I Was 27 When It Happened

Why So Many Women in Midlife Are Carrying Unfelt Grief

I was 27 when it happened.

And like so many things that happen when we are young, I had no idea what a defining moment it would be for me, my family, and my life.

And like any girl-raised-to-be-a-woman in the 1970’-80s…

– Were we raised? Or just let loose in the world? –

…I did what any of us would have done. I pressed on.

Life got hard. I became harder.

Life was uncertain. I located certainty in my own capabilities.

Life dealt me lemons. I ate the damned lemons and didn’t complain about it.

Today is the 25th anniversary for my family of what we call The Crash. This year, my son is almost the same age that I was when The Crash happened.

I look at him and try to cobble together a memory of who I was at his age…free, expansive, full of possibilities.

And I wonder how the hell I made it through?

How did we all make it through?

And yet, we did.

And I bet you’ve done the same…gotten through the hard, impossible times of your life.

You made it through that accident, the trauma, the injury, the death…the most unexpected thing that you didn’t even KNOW you should be cashing in your worry on.

The thing you just never worried about because it happens to other people.

In my marriage, there’s life BEFORE The Crash and AFTER The Crash.

Like tracing tree rings that ripple out-out-out with your finger and feeling where the injury occurred all-those-rings-ago. If you close your eyes, you can feel the injury still…the collision that sent your life on an entirely different trajectory.

The how-did-it-happen-to-me from all those rings ago still live in the body.

And like all life crescendoing events, the day started like any other day.

Snoozing the alarm.

Rushing to make coffee.

Hurrying through a peck on the cheek or maybe not that day, I can’t even remember anymore.

Him going his way.

Me going mine.

Life becoming a time-stamped-stage played over and over to each other for decades to come:

Me: “I left that morning at 5:30am like always to meet Kathy for our 8 mile run before work…”

Him: “I got on my bike to make the 14 mile commute to work at six. I remember putting my helmet on as I was riding down the street.”

Me: “We took our run and I was in the shower at Kathy’s house when she knocked on the bathroom door, confused, saying the chaplain at university medical center was on the phone looking for me…”

Him: “I remember the light turning green, standing up to click into my pedal and then nothing else until…

Me: “I wrapped myself in a towel, took the phone, and sat stunned on the toilet listening to the chaplain say, ‘Are you Mrs. Glick? Greg Glick’s wife? There’s been an accident. You need to come to the hospital immediately.”

Him: “…I was high above my body, with Mother Mary, looking at the commotion happening on the busy road. Police cars. Ambulances. I was filled with peace sitting with Her. So much peace. But down there on the road, it was loud and chaotic. She indicated that I had a choice to stay in the place of peace or go back. But without words, she indicated that my place was back there in my body.”

This, a SNAP OF WILD, that shakes awake a normal work-a-day life.

One uninsured motorist, driving alone, maybe pushing the red to get to work or hungover after a night of partying. We never found out but he ran that light going 40mph and didn’t even hit the brakes.

Greg’s body smashed the front of the vehicle before being propelled 150 feet and hitting the asphalt.

[Whose fault? Asphalt! ← That’s our inside joke because if we didn’t have our humor, we’d never have made it through.]

How Women Learn to Survive Instead of Grieve

The Crash, just eight months after our wedding day and a few months before a big wall rock climbing trip in Yosemite that never happened, is being remembered this year with more tenderness than ever.

Greg turned 60 last year and I turned 52. We have fully launched our son and are squarely in the soft folds of midlife gazing back at the inferno that we buddy-rescued each other through for well over a decade.

We were forged by that event.

Bellies pressed to the earth, clawing our way through almost a decade of surgeries, therapies, sleepless nights, financial strain, relieve-us-fantasies of divorce, and more hopelessness than I care to remember.

Oh and in case you didn’t do the math, I discovered I was pregnant on the third day while Greg was in the hospital and his survival was still questionable…and so my entire pregnancy was colored by wheelchairs, walkers and emesis basins…his not mine.

What I see now, that I didn’t and couldn’t see while we were going through all of that as a family was this:

I never allowed myself to grieve.

Since Greg didn’t die, I didn’t believe that I had the right to grieve.

I didn’t even know that I felt grief I was just being a raised-in-the-70’s gal and taking care of business…everyday (🎶 everyway! And working all the time! 🎶🎵 Was that song about us?!).

I poured myself into the molds of motherhood, caretaker and career woman, slapped a strained smile on my face and parroted that phrase, “We’re just lucky he’s alive!”

My grief shapeshifted into productivity and success, busyness and urgency played starring roles in my life. <— Which now I know were trauma responses, me desperately clenching for safety.

Grief was for those people who REALLY had something bad happen to them.

Grief was for those who needed help and I was conditioned to be too self-sufficient to need anything.

Why So Many Women in Midlife Feel Emotionally Overwhelmed

If you are a woman in midlife and you find yourself having BIG emotions or ‘mood swings’, I know everyone says it’s hormones and I’m not here to tell you that it isn’t.

(Many women in midlife experience emotional overwhelm that gets dismissed as hormones alone. But for some women, midlife becomes the first time the nervous system finally slows down enough for years of unfelt grief, stress, trauma, loneliness, and survival-mode coping to rise to the surface.)

But I am going to say that it might just also be YEARS of unfelt grief.

Grief for hurts and heartaches, losses and loneliness.

Grief for what happened and what didn’t happen.

Grief for what you said and what you never dared to say.

Grief is NOT reserved only for those who’ve experienced the scoop-your-heart-out-along-with-your-will-to-live through the death of a beloved.

We ALL Walk With Unfelt Grief.

Everyone of us.

Grief has textured and tenderized me.

I’ve met the many months of sleepless nights due to ‘menopause’ as a pathway into the Underworld. A journey into my womanly depths where I must travel alone — which is why they happened at 1am when the world was sleeping.

During the inky dark nights, splayed open raw and worried, the gremlins emerge. Me trying to Whack-A-Mole them away through thinking, problem solving and rationalizing but ultimately succumbing to the realization that there were too many.

And they were coming for me not to be fixed but to be FELT.

I set up an altar in the spare bedroom and began to anticipate these all-night vigils with my furry furious feelings. I’d toggle between meditating, journaling, ecstatic dancing with headphones, sobbing, praying, and sobbing some more.

This went on for almost two years.

And it was during that time that I realized (real-eyes) all of the tapped down feelings that I’d never acknowledged.

How I’d paved right over my heart and body in order to GET THROUGH those many years conditioning productivity and hurriedness, sufficiency and efficiency in the place of “apprenticing with sorrow” (a beautifully apt term coined by Francis Weller).

Of course I was “FINE!” back then, my heart was covered with asphalt. {Who’s fault?! 🤣 ASPHALT!]

Midlife as an Invitation to Feel What Was Buried

Grief in midlife, like a jackhammer, loosened the concrete scabs, briney tears filling cracks and creating a river that I’ve finally become comfortable journeying on.

I’ve learned that grief is not optional and it’s not failure either.

Grief is the salt of our lives.

She seasons everything. Without her, we can’t touch the edges of pleasure, celebration, and praise.

There’s no GLORY without GRIEF.

On this day, 25 years ago, Life took me and my then-brand-new husband on what has been the ride of our lives. A normal day became a portal for a rich and well-seasoned marriage.

If you are a woman, or a man, in midlife feeling an uncommon breadth and depth of emotions as you are on this S-curve of life…

👀 I see you. 👀

If you are navigating midlife transitions, emotional overwhelm, grief, marriage shifts, or the feeling that your old ways of coping no longer fit, you do not have to walk through it alone.

Explore mentorship and support for women in midlife →

May you have the wisdom to wail, grieve, and walk with sorrow. And may you have the courage to love, play, and praise the majesty of it all along the way.

Sending love to you, xojg

Frequently Asked Questions

Why do women experience intense emotions during midlife?

Midlife often brings emotional changes connected to hormones, stress, identity shifts, and unresolved grief or trauma.

Can grief show up years after a traumatic event?

Yes. Many people suppress grief while surviving difficult experiences, only processing those emotions later in life.

Is emotional overwhelm during menopause normal?

Many women experience emotional intensity during menopause and midlife transitions, especially when long-held stress and emotions begin surfacing.

What is unfelt grief?

Unfelt grief refers to emotional pain, sadness, loss, or disappointment that was never fully processed or expressed.