Gift From The Sea

Middle age, argues Lindbergh, is regarded as something negative in Western culture. As she says, “We Americans with our terrific emphasis on youth, action, and material success […] tend to belittle the afternoon of life and even pretend it never comes” (96). Value and meaning are strongly associated with external, socially recognized ambition and accomplishment and factors such as virility, beauty, athletic prowess, and career advancement. Thus, middle age, a period in which “physical, material, and worldly ambitions are less attainable” (95), is derided. Indeed, for this reason, entire industries are dedicated to maintaining the appearance of youth. Makeup and moisturizing creams promise to halt and even reverse aging. Car, motorcycle, and clothing brands suggest that youthful adventure can be recaptured through buying their products.

Although people may succeed in masking the external signs of middle age for a period of time, its internal signs are more intractable. Lindbergh identifies these factors as “discontent, restlessness, doubt, despair, longing” (97). They are a psychological response brought on by the crisis of meaning that accompanies middle age. Suddenly, the certainties of early adult life, with its assured goals and status, are replaced by the uncertainty of a world in which one’s position and purpose are unclear. This is especially the case if one built a life around rearing children, as the offspring leave home by their parents' midlife. These signs of angst are typically misinterpreted “as signs of approaching death” (97). Unable to process the idea of their terminal decline, people often avoid confronting these emotions. This means that they refuse to address the realities of being middle-aged; as a result, they flee “into depressions, nervous breakdowns, drink, love affairs, or frantic, thoughtless, fruitless overwork” (97-98).

Midlife does not have to be like this. Instead of interpreting these feelings of angst in terms of loss and a presaging of death, they can be seen as “growing pains” (97) that are similar to those of one's “first” adolescence. During the teenage years, feelings of doubt and discontent are understood as the necessary preludes to new growth and awakening; this can also be true of being middle-aged. It is important not to try to suppress these initially unpleasant feelings or attempt to cling to one's youth. Instead, as Lindbergh says, “one takes them seriously, listens to them, follows where they lead” (97).

In this way, one will come to understand that what seems to be loss is, in fact, a gift. By freeing people from the yokes of external ambition and vanity, middle age liberates them to pursue a new internal ambition and adventure that allows for “growth of mind, heart, and talent” (98). Lindbergh encourages readers to pursue this possibility in their own lives by challenging the perceived mood of middle age as one of melancholy. Rather, her writing and its rhythms evoke the mood of new beginnings and joyful spiritual awakenings. For example, she says that “middle age can be looked on as a period of second flowering” (96). Lindbergh uses the imagery of spring and of re-emerging nature to attempt to inspire the reader to experience middle age in this new and transformative fashion.