ABOUT ME
Musings from the Epicenter of Crazy
Susan left what she now considers a world of sanity when she hung up the business suits and stepped into the sometimes less than comfortable shoes of full-time motherhood. Much to her surprise, over two decades later, she is still wearing them.
Crediting her criminal psychology educational and vocational background in allowing her the upper hand in an oftentimes deviant and narcissistic world of toddler and teenage motives as well as that of equally rebellious, aging parents, in hindsight, it is clear that life was grooming her all along for the most challenging and amazing career in which she ever would embark.
Once while lamenting what seemed to be the loss of her identity beyond PTA meetings and corporate wife duties, she was asked if she shouldn’t have already moved beyond what she was describing as a midlife crisis. Quickly pointing out that her great grandmother had in fact reached the ripe old age of 107, she agitatedly replied that she potentially still had more than half her life remaining, depending upon which perspective you chose, could either be a good or a bad thing. This exchange began the shift of how she started to see her station and purpose in life—not as a midlife crisis, stereotypically reserved for balding men in red convertibles, but as what felt more and more like a perpetual purgatory of responsibilities no one else wanted to take on pertaining to her growing children, rapidly aging parents and the fiercely competing demands that both were exacting upon her. Hence, middle life madness was born.
To put things in her own words: “I used to think that I was just this normal girl who had finally grown up to be just another normal woman. Then I met my kids and also really got to know the people who raised me. Yeah, nothing really is normal. Here’s the rest of my story….”
Susan Mergler
Author, Blogger, Mother
