spreading her chest although I have seen it all on television. They will ventilate her and put her on a bypass machine so that they can stop her heart to work on the valve. There will be a team working, doctors barking orders, anesthesiologists reciting stats, just like on TV.


But it will be my sister under that sheet and mask. My sister who I shared a bed with for years. My sister who I love. 


There is no reason to think anything will go wrong.


And yet...


Please hold my sister in the light.