NOTES FROM THE MIDDLE
Age, Life, Everything
December 21, 2025 Issue No. 05
A Small, Honest Moment From This Week
The Pause After the Numbers
I’ve been playing a lot of tennis this past year.
Part of the empty nest plan, I suppose.
Tennis has replaced driving to hockey and basketball and baseball and soccer and rugby and cross country. Fewer arenas. More courts. Less coffee sloshing in the cup holder. More pulled muscles. Less yelling from cold aluminum bleachers. More standing around pretending to stretch while actually gossiping.
It also means I’m constantly meeting new people. Every few weeks, as my name moves up and down the tennis ladder, I find myself re-introducing myself. Same ritual. Same small talk. Names, neighbourhoods, how long you’ve been playing, how bad your back is (always worse than last year, somehow).
And then, inevitably, the question.
Do you have kids?
How old are they?
Where do they go to school?
Where did they go to school?
What did they dress up as for Halloween this year?
The questions come easily, kindly. No one is prying. It’s just what you ask while waiting for your court time, while tying your shoes, while pretending you’re not already out of breath before you’ve even started.
Every time I answer now, I pause. Just a beat. A fraction of a second where the numbers hang in the air longer than I expect them to.
When I say the ages of my children, young adults really, something in me registers the sound of it. The way the numbers land differently than they used to. Older than they feel. Older than I feel. Like I’ve accidentally skipped a chapter out loud.
It’s not sadness. Not exactly. It’s more like recalibration. A quiet internal “oh, right.” A reminder that time has been doing its job while I wasn’t paying close attention.
For years, those answers were muscle memory. I could deliver them without thinking, usually while multitasking. One hand on the steering wheel, one eye on the clock, already late for something else. The ages changed, of course, but the category stayed the same. Kids. Teenagers. Students. Always in motion. Always headed somewhere specific and scheduled.
Now the category itself has shifted. Young adults. A phrase that still feels slightly borrowed, like wearing someone else’s coat. It fits well enough, but I’m not fully used to the weight of it yet.
What’s strange is how public the realization becomes. I don’t have this pause when I’m alone. It happens in conversation. With strangers. On courts surrounded by well-meaning women asking what my kids dressed up as for Halloween, unaware that the answer now requires a small historical footnote.
They went as…
Well, a few years ago…
It’s a tiny moment, but it happens again and again. Each time my mouth says the number and my body quietly checks in, just to confirm.
Yes. That’s true.
Yes. That’s where we are now.
And lately, I’ve realized why this pause feels sharper right now.
Soon, very soon, there will no longer be a “teen” at the end of anyone’s age when I say it. No more familiar numbers that quietly reassure you that, whatever else is changing, you’re still standing somewhere on known ground.
There’s something oddly stabilizing about teen years, even when they’re hard. The word itself suggests a middle. Not little anymore, but not fully launched either. Still tethered. Still orbiting close enough that you don’t quite feel the distance.
When the “teen” disappears, the language changes. The numbers sound cleaner. More final. Less provisional.
And that’s the moment I seem to keep running into lately. Standing on a tennis court, mid-conversation, realizing that my answers have crossed some invisible line.
On the court, I am just myself. No carpools. No calendars. No one needing snacks in exactly twelve minutes. Just a woman with a racquet, a slightly competitive streak, and a body that needs a longer warm-up than it used to.
And so the small talk shifts. Not dramatically. Just enough to notice.
The questions are the same ones I’ve answered for decades, but the answers engage me differently now. They’ve moved from present tense to something more reflective. Not past. Just broader. Less immediate. Less frantic. Less tied to a specific place I need to be in ten minutes.
I think that’s why the pause surprises me. It isn’t grief. It isn’t nostalgia. It’s recognition.
It’s the moment you hear your own life summarized in a sentence meant only to fill time, and realize it contains more chapters than it used to.
Then the game starts. Someone serves. Someone misses an easy shot. We all agree it was definitely the lights’ fault. And the conversation moves on.
Later, walking back to my car with that familiar, satisfying tiredness in my legs, I think about that pause again. How small it is. How quietly it announces itself. How it asks nothing from me except that I notice.
I don’t need to fix it. Or explain it. Or turn it into a big meaning-making exercise.
It’s just a moment of alignment.
A brief meeting between the life I’m living and the words I use to describe it.
And then, tomorrow or next week, on another court with another new set of names, someone will ask again.
Do you have kids?
I’ll smile.
I’ll answer.
I’ll pause, just for a second.
And then I’ll play on.
- Danielle
The Midlife Syllabus
Lesson #5:
Recalibration often begins with language. The way you answer questions. The way you describe your days. The way certain words suddenly feel outdated when you say them out loud.
Beauty, Grace & Daily Artistry
A small, imperfect pleasure:
Do you know that moment when it’s still dark out, but getting light around the edges, and you take that first sip of coffee so hot it has to be small?
The house is quiet. The day hasn’t asked anything of you yet.
I love that moment.
What I'm Reading, Watching or Listening to
Listening:
Scott Galloway: Notes on being a Man
Scott and I have both been raising boys who are now become young men. we are thinking about the same things. Constantly. Except he writes about it better and has put in the research.
As a side note, I always listen to Scott's books instead of reading them, because I'm kind of in love with his voice.
This Week on the Blog
If you missed it, here’s the piece I wrote about the year that didn’t go to plan. Not because you failed, but because life happened. If you’re looking back at the year and wondering how it all slipped sideways, this piece is a reminder that progress doesn’t always look like momentum and becoming isn’t tidy.
⟶ Read more