The Age Thing 😬

I can no longer say I’m forty, so let’s just go with I am very newly in my very early forties. And, learning last week that my nephew and his wife are expecting, I realized with a start that I’m going to be a [gulp] great aunt. Great. (Snark aside, I’m very excited for this development.) So… I’m a soon-to-be great aunt… in my forties… who hasn’t published her first book…. Well, frick. Is there a future for one in this predicament that doesn’t involve profound feelings of regret, resentment, disappointment, and the doomed realization that you’ve missed the boat that’s hauled away the only career you’ve ever wanted? I know there are lists floating around social media of acclaimed authors who began their writing careers after forty, but… how common is that? It’s a question I don’t care to ponder for too long. The knowledge that there are some authors who get their start later in life brings me comfort, but so do the things I’ve done and accomplished along the way. See Exhibit 1 below, Lucy, AKA, Yarnmaster Goose.

See Exhibit 2 below, Willa, AKA The Bean, AKA Chief Snarkypotato

I always thought that I would continue writing after I had kids, even when they were ittybittyteenyweeny, terribly two, thrill-seeking threenagers, etc., etc. And I kept it up for a couple years after I had my first daughter, writing here and there during naptime and at night. But after finishing a first draft of my novel, in 2012, I quit writing. I was pregnant with my second daughter; my firstborn was terribly, tenaciously two; and I was exhausted. I typed “End,” congratulated myself on composing 60,000 original words, posted something pithy on social media about my new status as a novelist, and promptly jumped ship. 

The next several years were not easy, but they were easier than they would have been if I’d kept writing and revising. While daughter one developed cyclic vomiting syndrome, her little sister was diagnosed with FPIES (a hypersensitivity to certain foods)—both of which caused unpredictable hours-long bouts of violent vomiting (did I mention that I’m an emetophobe?). Additionally, feisty number two had what her pediatrician called “decreased sleep needs.” But they were generally healthy and happy, and I was grateful for this, and to be able to stay home with them during those early years. Sometimes my husband, aware that I was missing my creative outlet, would encourage me to get out to a coffee shop for a few hours on a Sunday while he watched the girls. And I would, but my efforts never culminated in anything fully formed. 

It wasn’t until my secondborn started full-day kindergarten that I took a breath and allowed writing to re-enter my life—but even then, my process was lethargic. I tinkered with stories I’d started over the years, began submitting my work to literary journals again (because doing so was writing-related without embracing the hassle and heartbreak of actually writing). I wasn’t ready to reconsider my novel. While the characters still scurried round my mind, the plot and setting still hunkered in its folds, the idea of tackling a second draft was too daunting. But I knew I was approaching forty. The friends I made in my MFA program were thriving: publishing books, writing for hit sitcoms; one had become the editor-in-chief of a prestigious literary journal. Since graduating, I had produced my most important works—two beautiful, kind-hearted, curious daughters—but the part of me that existed before them, a part I was growing to desperately miss, was languishing. 

Early last year, something changed. I wish I could pinpoint what it was. My best guess is that it was the rapidly advancing 4-0 coupled with encouragement by a friend to revisit my novel. I read over my 2012 draft and was surprised that, even in its infancy, it contained substance and depth. I began to rethink and revise, but again was forced to hit pause when the arrival of COVID-19 forced my daughters’ school to shift to distance learning. The break was much more difficult this time, considering the wave of momentum towering at my back. But I accepted our circumstances—so much more fortunate than others’—and, once again, set aside my writing for the sake of my children and my sanity, because I simply couldn’t do it all. But in the fall, in-person school resumed, and I was given the gift of time to accompany my impervious momentum. I dove in, hit my stride after a month or so, and for the first time in my life, looked forward to writing every day. I have to believe that it’s the result of the newness of the form and the freedom granted by writing a story whose bones already exist—to craft organs and finetune systems of movement, breath, and blood. Conjuring the heartbeat of this novel has strengthened my own.

See below for additional evidence of time well spent. Note: They fight a lot, too.