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[0:00] Bobby Steggert: I'm Bobby Steggert, and this is The Quiet Part Out Loud.

[0:15] Bobby Steggert: I woke up this morning thinking about how bizarre it is to find myself so squarely middle-aged. This year's birthday, I made my friends dress up in gray wigs and thrift store blouses so that we could have breakfast at a diner on 90th Street in elderly style. I was turning 45, half of 90, and it felt appropriate. Other signs of age have been announcing themselves with increasing volume. I should say that I woke up this morning at 5am, wide awake and ready to go, which feels very elderly-coded. I have to have my first colonoscopy in a few weeks. I'm terrified not to eat for a whole day. I find myself genuinely drawn to things like jigsaw puzzles and identifying bird species. And some things feel more consequential.

I recently went on a vacation with a bunch of friends in their 30s, and it genuinely took me a week to recover from the vacation. I've always had a story that I was ageless, assisted in my delusion by genetics and a boyish curiosity. But I've also believed, as we all might on some level, that I was the exception to the rule that I would outlive everyone. What a lovely and horrifying prospect. A friend of mine died a couple of years ago, and I can't say I have fully processed his passing. He was older and had been declining rapidly. The last time I saw him, I brought him the gift of a protective crystal from my recent trip to Sedona, where they say that the red rocks are charged with spiritual energy.

I didn't realize then that I was replacing myself with the crystal, but that's exactly what I was doing, offering a talisman of comfort because I could no longer offer it myself. He would die a year later, and I felt unable to say goodbye before he did. He would talk very openly about the mysteries and horrors of aging, but with such equanimity that it always landed on my ears like a folk tale, not the very reality of his skin and bones. I wonder what he felt when he was 45, half of 90, and a lifetime away from the end. Was he surprised that it all flashed before his eyes? Did he recognize himself in the end?

[2:26] Bobby Steggert: I'll admit something here about my current work as a therapist. So I got into the game with the express purpose of healing the young people who are struggling with the same things that ail me: shame, fear, anxiety, bewilderment. What I've learned, and this is no disrespect to younger listeners, is that they are impressively stubborn in their views of themselves. Psychologists believe that there is a necessary and developmentally appropriate delusion in younger adulthood that one truly knows themselves in these years. Otherwise, the world would simply be too intolerable to navigate as an exposed nerve. Now this can result in a kind of bravery that is admirable, one that I certainly had when I did things on stage I can't imagine taking the risk of doing today.

I've also observed and experienced the strange inverse. You may not have any fucking idea who you are, but you are quite sure of the countless things that are wrong with you, and can spend much of your boundless energy creating complex narratives detailing such faults. It's another kind of relentless self-focus that is, in this case, heartbreaking. The challenge of working with people in this part of their lives is that they just aren't ready to hear that it will all change. The only answer is to let it play out, to let them believe that they know exactly what's what, and to rely on the humility of age to let them figure it out. Maybe that's the biggest surprise of middle age. First you sift through the clichés that do have some bearing.

Yes, you care less about what people think. Yes, you're wiser and smarter and have a better handle on your priorities. And yes, FOMO becomes nearly non-existent as you begin to dream instead of being in bed by 9:30. But what's surprising is the simultaneous not-knowing-fucking-anything-anymore. As soon as you learn that there really is no rule, no path, no guiding force, nothing to truly count on forever, the humbling is the lack of certainty that pervades literally everything around you. In this moment, if I am being as genuinely honest as I can bear to be, I'm not sure I could cohesively explain who I am to you. I am a good person and I am selfish. I'm serious and irresponsible. I'm kind and judgmental.

I'm joyful and I'm angry. Maybe what I'm not anymore is ashamed. Maybe that's the beautiful humbling of age, that this force that drove every breathing moment for four decades just got tired enough of running the show to go into early retirement. You see enough, you try hard enough, and you realize that amongst all of the deeply imperfect people on this earth, you've done enough to land somewhere in the middle of the heap. This is not false modesty, this is reality. And this is a relief. It's also a relief to apply this realization to the world. Even the decade-long shitshow that we've been suffering under seems to finally be morphing into something different. He's still here, bloviating and ruining everything he touches.

His sting is distinctly blunted, and everyone knows it. There was once talk of a dangerous shift into fascism, and now we're just rolling our eyes as he shits his pants. It doesn't mean it's no longer dangerous. Where we're headed is just as uncertain. There's no promise, not even a likelihood, that things will be better. The next election could have nothing to do with culture wars and everything to do with computers replacing our brains. But in all of this, I do find a perverse comfort. Take the span of human history alone and you can place the current uncertainty in a context of constant uncertainty. There was once the truly hell-belief that the printing press would lead to the end of civilization.

And there's never been a time in American history, despite our national story of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, that has not been overwhelmed by economic disparity and intense division. It's the truth of human society, and it's been much worse than it is today.

[6:18] Bobby Steggert: How to explain that middle age means caring a lot less and a lot more about everything all at once? How is it to make a younger person understand that they too will become more curious about a bird's mating call, while becoming somewhat dulled in their convictions about a war in the Middle East? And how could my friend, as he was facing death, possibly have communicated to me the hidden treasures and roadblocks of the decades to come? I wasn't ready to hear that everything will change. This is the point in a thought experiment when you'd expect, maybe even hope, for a warm reminder that all we have is love. That our connections to those we love is what life is all about. That everything else pales in comparison.

There's a lot to be said for this, so I will not take this opportunity to rinse and repeat. I think what I want to add from my perch in the middle of the presumed timeline is something more elemental. What I have begun to experience, and what I hope for anyone who finds this idea foreign, what I know my friend who died had when he was able to let go, is the experience of being in your own skin and realizing every once in a while that it's nice to be here. Can you imagine a more mundane and murky view of contentment? And then again, can you imagine what a miracle it would be to touch that every day, and to string each day into a collection of small delights that add up to a life wisely observed?

[7:50] Bobby Steggert: I find myself squarely middle-aged, awake before the sunrise, and grateful for the chance to share this with whomever is ready to hear it.