Christina Myers is a former journalist and the author of Halfway Home: Thoughts from Midlife (Anansi, 2024), and The List of Last Chances (Caitlin Press, 2021) which was longlisted for the Leacock Medal. She is a member of Da’naxda’xw First Nation and lives in Surrey, B.C.
From first bra to first hot flashes, the essays in Halfway Home re-consider the lessons we’ve learned through media and culture–and from each other—about our bodies, gender roles, aging, parenting, and our own futures in an uncertain world, as we reach and move through midlife.
Interviewed by Yvonne Blomer
Yvonne Blomer (YB): Your event at the festival is Redefining the Modern Writer’s Journey. How does being a writer inform some of the life events you write about? For example being a public person, precarious earnings as a freelance writer, varying identities as a woman, mother, writer and Indigenous person as well as keeping parts of your life private?
Christina Myers (CM): In a lot of ways, being able to write about–and therefore share with others–my own life becomes a way to also navigate. I think a writer’s brain is always seeking the narrative line: what does this mean, why is this happening, what will come of it, how does this relate to a universal experience that might be familiar to others? We think about and analyze, sometimes even while still living through something. Writing this book forced me to look at topics that had been simmering for a long time and to wrestle with them in some way. I have found many times over my life that putting something into words releases some of its power over you, so writing about hard things can feel vulnerable, overwhelming, challenging – but also cathartic. I think it’s important to be honest, to put into the world the truth of what you’re thinking, not to shape it to fit a box or to appeal. So if you’re going to say it, say it real. On the other hand, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve gotten better at knowing how much of my life to “mine” and to share – there are passages in the book where I say quite specifically that there are things that don’t need to go on a page or to a reader, that they’re not things I need to dissect publicly. I am specifically careful about the ways in which I write about my children – in fact, I’d say I don’t write about them at all really. I used to write funny things when they were little: lighthearted or comical depictions of the chaos that can be raising little kids. But as they got older, I set that aside. I write about my experience of being a mother to them, about what that means for me, but I don’t write about their lives, their experiences, because it’s not my place to give them that footprint in publication.
YB: Your book is in three sections, with the first exploring the adolescent self. In each essay the older self offers solace or understands things and events differently. Do you think there is any way to not go through those tough things as a young girl? If not the “pencil test” perhaps something else would have come along? Are we always going to find ways to be ashamed or embarrassed?
CM: Such a great question. I used to think there was a way to do exactly this. That many of the challenges of that period of life could be ameliorated and eased by existing in a different kind of world – that if you could prepare kids, teach them, guide them, make sure they had all the information about what was coming, and raise them in a world that was more open minded and progressive and kind, they could bypass this. But I wonder now if that’s possible. I was moving into adolescence almost 40 years ago and so much has changed since then – I don’t recall there being any conversations at school about bullies or bullying, for example, but there’s still something about the transitions of that part of life that seem to create dynamics of challenge – friendships shifting, body changes, an awareness of self as an individual distinct from the parent, and so on. I hope it has gotten better, but I think perhaps the very process of evolution of an individual over their lifetime creates conflict points that have to be navigated. And there’s no way to avoid most of the big stuff – broken hearts, disappointments, failures, and so on.
YB: Was there a particular moment or series of moments that led you to writing this book? It has such a fine conversational quality, both with the self and out to women in the world.
CM: Oh thank you! It means so much to me that you’d describe it that way because in many ways it really arose out of conversations with friends and peers. I realized over time that I was writing about, and talking about, the same topics over and over again, and a lot of my thinking in spare moments – say, while driving in the car or washing dishes – was circling these same topics. I really felt like – and still feel like – I was moving from one season of life into another and that transition point was complicated for me. The more I realized that it was complicated for other people, that many of my friends were silently managing the same questions and uncertainties, the more necessary it felt to write these essays. You know how it is as a writer: once an idea takes hold of you, it’ll just haunt you until you start working on it!
YB: I loved the blue leggings section, “Red lipstick and dresses with big skirts”. So much of our confidence or lack thereof seems to be about self-perception, which can be an ever-changing sense or feeling of the self. Now that you have embraced style and colour, then lost it due to the pandemic and a return to dark colours in comfy clothes, how is it re-embracing and nearing your 50s?.
CM: Something I have had to learn and re-learn is that the process of loving yourself – or just not being so mean to yourself all the time at least – is not a single activity. It happens over and over again. You live in the world that continues to give you messages about what you should look like, how you should be, and at the same time you keep changing, getting older, experiencing new things, evolving. So you have to keep coming back to the table with a new version of yourself and wrestle with how we feel and who we are – and who we want to be. I want to say I come to that table with enthusiasm and determination but it is still a challenge. I keep fighting for myself and I think that’s all any of us can do. Having said all that, there is absolutely a freedom that underpins this conversation that you start to really discover at this age. The closet still has a lot of black because I love black (and it’s not just a hiding colour for me anymore – it’s also a great base for big jewelry or dramatic shoes!) But it also has a lot of raspberry and emerald and rainbow and floral. I think clothes for me will always be a primary marker of how I’m navigating that relationship with my body and myself.
YB: Final question, with aging, growing kids, health concerns, and climate change where do you see your writing in the next several years? What do you think the future of literature and the written word is?
CM: Interesting question. I can imagine returning to these topics and questions in the future – how else will I find my way if I don’t write about it! But I think for some memoirist and non-fiction writers, there is a real pull to spend time in the escape of fiction. I started in non-fiction but my first book was actually a novel. And I’m working on my next novel right now. A lot of fiction is still rooted in our lives, in our experiences, but we can manipulate the outcomes in a different way. That feels very powerful and pleasurable. And I think in general, in terms of what’s ahead for books and writing and reading, I think we’re in the start of a real renaissance. The little tv boxes in our hands have dominated a lot of our free time and attention in the last decade, but I see Gen Z really setting technology aside and coming back to books, rejecting the “mindless scroll.” And the work coming out from younger writers right now is incredible, across all genres. I think there’s a confidence among younger writers to get their work out into the world that is really incredible and inspiring to me. I’ve definitely learned a lot from watching younger writers at readings and events in the last few years!