Becoming

On becoming a writer and the growing pains of middle-adulthood

Photo by Laura Vinck on Unsplash

We are always in the process of becoming something. Life begins with naturally unfolding transformations: cells multiply, bones lengthen, and neurons prune like the branches of a bonsai tree, shaping the brain for movement and thought. The planes and angles of adulthood are carved from the soft roundness of childhood.

At some point, we become aware of our ability to direct parts of this becoming. Searching for a sense of self, we awkwardly try on identities like clothes off the rack. If we’re lucky, we eventually find a rough combination that fits well enough to wear through the gauntlet of adolescence. Later, in the clearer light of adulthood, some meticulously tailor their self-image. Others avoid mirrors, letting movement and life’s currents shape the contours of their being. For a long time, life feels full of anticipation, possibility, fear, and excitement. Jobs become careers. Relationships grow into communities and families.

The world expects us to grow in these ways. For the fortunate, support and resources guide the journey. For others, scrappiness, grit, and cunning fill the sails. And for some, further pruning must be done: painful childhoods in need of reckoning, lessons to unlearn, or malformed senses of self to reshape. Some don’t make it. But for those who do, those years are a flurry of newness.

Then the tide begins to recede—not all at once, but in a series of waves. Our bodies stop growing new connections and abilities without effort. We’re told we’ve peaked: fluid intelligence at 25, athletic ability before 30, and, for women, the cruel threat of an expiration date dictated by a patriarchal society obsessed with youthful malleability. As the tide turns, we might find we’ve “become”—a doctor, mother, wife, manager, or some other simplistic title that we’ve identified with.

In this slack tide, dissonance arises—dismissively labeled as a “midlife crisis.” This term, however, fails to capture the depth of what is happening. What stirs in the froth of receding waters is the powerful drive to continue becoming—a drive that society fails to accommodate once adulthood’s milestones have been reached.

The urge to grow collides with the static mold of our lives.

Instead of tending to this yearning, we busy ourselves maintaining those molds, unsure how to address the itch to grow into something greater or more complex.

At 38, I found myself slightly out of sync with my peers. My husband and I became empty-nesters when my stepson left for college, a moment that felt misaligned with my friends’ lives, as many were still expanding their families. We explored the idea of having a child together, but at 48, my husband was ready to grow in a different direction. My own medical challenges, while not insurmountable, ultimately felt like too great a gamble.

I found myself with the unusual luxury of time. For a while, I floated untethered, at loose ends, increasingly aware of a pressure building within me. By evening, the pressure grew so intense that I sought relief in a glass of wine. But this habit didn’t sit well with my body or my better judgment.

One morning, during meditation, I turned toward the pressure. I asked why it pressed so insistently against my ribcage and bore down on my gut. It spoke clearly: the time had come to continue becoming. Vague, I know, but somehow the path ahead cleared.

I’d always written for myself and occasionally shared with trusted others—poems, musings, essays, and short stories formed my private, unpolished opus. Professionally, I’d written as a psychologist, but I had never considered the possibility of becoming someone who writes seriously.

An idea for a novel came to me. It began as thinly veiled autobiography but quickly took on a life of its own. For a year, I wrote earnestly and mostly in private. I hired a writing coach to help me structure the story—a novel can easily become a messy thing. Otherwise, I rarely talked about it, fearing for the delicate nature of its development and doubting my ability to handle dismissal or ridicule.

Writing quickly became my happiest time. I started waking at 5:30 to drink coffee and work on my novel before seeing patients at 10 a.m. The pressure within me dissipated as I wrote, satisfied that its energy now had an outlet. Over time, the pressure morphed into fuel, driving me forward even now as I write these words.

For a year and a half, this was enough. But time rolls on, and the need for growth presented itself again. Molecules become cells, and cells become organs; the fetus grows until it must leave the womb and present itself to the world. My novel is nearing that point.

We live in a strange era where presenting oneself to the world involves branding—creating an identity to release into the ether. Self-promotion has become mandatory. Gone are the days when publishing houses funded book tours or carefully shepherded new authors into the literary world.

I am not a natural self-promoter, but the mandate of becoming requires that I try. I chose a new name. If you’re reading me for the first time, this essay introduces me under that name. It is my name in a different form, chosen to separate my professional identity from my new becoming as a writer. Yet, almost immediately upon adopting this name, I felt the solidification of my becoming.

Whether the world reflects back to me the self I am becoming remains to be seen. Either way, I will continue to write. The pressure has made its mandate clear. So here it is: the first essay I will publish on Substack, the first presentation of this nascent becoming to the world.

If you’ve read this far, perhaps you resonate with the yearning of which I speak. Perhaps you are where I was a year and a half ago, feeling the pressure but unsure how to translate it into action. If so, I don’t know how to help except to assure you that the urge to become—at any phase of life—is deeply human, and important.

If we fail to honor it, we risk becoming something we wish we hadn’t: a mistress, a divorcee, an alcoholic, or the owner of an absurd car. We risk dismantling the foundation we spent so much time building rather than recognizing it as the cornerstone upon which to grow. I believe it’s often best to transcend and include our former selves, becoming more complex versions of who we already are.

That’s not to say dismantling isn’t sometimes necessary—poisoned fruits are best removed from our gardens.

But before dismantling, I humbly suggest asking how you might transcend and include all that you have been, to build upon who you are for the adventure of what’s to come.