System Malfunction
Plug into a reliable wall outlet, hold the power button for 10 seconds, and let it charge for 15-20 minutes. Check the cable and adapter for damage. Listen for the startup chime. Look for the keyboard to light up.
This might sound like instructions for a computer, and in fact, it is.
One night, I did the ceremonious closing of my MacBook. I finished what I was doing, closed the lid, and went to bed. The next morning, I opened it and got nothing. No familiar glow, no startup chime, no keyboard lights. Just a black screen.
I spent the next few hours troubleshooting, calling my tech-savvy son, trying various things and saying a few expletives along the way. Eventually, I had to accept that this was a real problem. I canceled my afternoon plans and headed to the Apple Store, only to learn that they needed to keep my computer for an entire week.
This was not a small inconvenience. My computer is the means to my income, the way I connect with my teletherapy clients, and the place where a significant portion of my life is stored. My brain immediately went into overdrive trying to figure out how I was going to do my work without my beloved sidekick connecting me to the world through the ether.
I had woken up that morning with absolute certainty that my day was going to be like any other day: coffee, news, email. Instead, the universe had other plans for me, and I was suddenly prohibited from the latter.
And isn't that how it goes?
We make our plans. We create our routines. We try to take care of ourselves. We do the things we have been told will help us feel better, live longer, sleep better, think more clearly, and keep our systems running smoothly. And then, sometimes, the system malfunctions.
This is a familiar story for women in midlife.
We are doing our darnedest to create healthy habits. We learn about sleep hygiene - the habits and environmental practices that support consistent, restorative sleep. We try to keep our bedrooms cool and dark, establish regular sleep and wake times, reduce stimulation before bed, and protect our precious hours of rest.
We lift heavy things because muscle is one of our greatest investments in our future health. We wear the patch - estrogen, that is. We eat protein and fiber. We figure out how to maximize our probiotics. We make the appointments, ask our doctors questions, read the research, meditate, walk, journal, and try to change the belief systems we have carried for decades - many of which were shaped by a culture that taught women to be accommodating, attractive, productive, self-sacrificing, and endlessly available.
We are doing the work.
And then, sometimes, we wake up after a night with a sleep score of 93 and discover something is amiss.
Maybe it is a frozen shoulder. Maybe the anxiety we thought we had worked through suddenly returns. Maybe our mood feels unpredictable, our patience is thin, or our energy has disappeared. We may have trouble concentrating, forget words in the middle of a sentence, or walk into a room and have no idea why we are there. Our periods become irregular. We have hot flashes or night sweats. Our joints ache. Our skin, hair, and body change. Our libido shifts. Sex feels different. We gain weight in places we never used to. We sleep poorly despite doing everything "right."
And sometimes the most unsettling symptom is not physical at all.
"I don't recognize myself."
That can be deeply disorienting.
Because midlife is not simply about hormones. It is a convergence point where changes in our bodies intersect with changes in almost every other part of our lives. Children may be leaving home. Parents may be aging and needing more from us. Careers may be shifting. Relationships evolve. Friendships change. We may question our faith, our purpose, our identity, our sexuality, our priorities, or the stories we have believed about what our lives were supposed to look like.
We can be deeply grateful for the life we have built and still wonder, "Is this it?" We can love our families and want something different. We can be successful and exhausted. We can have a full calendar and still feel strangely empty.
We can do everything "right" and still find ourselves staring at a black screen.
So what now?
The computer instructions turned out to be surprisingly useful beyond the computer. Plug it in. Give it some power. Hold the button. Check the connections. Look for signs of life. And if none of that works, ask someone who knows more than you do.
I realized that I had spent years practicing what I preach. I took a walk. I took some deep breaths and slowed down the frantic loop of thoughts in my head. I reminded myself, "I've got this. I am a resourceful person. I can figure this out." And then I did something that can be harder than it sounds: I asked for help.
Fortunately, I have a generous partner who lent me his iPad and helped me load the programs I needed. Thank my lucky stars for the cloud, which meant that much of my information was still there, waiting for me. I postponed a few projects, adjusted my expectations, and eventually got back to work.
Was it what I had planned? No.
Did I figure it out? Yes.
And that is resilience.
We often talk about resilience as though it means being tough enough that nothing gets to us. I think it is something much more human. Resilience is not the absence of disruption. It is our capacity to respond when disruption inevitably comes. It is the ability to pause, assess what is happening, draw on our resources, adapt, ask for help, and keep moving.
Your computer will eventually have a problem. Your car will get a flat tire. Plans will change. Someone you love will disappoint you. A job will end. A relationship will shift. Your body will change.
We cannot prevent every malfunction.
What we can do is become better prepared for the ones we cannot anticipate.
And this is where I think uncertainty can become a gift.
I don't particularly enjoy uncertainty. Most of us don't. We like plans. We like knowing what is coming. We like believing that if we do all the right things, we can maintain some control over the outcome.
But uncertainty asks something different of us. It asks us to become curious instead of controlling. To listen to our bodies rather than fight them. To ask better questions. To acknowledge when something has changed and become willing to find out why.
There was, after all, a silver lining to my dark screen.
Because I could not work in exactly the way I had planned, I postponed a few projects. I spent some of that unexpected time reading books from the endless pile beside my bed. I took extra laps around the block while listening to podcasts. I slowed down.
And I discovered something else: I had needs.
Everyone who likes to be needy, raise your hand.
I know I don't always love needing something from someone else. I can be remarkably good at convincing myself that I should be able to handle everything independently. But having needs is not a character flaw. Needing help is not weakness. In fact, asking for help can create connection.
When I asked, I was met with generosity. Someone offered a solution. My partner stepped in. My son answered his mother's slightly frantic technology questions. I was reminded that I am not alone.
Perhaps that is one of the great silver linings of midlife.
We begin to realize that we are not machines.
We cannot optimize ourselves into immunity from change. We cannot exercise enough, eat enough protein, meditate enough, sleep perfectly enough, or organize our lives so beautifully that nothing unexpected will ever happen.
Midlife asks us to become more curious rather than more controlling. It invites us to listen differently, to learn more about our changing bodies, and to question the assumptions we have carried about aging and womanhood.
And perhaps most importantly, it gives us an opportunity to name what is happening.
Every woman born with ovaries will eventually enter this stage of life, yet for generations women have been expected to navigate it quietly, privately, and often with remarkably little information. Why has menopause been such a taboo topic? Why have so many women learned more about pregnancy and childbirth than about the decades that follow? Why have we been expected to simply endure symptoms we didn't understand?
The conversation is changing. There are new books, new research, new data, new advocates, and more clinicians asking better questions. We still have a long way to go, but we know more than we used to. And knowledge changes things.
When we can name an experience, we can begin to understand it. When we understand it, we can make choices. When we make choices, we can ask for the right help. And when we ask for help, we often discover something else waiting for us: community.
Maybe that is the real silver lining of midlife.
Realizing how many other women are staring at their own black screens and wondering what happened to the person they used to be.
You are not the only one.
You are not failing.
Your body is not betraying you.
Your life is not necessarily broken.
Sometimes the system is simply asking for a different kind of attention.
Maybe it needs more power. Maybe it needs rest. Maybe it needs a new connection. Maybe an old program needs to be uninstalled. Maybe you need someone with more expertise. Maybe you need to stop carrying everything yourself.
And maybe the black screen is not the end of the story.
Maybe it is an invitation to pause, listen, get curious, ask for help, and discover what still works.
Then, instead of trying to return to the version of yourself you were before the malfunction, you can begin figuring out who you are becoming now.
