A STORY FROM THE ‘FERTILE VOID’
The hallmark of the beginning of Second Adulthood is a necessary but disturbing descent into what I call the Fertile Void. Like the onset of menopause, this profound upheaval has nothing to do with chronological age. It may coincide with the loss of biological fertility and it may take as long or longer than a pregnancy, the similarities end there. The Fertile Void is a place of confusion in which a midlife woman wanders without a map until she finds her new self.
The good news is that nearly everyone eventually gets through the Fertile Void and lands on her feet. For help along the way (and beyond) there is “The Transition Network, a community of women over 50, who joined forces to navigate the transition from one career to another — or whatever is next.”
TTN was founded in 2000 by two women – Christine Millen, President, and Charlotte Frank, Vice President. Together, they set out to create a movement that would re-imagine retirement. Envisioning retirement as a series of transitions – a bridge from one career to another or from employment to volunteerism, acceptance to advocacy or isolation to community – they called the new organization The Transition Network.
In 2006 co-founders Christine Millen and Charlotte Frank were named Purpose Prize fellows by Civic Ventures, a think tank and an incubator that generates ideas and invents programs to help society achieve the greatest return on experience.
Since the publication of INVENTING THE REST OUR LIVES I have had rewarding relationship with TTN. I have spoken at many of their chapters and continue to feel its members are horizontal role models for our generation of women in second adulthood.
Here is Lynda’s account of her time in the limbo of the Fertile Void:
At my fiftieth birthday three years ago I knew things were beginning to stir for me, but it was all too vague at the time. I went on a yoga retreat with my oldest and best friend and we celebrated our milestone birthdays together, but it didn’t come together for me until much later.
Nine months ago I decided to leave my high-power executive role. People thought I was crazy, but I knew I needed to get back in touch with what I really wanted to do, but was not sure exactly what that was. All I knew for sure was that I no longer wanted to continue with the role I was in. I wanted by personal freedom, and time, just the pure pleasure of time.
After nine months of not doing anything career-oriented, focusing on fixing up my house, doing little decorating projects I’d put off for years, cleaning out closets, taking some short trips abroad, having lunch with my girlfriends for the first time in many years, doing some cooking, enjoying my kids, I suddenly understood what I wanted to do. I gave birth to myself—again. I realize that what I want to do next and actually shocked myself and the people around me.
I want to combine everything I’ve loved about my two prior careers and bring together those aspects that I want to continue doing and drop those aspects I don’t enjoy and bring it all together for my culminating Act Three.
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Are you in limbo?
Do you identify with the Fertile Void?