Into the valley with the promise of sexier days

Last weekend, my husband and I discovered that two people can simultaneously be logged into the same Facebook account and make separate posts as the same person. Long story short . . . I allowed him to post something that reached beyond the borders of what I normally say on my wall (or elsewhere) in the name of humor which ultimately appalled some of my friends. The post garnered many more comments than usual, some friends posting at length in response to the portion of the post that said, “I’ve hit my sexual peak.” Appalling or intriguing as the statement may have been, sex is simply more fun to read about than the subject I chose to start my blog with: death. Do I know how to pull people in or what?! HA! Unlike death, sex is just so . . . sexy! I’m going to have to promise a future post about GenX, midlife, and sex (promise I won’t talk about my own sex life whether true or fictional) because I’m turning back to grief for one more moment before moving on.

Yesterday, I portrayed mourning as a powerfully positive part of life to be embraced. I have experienced the most difficult deaths in my life as times when deep sadness met great love, so I know first-hand that one can encounter the divine through death. But I also know that the strongest human experiences and emotions exist in polarities: love/hate; pleasure/pain; excitement/fear; etc. The facts are that some deep relationships are intertwined with difficult and less-than-positive complexities, that we each come at death from different places, and that some modes of death are harder for us to accept than others. Even mourning that can be embraced unfolds as a process.

Death, grief, and mourning cannot be covered as briefly as I’ve attempted. My point yesterday really was to name death as an important life experience all people encounter, to identify it as an experience that increases as adults live through midlife and beyond, and to encourage those of you who are searching for joy through sorrow from my heart that has found life, hope, and God in the midst of heartrending valleys.

If this topic hits you where you are right now and you haven’t checked out the Hospice site, you might want to click here and read more from folks who are trained to walk with people through death and dying.

Hmm . . . well . . . apparently I’ve promised to create some kind of sex talk next time around. We’ll see how THAT goes . . . another day.

For now, though, I wish you peace.

This blog post is part of a series of writing (April 3-May 14, 2011) by Tammy Fletcher Bergland about Generation X facing midlife.   tbergland.blogspot.com