I Am Afraid That It’s Too Late

Can a 47 year old woman do what I am going to do?

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez 🇨🇦 on Unsplash

I have always been a writer. Words scrawled on paper or madly typed in the wee hours of the morning always came much easier to me than talking out loud to other people. My fingers were capable of saying or doing things that my voice was not, it seemed. My voice would let me down when I needed it most, but writing never did.

At first I wrote for me, and then I wrote for others (although, to be honest, even that was still for me). I wrote for catharsis, I wrote to pay the bills. I wrote many things I wasn’t proud of, particularly over my 14 year career as a copy and content writer.

But still I wrote and wrote and wrote.

Two weeks ago the words finally failed me. Oh, don’t get me wrong, the words are still coming out onto the keyboard screen. They just aren’t all the words. My written words have become like my verbal words — awkward, incomplete, nervous.

If text on a screen could shake with nerves, my desk would be vibrating across the room right now.

I am afraid

Age has never frightened me. I have never felt the urge to lie about my age or cry on a “big” birthday. Even during the throes of my two year long anxiety breakdown, it was not aging that made me shake in fear.

Perhaps it is because the women in my line tend to live long, active lives. Working, traveling, even raising families into their 80s and beyond. Living vibrant lives up until the day they simply stopped, surprising everyone with their deaths because they never paused long enough to get any of us used to the idea that one day they would be gone.

In a little under six months I will be 48. My body has recently begun to change, right on time, according to my mother. My family has begun to change as well, the children are grown and soon the last one will fly away on his own adventures — it has already begun, in fact.

At first this wasn’t a bad thing. I live my life by dreaming and then doing. Changes are difficult, I struggle with transitions, yet I also gain new energy to plan and dream and do. I wave a wand and what I am dreading becomes something to look forward to.

For the first time, I am afraid that I am too old for this. I have no wand to wave.

My dream is no secret, to own my little cottage on a little farm (nothing large, nothing commercial). A place to grow a bit, mainly for those I love, and a bit to sell. A market garden, really, and not so much a farm. I’ll have ducks, chickens, and goats — oh how I miss a yard with ducks! The farm will be a companion to my studio, where I will paint and craft and write.

Even better, there will be room for those I love. A small guesthouse for friends and family to stay for as long as they like. My wife will have her own studio space, perfectly suited to her chosen career and her chosen hobbies. There will be places to gather and break bread.

But yet the thought remains — what if I am too old?

This may be the hardest change.

I am 47 (nearly 48, I remind myself).

Who am I to think I can do the hard work that those half my age are unable to maintain?

Some necessary backstory

When my main bread and butter work replaced me with AI last August, I made the decision to continue writing — but only on my own terms. We could afford it, as my dear wife has grown her own career so that she can cover our expenses. Enough to maintain the status quo, not enough to save very much.

Our dreams for our winter years require a bit of funding, you see. It won’t be much, once we have saved enough for the purchase of a home.

So I decided to seek out a “real job.” Don’t get me wrong, writers and creatives work real jobs, but our paychecks can’t always be depended upon. By “real job” I simply mean that I clock in, do whatever, and the pay is guaranteed. No unpaid time chasing clients or worse, chasing checks.

No one wants to hire a 47 year old woman that has been working as a writer for the past 14 years. Even my degree and past history as a botanist doesn’t help when you are in a college town overrun with exploited interns working for free. The only response I got back proved itself to be too good to be true within the week.

On paper I am just another middle-aged woman trying to re-enter the traditional labor force.

Oh, I know that they can’t ask for your age, but a resume and interview has a way of showing what you don’t want to tell. You try to show experience, but 25 year olds don’t have 14 years in a single industry. They don’t show up to interviews with smile lines around their eyes and white hairs that they refuse to dye entangled in their curls.

The post office seemed like an easy answer. I want to make decent money. I want to live on my wife’s wages and make enough to purchase a small bit of land and a cottage. Perhaps with the right job and maintaining our current low cost of living (excepting rent, damnable rent), I could pay it off in a couple of years and both of us could live the creative’s dream for the next 30 or 40 years. There’s still a lifetime ahead of us!

So I applied. I made it through testing and screening. I have orientation on Halloween. I begin work on Guy Fawkes day.

Remember, remember, the 5th of November. Or fear it, as the case may be.

I am neither young nor old

My words have been stunted since I made this decision. I’m not sure why, but perhaps forcing myself to face it will uncurl my fingers onto the keyboard and allow the flow to return.

It is no secret that the US post office is in a sorry state. Understaffed with too few resources and a neutered union unable to protect their members properly. Overtime is a requirement, particularly for new carriers working from one annual contract until the next, hoping to get bumped up to regular status.

12 hour days, six days a week with the possibility of 12 consecutive days at a time. Through snow, and rain, and heat, and gloom of night.

Will my body be able to handle it? Will my mind? Will I lose those things I hold most dear — the time to write and create, to make art, to garden, to wander in the woods, to love and care for my family and friends?

Will the pursuit of money be all that I have time for? Will these bones that were neither too young nor too old become weak, will my strength flag, will I begin to age more quickly? By the time I achieve my dream will I have become too broken to live it?

I am afraid.

How will I be received? I am the only woman in my hiring group, and I am sure I will be one of the oldest. Will the others look at me with pity? Will they laugh at me, expect me to fail? Will I fail?

Why must I do this? Will I be allowed to give up?

I can do this

Needs must, as my grandmother would say whenever something unpleasant had to be done.

We could limp along like this until inflation and the cost of living downsizes us out of a home or sends us packing for greener pastures far from those we love.

Or I can simply roll up my sleeves and get on with the business of dreaming and doing. Sometimes we have to get our hands dirty, make our bones weary.

I can do this. I can, I can, I can. I will say it until it is true. I will say it until I can’t.

Let them pity me, let them laugh. It is more likely that I will pity myself, laugh at myself, isn’t it?

Perhaps it will be good for me. I love to be outside, and I will be outside all day. My body needs to move more, walk more, lift more. Done right, this makes me younger, not older.

It’s a choice, choosing this path I never saw myself pursuing until now. I am choosing it. I can choose my boundaries, I can choose to say no, I can choose to quit.

I can choose to quit? I can, can’t I?

So on the 5th of November I will try on this new mantle. I will give it a go. If I can last three months, we will have at least $15000 more towards our goal. That’s a lot, that will achieve a lot. It can be enough, even.

I can do anything for only three months. Then maybe, just maybe, I can do it for three more.

Who knows, maybe it won’t be as bad as I fear. Maybe I will enjoy it. Perhaps long hours of walking up and down sidewalks will spur my creative soul into new levels of creation. Perhaps my body will become capable of new and wondrous things.

Perhaps this will not be just a trial, but a metamorphosis so I can emerge ready for the next 47 years of my life.