What stage are you at?
Your age is irrelevant.
My father is dying.
Not this week, not next, but inevitably, soon. Lung cancer and skin cancer. He’ll be 89 this August and still living independently; still making his own wheaten bread each week, and walking the dog each day. So there is a sense of expectation that comes with this period of time. It’s not a shock, even though it still feels shocking. His life now spins on the axis of medical appointments. As he said the other day, he has so many things going on he can’t keep track - skin cancer on his head, cataracts and glaucoma in his eyes, lung cancer and COPD in his lungs, and corns on his feet. I told him at least he is going for it with gusto, literally from the top of his head to the soles of his feet. A bit like his life. We laughed, but still, it’s fucking hard.
His age is irrelevant though because he redefined those categories a long time ago. In his 40’s he gave up a 60-a-day smoking habit and took up running. He only stopped running three times a week 18 months ago at the age of 87, just a couple of months before his lung cancer diagnosis.
So his age is not that relevant; it’s his stage that matters. A stage where he has slowed right down from the dynamo he always was. A stage where he is no longer the dominant character in our family, but a quiet, more vulnerable presence. A stage where my brother and I make the effort to see him every week so he isn’t alone. For ten years after my mum died and I struggled to manage my girls and home on my own, he would drive down from Belfast to Dublin every second or third weekend to help me with DIY and the garden. That stage is over. Now it’s the stage where I go to him every week, my girls old enough to be left alone, my hands now the strong ones for his DIY and garden.
When my mum had her stoke, her age was irrelevant. She had been a fit, social, engaged woman who overnight entered a five year stage of needing 24 hour care. A stage where we all rallied around her, in honour of the robust love and care she had always given us.
Stages are what make our lives what they are, not ages. Your stage is what needs your investment, not your age.
And I’m in a stage of flux.
As my dad enters this end stage, my three children are launching into independent life with a gusto that reminds me of my own. After what felt like a relentless rollercoaster of care and need, most of it as a single parent, suddenly I’m at a stage where my girls are bounding off on their own. Daisy, my eldest, is 20, at college, working, has a boyfriend and is off living her best life this summer. (The care and need is still there, but only for money and errands!). Poppy just turned 18, and this summer, although still technically a school girl, no longer requires my mothering. She requires lifts. And alcohol runs. And money. But less mothering. She is at the stage of her life where the rope that attaches us is getting looser and looser so she can become who she needs to become. Every so often I have to yank it taught, but on the whole, she is the horse cantering on a loose rope, venturing further and further into her own independence.
My youngest, Ruby, will be 15 soon. Still my hugger and chatterer, but she too, increasingly “has plans” and I am left in the whiplash of being so needed that it almost broke me, to staring after their three backs as they run out the door, glorious, beautiful beacons of launch-stage.
So as a parent, I am becoming less of a container and more of a net.
So where does that all leave me? There is both terror and anticipation of what it means for me in the forthcoming stage where the love and care bookends of my life are falling away, leaving me exposed.
I am 55 but that means nothing. Age is a mindset, not a definition. Not any more. When I coach women, it is never their age that we focus on, but their stage. The one they are in, and the one they want to intentionally create ahead.
I’m going to admit to having some stage fright.
In the relentless overwhelm of the last few years, I have at times looked desperately ahead with anticipation of a time when my mental, physical and emotional energy could be invested back on me. To explore, expand and exhale in my own way, in my own time.
But I could anticipate with relish when I was still safely ensconced in my sandwich stage… neatly wedged between parents and kids. Now, that anticipation is laced with a little fear. A little trepidation. A little uncertainty.
The last two decades of my life has been carved in care, moulded by my mothering and daughtering, my shoulders broadened by the burden (and privilege) of being responsible for everyone. This next stage, regardless of my age, will be have to be chiselled by my own decisions and desires. What I often mistook as a ball and chain, was also a rock. Who am I and what will I become as I step on to this new stage?
Who am I going to become, untethered, the safety rope that I thought I was holding for others, cut loose by them?
I’m at the stage where somewhere in between my children’s independent lives and my father’s death, lies me.
A stage to reflect on what have I done with the time that I’ve had, and what do I do with the time I have left.
My time left is now so unpredictable and so unknown, every day that I waste in laundry I feel a tightness in my chest. I have to work hard to remind myself that the drudgery of life is also the result of a full life. Laundry and shopping lists and carpet stains that need scrubbed are the signs of a life filled with purpose.
And now I have to slowly replace a lot of them with new purpose.
Between life and death, lies me.
What do I do with the time I have left?
How do I pay for it?
Who do I share it with?
How do I return to myself when I’ve been so fragmented by care?
How do I make sure that however many weekends I have left (1808 according to ChatGPT if I live to be 90) I use them to grow and expand and explore?
How do I use them to not just be with the people that I have, but to also now search and to seek broader community?
I’ve had two clients this week planning early retirement, realising they don’t have enough community, activities, connections outside of work. Just when they thought they could relax, they realise they have to “get out there” and make something more of their wider lives. Each stage of your life brings a new learning curve and a new set of instructions.
What do I do with the 1808 weekends I might have left? There are so many pulls on that time: to close my eyes and rest; to open my eyes and run. Or just to get the jobs done that need to be done; mow the lawn, paint the windowsill, put another load of laundry on for the towels. Think about changing the carpet but never have enough money to change the carpet. Go on a date. Hang out with my friends. Make the effort to find new ones. Read the pile of books that grow like my houseplants, while the dust gathers and the windows stay smeared for another week. Reinvent. Reinvest. Relaunch.
Which do I prioritise?
There is so much I want to do still. And some days I want to do nothing. And in this culture of haste and hurry and achievement, doing nothing seems such a waste. Yet in cultures around the world, doing nothing is as important as doing everything. It’s the Yin and Yang of humanity - work and rest, explore and exhale, embrace what you have and pursue what you want.
I want so desperately to slow the pace and that is what this next stage of my life allows. I’m not there yet. But in building the foundations of this next stage, there will be space to determine the pace - time to explore, time to expand and time to exhale.
I am not alone. I am not starting over. I am not being abandoned.
I am stepping forward, armed with the memories and scars of a life well lived, a life well worn, to a stage where the love and learnings from being this daughter and being this mother arm me with glory, guts and grace.
What stage are you at? As we begin the second half of 2025, that might be a big enough stage to consider for now. Or maybe you are entering a broader new stage post-divorce, new career, more time, and just need to recognise it? What is changing? What is possible now that wasn’t before?
In this age-obsessed age, don’t worry about your next birthday. Focus on living your next stage with as much curiosity and intention as you can. As always, my paid subscribers can email me at alana@alanakirk.com for an exercise on how to think about this next stage in life. And below are ways I might be able to help you be intentional about this next stage, whatever that is.
And if you want to realy learn how to explore, expand and exhale, how about coming with me to Marrakech this November? Soul & Spice is not a retreat. It’s for women brave enough to move forward. In their next stage, whatever that is.
This is a pause with purpose.
It’s designed to help you:
✦ Reawaken your five senses in one of the world’s most vibrant cities
✦ Reconnect with your sixth sense – your inner voice, your spark
✦ Reclaim your sense of self through powerful group coaching
All the details are here.
And if you fancy one powerful hour with me to figure out your next brave steps details of my Breakthrough Empower Hour are here. (10% discount for my paid subscribers).
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