Susan Senator

I have stated before that I am experiencing something akin to a mid-life crisis. I am 43, and some people think that is too young for this, but it is what it is. There are several reasons for this, having to do both with external and internal forces. I have reached a point in my life where my children are more self-sufficient than ever, and I believe that this has created a space in my days that I did not have before. Their lives have fallen into what is mostly a pleasant routine of school, homework, downtime, friends, meals, and — rarely — family togetherness time. I joke about how none of my boys talks to me, for one reason or another. But it is a truth that strikes deep. There is a lot of silence around me and I am grappling with that. I don’t do so well with silence.

All I really want to do is write. I want to have tons of assignments and things to write and crunched deadlines. I want my head to be swimming with ideas of what to write and where to send it. But that is not happening. I have written a bunch of poignant or funny essays but cannot sell them to my usual places. I have submitted a book proposal to my editor but cannot get her to meet with me. I have a regular column in the local paper, but they don’t want me to write every week because they already have so many columnists. I have this blog, and I always feel constrained about what I write here because I have been told by some readers/friends/my parents that they are a little afraid of what they might read.

You know what? That sucks. This is the Internet, for God’s sake. If you can’t write what you need to write on the Internet, where you are not subject to an editor’s whims or a newpaper’s style, where no contract or paycheck binds you, where can you write? Do I have to be concerned that my book won’t sell if I’m too honest in my blog? That’s stupid; the whole point of my book was to reveal an honest emotional process in dealing with something as difficult as a child with autism. If some have elevated me to some kind of hero status, they got me wrong. I’m just a woman trying to work it all out so I can be happy. Besides, I can’t live my life, or write my stuff, with one eye on marketing. That is so not me.

At 43, I’m happier than I’ve ever been — in some ways — and worse, in others. I suppose that’s life, where we can’t ever expect a complete, unsullied happiness. I feel that understanding the new empty spaces in my life are the key to greater happiness. I have sought to fill these spaces with various pursuits but remain emotionally unsatisfied, searching for more. What I am wondering now is:

What is the issue at the heart of things? The empty spaces that cause me to explore activities that are unfulfilling, or the unsatisfying pursuits that take my energy and leave me with gaping holes in my days?

Sometimes I think, “I should just get a job.” People think I’m crazy to want to work if I don’t have to. But I do want to be more occupied. I want to be paid to use my mind; isn’t that the ideal? Don’t we all want that? But that isn’t happening. I have been pursuing a university teaching job, more speaking engagements, a new book project, and freelance articles, but very little of this has panned out. Am I casting my net too wide, and not focusing my energy sharply enough on any one thing?

Or will something happen for me when the time is right? I also find that some things do fall in your lap, but sometimes even then you don’t recognize it as something important. I can look back and identify the turning point moments when things changed, the times in my life when I semi-consciously chose a new path and my life changed: the moment Ned caught my attention, by teasing me about something, and suddenly I saw him as a guy I wanted to get to know. The time I put together my first Nat book, propelled by the happy buzz of creativity and problem-solving; the time I wrote a byline in an article that read, “Susan Senator is working on a book about autism” before I had even started it, leading people to write me and ask about my book. The time I went to a gala that I almost blew off, and met an exciting flirtatious guy, making me aware that life could be more deliciously complicated than I had realized. The time I decided to give a signed copy of my book to someone I’d just seen on a panel at a conference — who would turn out, for better or worse, to be someone I call “INF.” The first time I read Autism Diva’s blog and learned about autism pride.

Until I figure it out, I remain in this strange limbo of half pleasure, half torture, surrounded by stillness and silence, yearning and waiting for something but not knowing what.