Today I lost my purple workout pants in the Walmart parking lot. (I was wearing the pants on the way in to Walmart.) It was when I got to our house and unpacked the groceries from the van that I realized said pants were missing. My eyes closed and my head shook as I thought—with little surprise—about the fact that as an almost forty-year-old “adult” woman my next task was to call a store and ask if they had found my lost stretch pants.

I have been trying to think of a good connection as far as why I am telling you this story, but really, I just find it funny. I will still attempt to connect, though, so here goes.

As mentioned, my fortieth birthday is on the horizon. When one considers life expectancy, forty is generally accepted to be “mid-life,” which puts it right on the cusp of one’s second half of life. “Second half living” is something my spouse Jeremy and I have been talking about, reading about, and wondering about a lot lately. (Now I will share quotes from some incredibly intelligent people, in hopes of offering a basic understanding of what second half living means and why we should care about it.)

“Carl Jung first popularized the phrase “the two halves of life” to describe the two major tangents and tasks of any human life. The first half of life is spent building our sense of identity, importance, and security . . . the false self and what Freud might call the ego self. Jung emphasizes the importance and value of a healthy ego structure. But inevitably you discover, often through failure or a significant loss, that your conscious self is not all of you, but only the acceptable you. You will find your real purpose and identity at a much deeper level than the positive image you present to the world.” —Richard Rohr (https://cac.org/daily-meditations/two-halves-life-2015-10-12/)

“We must learn the first half of life’s lessons and internalize them before moving on to the second half of life.” —Richard Rohr (https://cac.org/daily-meditations/the-purpose-of-the-law-2016-06-17/)

I guess those were quotes from one incredibly intelligent person. Details. Anyway, it makes sense to me that in order to grow and mature and develop into a “second-half-life-liver,” (let’s trademark that, shall we), one first has to glean lessons through the experiences of first half living. What I have recently realized is that I am beginning to entertain these complex ideas surrounding second half living.

Yes, part of that likely lies in the fact that I have lived life now for almost forty years, but I would argue that age doesn’t ensure that one will reach—or strive to reach—a second half life mentality. (We could on and on here about nature versus nurture, family structures, emotional intelligence, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html), etc., but we won’t. We will just acknowledge the many factors involved.)

What really strikes me is when Richard (I like to refer to him as simply “Richard”) names the necessity of learning and internalizing the first half of life’s lessons before moving forward. For me, writing memoirs about my time in high school and college, and that process—accessing memories, reading old journals and letters, reflecting on experiences, relationships, and behaviors, self-critiquing, peer-, editor-, publisher-, and reader-critiquing, and essentially studying and picking apart my adolescent and young adult psyche—has allowed me to begin exploring second half living. And what am I learning? I am (constantly) learning that I have a lot to learn. I am also learning that it is daunting, humbling, but mostly exciting to set intention around what it might look like to be a second-half-life-liver.

Final thoughts:

What experiences—triumphs, failures, joys, griefs—have you had that have caused you to pause and consider your life in new ways? Please let me know. I love listening to people’s stories.
If you haven’t done all of your Christmas shopping, please consider who might enjoy reading about my first half of life experiences and who you might gift my books to. I love sharing my books with people but don’t always know the best way to go about sharing. Both books are 30% off now until Christmas. Please let me know who I can sign and send books to. Thank you! https://www.coachduprey.com/the-green-clad-kicker; https://aubadepublishing.com/our-books/; code at checkout for 30% off and free shipping is: “kickbra23.” If it’s too complicated, just message me and we can talk check or Venmo. (This might sound like a commercial, but I am not apologizing because I really do want to share.)
When I walked my kids to school this morning, it was freezing outside. I put on my purple stretch yoga pants first, and then I pulled some lined gray Mountain Hardware pants over top. By the time I had finished grocery shopping in the afternoon, with the sun shining brightly, I was boiling. So I entered a restroom stall wearing both pants, and I exited the stall restroom stall wearing only the gray pants. In case you were wondering.