The Pull of the Moon | Elizabeth Berg
Nan has just turned fifty and suddenly, life seems to be closing in on her. Restless, afraid, and feeling like her best years are most certainly behind her, she jumps into her car and drives off across the country. Not sure what she's searching for, Nan pours her heart out in a collection of letters to her husband, records her ping-ponging thoughts in her journal, and stops to chat to ordinary women she meets along the way. Slowly, her perspective begins to shift.
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I read this book for the first time in my thirties. Fifty felt ancient to me then; the idea of letting go of my kids seemed impossible, and a cold dread crept over me as I realized that someday I would face the same reckoning as Nan was struggling to make.
I read this book for the second time last week. Now that I'm on the far side of fifty, Nan and her mid-life meltdown make me smile. Oh, sister, I'd love to tell her, your life is far from over. Yes, in this new phase of life, we miss the tender devotions of our child-raising years, the sweet surrender we made of our selves to care for our precious children, that's definitely true. But now is the time when we can pour that nurture and care back into ourselves, and open to the new possibilities of the universe. The pull of the moon is just as strong in the second season of our lives as it is in the first, and we women do well to encourage each other to face the transition between the two with radiant expectation and joy.
"What mattered was that at the end, someone who loved her sat by her, saying, I see you."
The year after my youngest daughter graduated from high school and my homeschooling mama shoes were hung up once and for all, I stood on the precipice of this life change, and just like Nan, I took a trip. But I didn't drive to South Dakota. No, I jumped on an airplane with a one-way ticket to Malaysia to visit friends that I had never met in real life. I stayed for three months, floating from one home to the next to the next, living in the unfamiliar rhythms of the tropics, of Southeast Asia, of Muslim culture. The experience was, in a word, disruptive, and while I am mindful of this ridiculous cliche, life-changing.
I can't say what happened to me during those three months. I don't know what I night have let go of, or what new things I might have learned. All I can say for sure is that, for the first time in a long time, I put my own needs first. And that was a very important first step.
"Oh, just wait. It takes a lot of time, that's all... You'll have to come to a certain kind of appreciation that moves beyond all the definitions of love you've ever had. A certain richness that only happens later in life."
My journey in this second season of life has been made all the more stark because, ten years in, I am still awaiting grandchildren. Kids have a way of anchoring us, and without them, I feel untethered and adrift. I remind myself that this empty space provides opportunity and I look for places on this planet that allow me to be more myself.
"Outside it snowed; fat, lazy flakes drifting with soft intention toward the place they were meant to land."
And I trust, just like Nan, that I am in the process of finding the right place to land.
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Hey! Wanna read more about the books I've read in 2022? Check these out:
The Vanishing Half
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For a full list of books I've read in the past few years, click here:
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