One - Introduction: Midlife

Summary

Introduction

I could not write for a year. For the first time since I can remember in my writing career, I literally could not type anything more than short sentences. Consequently, I postponed submission of this book. In hindsight, I believe that might have been a blessing in disguise. Prior to this pause in my writing, my intention was to create a book that could serve as a primer on geographical approaches to midlife in the context of our rapidly ageing world in the 21st century. I wanted to explore questions such as: What is midlife? How is it changing? Answers to these questions, which are bound by lifecourse, time and space, are long overdue in geography. I observed a dearth of research on midlife geographies, in stark contrast to the extensive studies on geographies of children, youth and older age over the past decade. As part of the ‘sandwich’ generation, individuals in midlife bear the heavy burden of both work and caregiving. Nevertheless, this crucial and shifting middle- aged cohort has received inadequate attention in the realms of geographical and social sciences scholarship.

However, both my life and the way I approached writing this book underwent significant changes. Instead of engaging in writing, I delved into extensive reading. Furthermore, I immersed myself in fieldwork, researching ageing in one project and studying transnational families and mobile individuals in another. This shift allowed me to discover the art of listening and observing with fresh eyes (Rubin and Rubin 2005). On revisiting interviews and field diaries from my earlier research on youth and ageing, I noticed elements that had previously eluded my understanding. These pertained to midlife as a significant process with its turning points, repertoires borrowed from popular media, reflections on life and relationships, and bodily changes. I realized that my personal experiences since completing those studies – with major turning points in my working life, the death of my father, ageing relatives and the challenges of raising a child transnationally, plus the sudden onset of anxiety and health scare – meant that I was a different researcher now compared to 10 or 15 years ago.