When Your Clock Strikes Midnight

What happens when your clock strikes twelve? There's no fairy godmother, no pumpkin coach or coachmen, no ball gown or glass slippers, no Prince Charming. Nothing left but some very hard work. Everybody's clock hits midnight once in a while. When it does, especially when you're in the midst of the midlife transition, it lands with quite a blow. Even when you've been doing everything right, even when you've done your best to create a reasonable risk assessment and done all the contingency planning in the world, when you come to the end of a road, you're going to need to stop and take a breath.

In this case, I don't mean the end of the road for your life . . . only one segment of it. If you're reading this, by this time in your life, you're already quite familiar with the feeling that comes when you suddenly come face to face with that 'Dead End' sign: that feeling of being kicked in the gut; that feeling of getting weak in the knees as the reality of your situation slowly sinks in; that experience of a shudder crawling up the back of your neck. The first thought is, "This can't be happening," then, "Maybe there's a way around this," then, "This is so unfair!" then, "What am I going to do?" and, finally, "OK . . . it is what it is." How quickly you get to acceptance is a sure measure of how far along the midlife transition you've come.

When you've come to an end, you have the same four choices you always have as you move through the midlife transition. You can deny that it's really happening, and go on beating your head against a brick wall until you bleed (brick walls are, after all, rather impervious to head-beating). You can pretend that the road is only curving slightly and you just can't see far enough around the bend to know for sure. In the meantime, you're continuing to pour your resources into the breach, hoping for the best with blissful oblivion. At some point, however, you simply run out of resources. It's happening all around you right now. If it's happening to you, I'm deeply sorry. However, pretending that it isn't won't get you out of your fix: only deeper in.

The second option can be so much worse: so much more damaging to your self-esteem and to your personality. That second option sends you off looking for someone or something — anything — to blame. The old 'blame game' attacks like a two-edged sword: on one side, it goes slicing after those who contributed to the situation (in almost every case there's some complicity on the part of others), and, on the other side, it wounds the person wielding it. Whenever you go to attack another, you don't leave yourself unscathed. Revenge is like hurting yourself to punish someone else. You wind up in pain, the other ends by holding you in contempt. No matter how grievously you wound your opponent, s/he heals; it's you who can't get over it. In every circumstance, no matter how unjustly you've been treated (as an adult), you've contributed to the situation. It may just be time for you to go looking inside to see what your contribution has been.

The third option that's open to you is to isolate: to take yourself out of circulation, to cut yourself off from your support network, to lick your wounds by yourself and, not only to refuse to seek assistance, but also to deny whatever help you may be offered. Pride, in this instance, comes at a very high price. No one can afford to pick up the pieces and move in another direction on his or her own. Although we may think that that the end of one road is the beginning of another, rare is the person who can navigate the change in life direction without calling on a network for moral support, empathy, and especially for the wisdom that comes from experience and having a certain distance from the issues at hand.

You mustn't think of the fourth option — acceptance — as anything passive. On the contrary: acceptance involves getting out of your own emotions (off the pity pot), taking whatever responsibility may be yours for your current condition, with the help of your network, stepping back to get a new perspective on your situation, and then, as the song says, "Make a new plan, Stan." Acceptance has nothing to do with repression. This doesn't imply any stuffing of your emotions or putting on any kind of 'stiff upper lip' or pretense of bravado. Acceptance means embracing your emotions, allowing yourself to feel them (without wallowing in them), and then moving beyond them and out the other side. It means allowing yourself to be human and vulnerable, but resilient.

So, the clock strikes twelve, your dreams of success at the ball (or in your job or career or marriage) melt away farther with every ring of the bell, and, before you know it, you're back in the scullery where you came from. It happens. In fact, it happens a lot, and it's happening now more than ever (since the great depression). If you're going to just sit there and wait for the Prince to come looking for you, you're going to have a long wait. If you're going to wait for your fairy godmother to bring the magic back, you're going to be sorely disappointed. 'Acceptance' simply means that there are many worse places to be than in the scullery, and you were able to get out of there once, so you can do it again. This time, you have experience. This time, you've been to the ball. It may be a different palace; it may be a different Prince; but, no matter how far down you've fallen, you can pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again.