Midlife Rain

You’re not riding your bike today, are you?

I heard that question from two of my neighbors today.  To mess with one, I said, “Why not?” She looked at me in disbelief until I laughed. 

Actually, I had no intention of getting on my bike today. I woke to the first downpours and gusts of a “Nor’easter” that’s blowing through this area.  If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know that I’m not entirely adverse to wind and rain.  Still, there are some conditions under which I won’t start a ride unless I absolutely must.

The rain is falling, but the leaves are not, yet: autumn has just begun. 

This is a strange time, a strange situation. I have retired from university teaching, but I don’t feel old, or even older than I felt when I was still in the classroom. Of course, that was only four months ago: barely the blink of an eye when you’re in midlife but still long enough for change on top of change.

This reminds me, ironically, of my first days of teaching and my first days as a college student. In the eyes of some, I have a new title, a different status. Today I am “retired” and my days are less structured— or, at least, I am not following a schedule imposed by others. But how, if at all, have I changed as a person? I had the same question the first time someone called me “professor.” I felt uneasy, not only because I was only a teaching assistant (Everyone who teaches in a college is called “professor,” whether or not they have attended that rank.), but also because I knew that I wasn’t any smarter, wiser or even more accomplished in any other way,I than I was before that title was conferred on me. And during my first weeks as a college student, I knew, deep down, I really was no different from the person who graduated high school just a couple of months earlier.

The neighbors who asked whether I’d planned to ride my bike probably see me as “the bike rider” and know little, if anything else, about me. That is fine. I don’t remember when, exactly, I started referring to myself as a cyclist or, for that matter, a writer. Perhaps that is why those designations don’t seem so strange to me: They simply denote things I had been doing, as “woman,” female pronouns and my name identity what ai had known about myself long before I claimed them.

The rain is falling, but the leaves are not. It’s still autumn, if early in the season. I didn’t ride today, but I am still a cyclist. And as long as I keep on, I am in midlife.