This is the middle of my life, I think of it as a place, like the middle of a river, the middle of a bridge, halfway across, halfway over. I'm supposed to have accumulated things by now: possessions, responsibilities, achievements, experience and wisdom. I'm supposed to be a person of substance.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the expectations and self-assessment that come with reaching the midpoint in life.
In this quote, Margaret Atwood contemplates the notion of a 'midlife' phase, using the imagery of a river and a bridge to symbolize transition and reflection. She muses on societal expectations to have achieved certain milestones by this point in life, such as material possessions, responsibilities, and wisdom, highlighting both the pressures and the introspection that define this stage.
In practice
During a midlife career workshop, I shared this quote to encourage reflection on personal and professional growth.
If I am good enough and quiet enough, perhaps after all they will let me go; but it’s not easy being quiet and good, it’s like hanging on to the edge of a bridge when you’ve already fallen over; you don’t seem to be moving, just dangling there, and yet it is taking all your strength.
I would like to believe this is a story I’m telling. I need to believe it. I must believe it. Those who can believe that such stories are only stories have a better chance. If it’s a story I’m telling, then I have control over the ending. Then there will be an ending, to the story, and real life will come after it. I can pick up where I left off.
What else can I do? Once you've gone this far you aren't fit for anything else. Something happens to your mind. You're overqualified, overspecialized, and everybody knows it. Nobody in any other game would be crazy enough to hire me. I wouldn't even make a good ditch-digger, I'd start tearing apart the sewer-system, trying to pick-axe and unearth all those chthonic symbols - pipes, valves, cloacal conduits... No, no. I'll have to be a slave in the paper-mines for all time.
We love each other, that’s true whatever it means, but we aren’t good at it; for some it’s a talent, for others only an addiction.
I've learned quite a lot, over the years, by avoiding what I was supposed to be learning.
Knowing too much about other people puts you in their power, they have a claim on you, you are forced to understand their reasons for doing things and then you are weakened.
If a man is alive, there is always danger that he may die, though the danger must be allowed to be less in proportion as he is dead-and-alive to begin with. A man sits as many risks as he runs.
I really just like characters who you don't know where they stand for a long while. It's like people. You hang out with them for 10 years, and then all of a sudden they do something, and you say, 'Who are you?' That's more interesting. In life and on-screen.
And through our travels we get separated, never forget:_x000D_ _x000D_ In order to survive, got to learn to live with regrets.
Nothing shapes your life more than the commitments you choose to make.
One cat just leads to another. The place is so damned big it doesn't really seem as though there were many cats until you see them all moving like a mass migration at feeding time.
Becoming yourself is really hard and confusing, and it's a process. It's often not cool to be the person who puts themselves out there.
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