My 50th birthday was approaching. (This was more than a while ago.) I was seated at the counter in our kitchen. It was about a year since we had moved from Southern California to New England, (a move that included my husband's promotion - and my dislocation.) I was by myself; (my husband is a good man but he travels a lot) I was clueless, at a complete loss…I didn't know who I was anymore, but I knew who I was becoming - my mother. Some of you are groaning, or shaking your heads, in recognition of this unwanted conclusion. You don't know my mother; you don't want to become your mother. And it is not necessarily about feelings or the relationship regarding mom. You just don't want to "go there." [The "why" of this may be grist for another discussion.]

For me, the pathway to an answer, to my Self, led back to school. I was looking for "me" and wound up taking an advanced degree - in human development and Gerontology. The "why" of "Who am I?" emerged through the research that combined with my courses, as well as my work since graduating. So if you have or are now asking "Who am I?," be comforted. You're not suffering some mental aberration or "out of body" moment. In fact, none other than Deepak Chopra is quoted as saying "Who am I?" is the only question worth asking. This question, perhaps more powerfully than other "markers," (such as the loss of a parent and/or peer, delivering the message of our own mortality), says "welcome to midlife." Thus the journey begins.

In 1979, Lillian Rubin - the educator, not the clothing designer - published a book titled Women of a Certain Age: The Midlife Search for Self. [Sadly, now out of print.] Early in the book she writes of awaking one morning and thinking to herself "Where am I? And how did I get here? Where am I going? How am I getting 'there'?" She wasn't cognitively impaired. She was entering her midlife. She was 38. (Surprised? Today, midlife spans the years 38 to 62.) Professor Rubin has moved on to research other issues related to our extended longevity - including "second time" fathers, (men who establish a second family when they remarry and are in their late 40s and beyond.) But her work in the 1970s identified the "empty nest syndrome." Because there are so many two-income families and working mothers in post-modern America, we don't talk as much about the empty nest as we once did. But we certainly talk about midlife. (One of the bad raps midlife gets is "midlife crisis." This comes from Daniel Levinson's book The Seasons of a Man's Life. Reading the book will clarify that Levinson wasn't dictating a midlife crisis is inevitable.)

"Who am I?" is a question which occurs episodically throughout our life span. Teenagers experience this quandary, as do post-employment adults. It's a normal question to ask; responding to it can be both healthy and liberating. Carl Jung, of psychoanalytical fame, struggled mightily during his midlife. Out of his experience came his notion that the task of midlife, (termed by him the "afternoon of life"), is to begin the process which takes us to our "authentic selves." Not what we "do" or who we "are" to others, but who we are within. Who we really are. This answer becomes the platform upon which other answers are built.

If you or someone you know is experiencing the midlife "Who am I?," bear in mind the following: Jane Pretat, a psychoanalyst, writes that women entering their midlife now will be "pathfinders" writing entirely new scripts as to what midlife represents; and James Hollis, a colleague of hers, provides a delicious definition of midlife, saying it is a time - especially for women - to "keep the appointment made long ago…" and then forgotten, (or abandoned.) In other words, the time of "one of these days" has arrived. It's energizing - not "aging" - to be a pathfinder. It's even more exciting to embrace, or re-embrace, that "appointment" with your Self. Go for it! Be YOU. Or, as George Elliot stated it, "It's never too late to be the person you might have been."