The Great Unsettling

“What do you want?” my boyfriend asked me the other day. “Uhhh for dinner?” I responded, not quite sure what to make of the question so naturally I went for the low-hanging fruit (which is not actually the easiest option because it’s my least favorite decision ever).

What do I want - only four words, yet endless paths I could take with the answer. What do I want in life, in a relationship, in sport, to eat, for our society, in friends. “How many hours do you have to listen”, I wryly thought.

At the same time, my overwhelming urge was to shut down and say, “fuck, I dunno.” I questioned if the things I would list in response were things I actually wanted or if society/past conditioning/insecurities/trauma has convinced me that I did.

Leave it to me to take a simple question and turn it into an existential crisis.

I’d call the past few years of my life “The Great Unsettling,” which is not as negative as it sounds. After years of being singularly focused on sport, then years of being singularly focused on eating disorder recovery (while trying to maintain competitiveness in sport) and then the reckoning that comes with being “past my prime” and the gradual transition away from sport, I’ve reached an uneasy state of varying levels of acceptance. Then add in a crisis over my desires around having children and life paths not taken and…I guess it’s been a productive half of a decade with internal angst.

So much of this internal reckoning has been worked through publicly (writers, like songwriters, thrive on angst). I never wrote or shared with the intention of connecting to people or the intention of “inspiring”¹ people - frankly, it was all me trying to figure out my own shit. And now that I’ve reached some level of peace with a lot of that messiness, the pull to share and to write has lessened. I’ve gone more internal - perhaps it’s a reaction to perceived overexposure and vulnerability fatigue.

The internal and more secure current state is vaguely uncomfortable feeling for me, as I’m used to life being a chaotic series of extreme highs and cratering lows. From a very early age, that’s all that I knew. And as many tears as I shed hoping that I could one day get to this place, now that I’m here I don’t really know what to make of it. It feels…foreign. To me, it’s akin to when I stopped caring about so many of the things my eating disorder told me I should care about. I always wanted to get there, but I don’t know what to do without it. I’m trying on a new state of being with decided wariness.

There’s grief in it, about which I have feelings. I will be the first to admit that when I stopped sharing, writing, and racing (all around the same time!), I started to feel disconnected in an odd way: for over a decade of my life, I was used to validation from acquaintances and strangers on the internet (also the vitriol that comes with it). I’d like to think I’m an intelligent, thoughtful 41-year old woman who shouldn’t be affected by things like this, but whether or not I realized/admitted it, I became conditioned to that response. And over this past year or two, as I’ve shrunk back from posting on social media and my body hasn’t allowed racing, I’ve gone through a strange form of withdrawal. While I feel more connected and fulfilled than ever in my day-to-day life, I’ve realized that the feedback and conversations and consequences that came from putting my life out into the world actually was, in some weird way, helpful to me.²

I don’t think I could have worked through the decision around children without conversations provoked by my writing and I’m eternally grateful for those. By sharing, I’ve met so many other beautiful humans in eating disorder recovery and after decades of shame, it helped me feel seen and understood. So maybe while the intent of my writing has never been about those things, the effect of it is something that I do value. It gave me a purpose.

And that’s where the “Great Unsettling” and my boyfriend’s utterly annoying question comes in: here, in my 40s, I’m still trying to figure out my current purpose now that a chapter in my life feels (somewhat) over. Granted, running and eating disorder recovery will continue, but not in the same form as before. And while I could just, I dunno, enjoy existence, I need something more than that - I think we all do. I’m not here talking about a great life purpose, but a driving force of where I focus my efforts going forward - essentially, where do I derive my connection and my meaning. It’s a question that’s left me spinning my wheels for the past year or so.

It’s not as simple as what I want. I want, for example, to be running 100 milers at age 70, but I also have to accept the fact that most likely, I won’t get that. The odds are not in my favor there, and I’ll need that to not upend my world. I’m writing this at a time when running is going well, and I even am allowing myself to be hopeful that I will get back into regular racing, but it’s a state of being I hold very loosely given my track record.

I have to accept that as I age throughout my 40s, 50s, and beyond, my value and relevance as a woman in our society declines, especially as a woman without children. It’s fucked up and I hope that things are changing,³ but for now it’s the bitter reality. How do I maintain purpose and passion in spite of declining influence and power in the broader world?

Maybe this is a reckoning we all go through with age, in various forms and at different times. Maybe it’s especially acute when you don’t have the purpose and fulfillment of raising children so I’m left wondering where I direct all that energy. (Maybe the fact I’m even wrestling with this feeling is a sign I have too much time on my hands.) The oddest part is that I’m not especially angsty about this - I’m just curious, and surprisingly, mildly excited.

It’ll likely involve trying different avenues to see what sticks. I’m sure it’ll involve complex feelings and melancholy and frustration. Of course I’ll go down kicking and screaming holding onto running for as long as I can.

But maybe it’ll be easier than figuring out what I want for dinner.

1. I have a lot of yucky feelings around this concept. I’ll save that for another post.

2. Or maybe I’m just deluding myself and really, what I want, is strangers on the internet to care about me.

3. Once again, larger/longer conversation I will save.