Midlife crisis.
Two words I often joked about and never thought, for even a brief second, would ever happen to me.
First off, midlife was something so far away and my young 20-something-self- at -the-time thought I was invincible and ageless and secondly, a crisis was something that happened to unhappy people who were spiralling downward.
Midlife and crisis would never happen to me.
But here we are… I will be 45 in a month and a friend called me out on it the other day saying that all these feelings of purpose and legacy and future that I was feeling were all large flashing beacons that I was going through something that she labelled the dreaded words… “midlife crisis”.
Now as a young person in my twenties I considered a midlife crisis to be an older people problem where they weren’t really happy with their lives so they turned to things like sports cars and boob jobs and dating younger people to fill the voids in their lives.
I stereo typed the words ‘midlife crisis’ to mean a breaking point where you felt you were nearing the end of your life so needed to live out one last, big ‘hurrah’ to check off that bucket list before you kicked the bucket.
I pictured Hugh Heffner lazing around the pool in a speedo with ladies that could be his grand-daughters on each arm, trying to live out his best life before his time on earth came to an end.
I’m sure some of you agree that you hear the words midlife crisis and shake your head thinking sports cars and mistresses, but according to Wikipedia a midlife crisis is a transition of identity and self-confidence that can occur in middle aged individuals, typically 45-65 years old.
This makes sense to me.
Apparently, a midlife crisis is a phase that helps people feel youthful again as they struggle to come to terms with the fact that their lives are half over.
It isn’t necessarily a bad thing… perhaps more of a reassessment of one’s life, but I am definitely feeling something and if that’s the label we want to put on it, then so be it.
I figure if this is the halfway point and I can live to be 90 then damn, that’s a pretty great life.
But why then am I feeling a bit down and blah and purposeless?
Well I guess for me this midlife feeling has me reassessing everything, from where I am, to where I’m going and what I’m leaving behind.
Seems deep?
Well yes, I guess it kind of is.
I feel like when you’re 20 you think you have a whole lifetime before you. You aren’t too focused on things like retirement and legacy as heck you can’t even keep twenty bucks in your wallet or a relationship that lasts longer than a few dates. You are invincible you think and the end of life seems decades and decades away.
Like a lot of people I know, life didn’t really start ‘happening’ for me until I turned 30. That was the golden age, at least for me, the magical 30’s of self-discovery, drive and commitment.
My 30’s are when I met my husband. When I got married. When I started my own company. When I had my children. When I stopped caring as much about nights out and saved for things like a couch and, gasp, a new front door wreath.
A time when I tucked money away, started lists of books to read and places to see and daydreamed about things I would accomplish and what they would look like in the decades to follow.
My 30’s were when I truly started to feel alive.
I had discovered who I was and could see where I was going.
I had lived life fully. Travelled, partied, dated, all the things that young people did. So perhaps that is why this midlife to me feels more like a ‘what’s my purpose’ period than a chance to buy fast cars and have flings. I’ve done that. My younger self fulfilled all that. I need more.
I feel I have so much I want to do. A legacy I want to create and leave behind and my time is ticking by, running out and taunting me.
This getting older should be treated as a gift. A time to reap all the seeds you had planted and enjoy.
But I know I am not alone in this… I need more.
Like you know that feeling you had when you got your first big job and received your first paycheck and made your first mortgage payment?!… yeah that feeling of accomplishment like ‘Shit I am going places’.
Well, I think that when you hit midlife you look back and assess all those hopes and dreams you had and realize that for as much as you have done, there is still so much more to do.
So where do I go?
Well truth be told, I am not certain as a wise person once told me that “the hardest part of moving forward was not looking back” and I feel this is easier said than done as looking back to me is a reflection of where you’ve been, but I guess in this later part of life I need to look ahead to where I’m going and appreciate the journey.
The body changes, but the life lived has earned that.
Like a badge of honour, aging is not something everyone gets to do.
Midlife is not something that everyone gets to experience.
So, on my quest for ‘The Midlife More’ as I have coined it… I am going to dig deep and really assess what my back half of this thing we call life really means to me.
I will eat the cake, lift the weights and all other things that contradict themselves because they have brought me this far and if this is what the back half looks like, then I will be ready for it, in the body I was given and the car I can afford.
Midlife More… I’m coming for you.
We’ve got this!
@half_full_most_days