I am 56 years old. I am surrounded by a fierce cohort of women just rounding the curve from middle age to menopause. I can’t track the semantics of age groups anymore. I’m never sure if I’m Gen X or Gen Y. I confuse Millenials with Gen Zers. And what honestly is middle-age? I used to think it was late 30s and early 40s but the other day when I went in for a thyroid scan the tech asked me if there was any chance I might be pregnant.
“I’m 56!,” I exclaimed, naively thinking that she thought I looked young enough to be pregnant.
“The cut-off for pregnancy now is 55,” the tech told me, “so I always ask women around that age if there is any possibility.
So maybe I am middle-age. But it’s just semantics and I feel like I’m past middle-aged. My daughter is twenty. I’m in my 900th career, and shit is changing more significantly than it did in my 30s and 40s.
My peers agree. I can think of ten individual women in their 50s who are close to me — myself and my spouse included — who are experiencing a cracking open of sorts.
The path of the cracking shows up in different ways. One woman wants to make her car into a house and travel all over the country until she finds the perfect place to homestead.
A few others want to blow up their careers and start a whole new profession. Some want to leave their marriages. Almost everyone feels emotionally cracked open, raw, and exposed. I see it everywhere I look. From the cracks, existential questions seep out like smoke: “Am I in the right relationship?”; “Do I even like this job?”; “Will I ever want to have sex again?”; “Who am I?”; “What’s the point?”
I know from running menopause retreats for many years that these cracks are just the beginning. I have read countless articles and books about what rises from the ashes of this cracking open time and I know that change is coming. I know that we are in the change, that we are getting somewhere, and that this new world, if we can move through this cracking open with intention and patience, is going to be outstanding.
This morning on my daily walk, today in the winter darkness, my mind filled with thoughts of different women close to me who are experiencing this cracking open. It’s painful and vulnerable and scary and lonely. And what’s to come is unknown. This cracking open is brutal.
Last week at my painting teacher’s art show, a friend bought a painting from a vessel series. This painting had a few different-sized vessels, including one that appeared to be broken and repaired with the Japanese Kintsugi technique. Kintsugi uses a lacquer mixed with gold to repair cracks that make the vessel even stronger than it was before it broke.
At another show many months ago, my teacher shared with me that her vessel paintings represent women, so when I saw the Kintsugi vessel last week, it got me thinking about the symbolism of that vessel and that woman.
I thought of all of the women I know who are in the throes of menopause. They are cracking like that vessel. All of the unknowns about the future, the regrets, the second-guessing and self-judgment for the lives they’ve lived are exposed. This is the time in our lives when those questions are supposed to break free. This is our time to consciously make the move into our next chapter, but it’s scary not knowing what will fill in the cracks.
Kintsugi symbolizes hope and rebirth. By highlighting instead of hiding the cracks, we are embracing imperfections and celebrating flaws. Kintsugi is like menopause in so many ways. In the simplest interpretation, our wrinkles highlight the long road we have traveled. Our knotty knuckles and less flexible joints show the work our bodies have done. And in the deeper realm of the heart and mind, the golden cracks represent what we’ve built from the ashes of the cracking open.
The invitation to myself and all the women in my life who are experiencing the cracking open is to ask new questions. “What do I want now?”; “What will I put into this space where the ______ once was?”; “What can I add to make this vessel more solid?” The answers to these questions are the material, the golden lacquer, that will make us stronger, ready for this next phase of life.
Kintsugi invites us to think about how an object is more beautiful with the flaws. It reminds us to honor the cracks and find value in their origins. And, if we let it, menopause does the same thing. We are cracked, maybe even cracking open a little bit right now, but we’re also putting the pieces back together.
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