Rites of Passage: The Inevitable Wake-up Calls of Life

I'll never forget the exact time and place when someone first called me"Ma'am" (a Target store was the place, not giving the exact year here).Maybe "Ma'am" is a common term for young women in some parts of the country but not in my part of the world. Until that day, I'd always been called "Miss" ,"young lady" or the ubiquitous "Ms".

The first day someone actually called me "Ma'am", I looked behind me,hoping to see another woman. Preferably someone much older.

But, to my shock, I realized that I was the one being addressed as "Ma'am" . I was vain enough to actually go home, look at myself in the mirror and try to puzzle out what characteristics suddenly made me qualify as passing beyond young adulthood and on to some other stage.

I even washed my hair for the second time that day, changed my clothes and tried to update my look, although I wasn't sure what I was really trying to change. I felt and looked the same as I had the day before.

I also looked for signs of - horrors! - being matronly or dowdy. I wasn't ready to enter that "Ma'am stage yet.

After taking one last evaluation of the final results of my efforts, I walked out the door, ready to face the world again. For awhile, it seemed like my attention to detail was paying off. I didn't hear that dreaded word, "ma'am", for a good 3 months after that.

On the other hand, no one noticed that I'd made an effort to look different, either.No friends or family members commented on how much better I was looking. True, the meat manager gave me an extra couple of lamb chops one day (but maybe he won the lottery or something and was feeling generous). I really wasn't sure if I was in the clear yet.

Within a short while, strangers started addressing me as "Ma'am" again, more and more routinely, everyone from store clerks to auto mechanics and bookstore employees. Not so happily, I realized that I'd just faced one of those inevitable turning points in life.

Short of a complete body overhaul and facelift, I was now firmly in adult territory and not young adult territory, either.  If I wasn't a young adult, then what stage was I facing ?Was I simply an "older" young adult, similar to that equally vague term "adult children" with a little of everything.... adult and child, younger and older adult, all mixed up together in one giant stew of ages and personalities and stages of life? I was baffled -  that or in total denial.

Before I could finish pondering the implications of being called "Ma'am" , I faced the next rite of passage: the birth of our first child. It was a great joy, one that came after struggles with infertility.

Oddly, even though I had been clearly pregnant for a full nine months, I didn't feel like I was truly a mother until I held my son in my arms and saw him as a separate individual, however dependent he was on me and his father for survival. It was another jolt, another one of those turning points.

Being a mother was a joy and also a staggering responsibility. I'd never feel quite the same again. I couldn't just walk out the door anytime I wanted, not without having a sitter or my husband or mother on hand as back-up. I was in new territory, one that brought pleasure and awe (along with a lot less sleep!). Within a week of my son's birth, I put my head on the kitchen table and wept, wondering what I'd gotten myself into. Then I accepted this new reality, toughened up and got on with it. 

Then came the day I was awakened by my husband and asked to"please stop snoring." - and not in the nicest of tones, either, but more like someone who wasn't hearing me snore for the first time. Of course I protested that I didn't snore, never had, never would and probably just had temporary sinus congestion or something.

A tape recording, one of several nights worth of snoring "samples", shattered my illusions, leaving me to wonder what this meant. Was I...now... truly middle-aged? Was this a strong sign of my body's impending decline or just another one of many reminders that things were slipping, bit by bit? Whatever it was, I didn't like that rite of passage moment. Not one bit.

And so it went, day by day,some defining moments easier to accept than others. Many simply got swallowed by the routine business of life. Others couldn't be ignored, like the day my middle son left for college, a day I cried as soon as he was out of sight and moving down the road in his car. 

Keeping vigil with my sister and mother as my father struggled through the last stages of heart disease was another defining moment. THen there were the months spent helping another son learn to drive. The first grey hair. None of those seminal moments had the rich flavor of "vintage wine" or the "rewarding satisfaction of added wisdom", as some really smarmy books, mostly self-help books, suggested they should. Yes, I read my share of those books, most an utter waste of time.

Some friends tried to tell me to look at myself as something rich and golden, with patina and extra appeal because I was now "seasoned with experience". Trouble was, I'd always seen vintage items, especially antiques with patina,  as looking somehow....old and tattered. I couldn't relate. Where was the analogy that would make sense to me? The one for the person who liked clean,modern lines, eclectic furnishings and quirky writing?

I'd like to say there was an "Aha!" moment, one that simply erased any discomfort or edginess about the changes that were occurring as I moved from young adulthood to the next stage of life. Truth is, there wasn't a day, a time or a moment when things became easier. They just did. I got used to the neverending changes life threw my way.

And maybe that was the ultimate transition between young adulthood and the next stage. If so, it happened when I wasn't even looking. I was too busy, nurturing children, writing, spending time with my husband and dealing with all the usual expected - and unexpected- challenges that came along.

Having a spiritual foundation helped me grow more accustomed to growing older. But so did learning to focus on what was there all along, be able to realize the value of everything I took for granted before (cue music for The Wizard of Oz as Dorothy says, "There's no place like home").

I don't have any tips to share about how to move from one stage to the next with poise, grace or ease. I'm just sharing this for any readers out there who might happen to be able to relate. Whether you accept those rites of passage calmly or enter them kicking and screaming, as I often did, there is no escaping them and that has become (mostly) fine by me.

With some notable exceptions - the day the dog fell off the roof, the time my son spent a week in the hospital with a frightening virus - I wouldn't change a thing. I've also learned to appreciate the beauty of true patina (not that fake stuff slapped on by decorators trying to make new items look like antiques), the complexity and sublety that time and age gives to some objects - and even people. I'm taking that recognition as yet another rite of passage, a welcome one this time.