Are you in the second half of life?
A very personal essay on losing my ambition -- and finding something deeper
As I write this, in a fairly cheerful mood, I’m facing, or have recently faced, all kinds of losses that we associate with the second half of life: the recent deaths of my father and older brother; my mother’s advancing Alzheimers; my beloved in-laws’ increasing infirmity; an imminent empty nest; and more.
These kinds of losses can pack a wallop: the deaths, especially, with their accompanying nausea, their unfillable holes, their way of causing spasms of grief at random moments.
One thing these losses didn’t do, though, was surprise me. I knew to expect such things, as I get older (I’m 57 as I write this).
But there’s another kind of loss that’s bothered me in a low grade, background hum kind of way, for the past few years. After a lifetime of doing, achieving, running around, and embarking excitedly on new projects – I lost my ambition.