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<span style="font-size:11.0pt">By Leza Lowitz<span style="color:#1F497D"> - </span>
>From "If Women Ruled the World"</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:11.0pt">Edited by Sheila Ellison</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:10.0pt"> </span></p>
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<strong><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif; font-weight:normal">Woman's Midlife Wisdom</span></strong><b></b></p>
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<span style="font-size:10.0pt"> </span></p>
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<strong><span style="font-size:14.0pt">WAITING</span></strong><span style="font-size:14.0pt"></span></p>
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<span style="font-size:10.0pt"> </span></p>
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You keep waiting for something to happen,</p>
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the thing that lifts you out of yourself,</p>
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catapults you into doing all the things you've put off</p>
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the great things you're meant to do in life,</p>
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but somehow never quite get to.</p>
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You keep waiting for the planets to shift</p>
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the new moon to bring news,</p>
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the universe to align, something to give.</p>
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Meanwhile, the piles of papers, the laundry, the dishes, the job---</p>
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it all stacks up while you keep hoping</p>
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for some miracle to blast down upon you,</p>
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scattering the piles to the winds.</p>
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Sometimes you lie in bed, terrified of your life.</p>
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Sometimes you laugh at the privilege of waking.</p>
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</p>
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But all the while, life goes on in its messy way.</p>
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And then you turn forty. Or fifty. Or sixty...</p>
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and some part of you realizes you are not alone</p>
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and you find signs of this in the animal kingdom---</p>
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when a snake sheds its skin, its eyes glaze over,</p>
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it slinks under a rock, not wanting to be touched,</p>
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and when caterpillar turns to butterfly,</p>
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if the pupa is brushed, it will die---</p>
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and when the bird taps its beak hungrily against the egg</p>
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it's because the thing is too small, too small,</p>
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and it needs to break out.</p>
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And midlife walks you into that wisdom</p>
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that this is what transformation looks like---</p>
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the mess of it, the tapping at the walls of your life,</p>
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the yearning and writhing and pushing,</p>
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until one day, one day</p>
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you emerge from the wreck</p>
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just as you are,</p>
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no, even better than that</p>
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because you know it now</p>
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both the immense dawn </p>
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and the dusk of the body</p>
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and it's all still there,</p>
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glistening and new.</p>
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