The Midlife Crisis
 

I'm 40, so I guess the timing is right. I am just wondering what is "normal" (as if there is such a thing) and what form other folks' midlife crises have taken -- how you feel/felt, if you changed anything in your life, etc. Was your reaction reasonable and mature?

What do you think compels otherwise responsible, logical adults to do stupid things once they hit that age? Or do you think that those who leave their spouses, buy sports cars and take sabbaticals, that sort of thing...weren't quite right in the head in the first place?

I'm not contemplating anything drastic, not going to ditch the hubby or cheat. The restlessness I feel isn't that...it's just sort of a general regret for the road not taken. In my 20's I was focused on earning a living, getting all set up and financially secure, then in my 30's it was all about motherhood. I don't regret any of that, necessarily. I guess I just wanted MORE, if that makes any sense at all.

That probably sounds like the typical language of a midlife crisis.

I'm solving this dilemma, I hope, by going back to college. I know what I want to do, at least for the main goal, but I'm planning to enjoy the journey too. I get the joy of being around young people (well, sometimes it's a joy...), being nudged to think about stuff I wouldn't otherwise contemplate, having to push myself to do work I wasn't sure I could do, and Yippee! getting honest, timely feedback. Maybe I'll even make some friends.

I think that my hubby is worried, though. I started back to school spring quarter and I'm taking some summer classes, but this fall I throw myself into it full time on campus. I'm changing, and in a good way - I feel like I'm becoming who I'm supposed to be, not the person I just fell into being...more confident, more likely to stand up and argue instead of avoiding confrontation. It's not like he hasn't changed over the years too, also in a good way; he's taken classes too, changed careers, and is so settled and comfy now that I'm worried, too. Either his big crisis is forthcoming, or one of these days we'll get fed up with each other for having grown too far apart. Or maybe not. Maybe he'll be my sail, and I'll be the wind.

Well, this is kind of a personal thing. Just thought it was an interesting topic and wanted to know how others have dealt with it.

I'm in the middle of it now - changing jobs, reflecting upon the past, looking at the future and adjusting accordingly. I am determined now to do more of what I want, of what is best for ME. I am becoming more selfish, but in a good way. I gave the last 25 years to others and sacrificed above & beyond most for them. Now it is time for me ,to better me, to be more of the person I want to become and do the things I want to do.

I decided that I was going to take better care of my body and exercise more. So last summer I did the early bird swim three times a week. It felt great to be doing that all summer, but the summer ended and I never got around to doing it again this summer.

My wife is going through her mid life crisis this summer. It's consisted of going back to her high school reunion and touching base with a couple of old flames there, taking a Pilates class, and starting jogging. Fortunately, the old flames at the reunion all had mostly lost their luster. And now she is in the best shape she's ever been in since I met her. Her abs are amazing.

I still think I should exercise more, and I hope I will.

Mostly the mid-life crisis has been positive for us.

Edit: Oh, I forgot, I changed my hairstyle a year or two ago and use product now. I think it looks better than my old hairstyle.

I've been focusing on the small stuff, trying to be fully engaged when interacting with the other humans, hearing and seeing my surroundings, doing work that is interesting and helps, leaving the cap on the bottle, and exercising for the mind-body connection.

I'm in the fail part of my usual Try and Fail cycle.
Lord knows what will happen when I hit 40 - I already have a past littered with life-changing decisions.

I'm slowly and quietly making changes again, but I think I need a medication review first. I think I'm below the bottom end of the correct dosage for me to be a productive member of society and I really mustn't slip any further. One of the important things I need to try to get is counselling. Once I get some motivation again.

I'll be interested in your experience of being around teens. It's been the main reason I havebn't gone back into education. Dana seems to do okay, but I know Brianna has had some issues. Personally, I could bear it - but part of that is because of my experience of going back to college at 18, two years olderr than the other students. Perhaps at that age, two years is more significant than twenty...

Oh... jogging and doing your hair is no midlife crisis glatt. you'll see soon when the real crisis hits. Sorry.

As for me, it started at about 38 and I'm still in it at 44. When act 2 ended, I had: divorce, business failure, political readjustment, financial near-ruin, and a period of lethargy, confusion and weight gain. Act 3 begins with a fiancee, a job that kinda no longer suits me, and playing out in bands.

I have lost my certainty at how the world operates, and gained a kind of humility. I have realized how mortality operates (I am going to fuckin DIE and every day that point gets CLOSER!) and how you systematically ignore it in your 20s and 30s. I am at once more comfortable with myself, and less.

This right here is my peer group! ;)

I'm making slow changes, but there is so much more I need to figure out. I'm at the point where I think there must be so much more, but then I'm quite content, then I'm downright sad.

That dying thing: sometimes I get so freaked out about people who've been dead for hundreds of years and I think someday I will have been dead for hundreds of years. I had to quit playing my sherlock holmes game for a while because he kept referring to these artist from the 16th, 17th century and I think "they once had a life, they once questioned and cared and loved and hurt, and now they're not even meals for worms anymore." Morbid, I know.

I love this thread and glad you started it, Juniper. Can I call you Junie? That sounds really cute!

:)

Here, most students enter college at 18. I'm in the upper part of that educational journey, so mostly would be with those aged 20 and up. That does indeed make a difference. But I'm still old enough to be their mama. ;)

Bet you end up wanting to kick one of them in the cunt.

Yeah, but I had sort of a revelation about that last spring, during the last part of the quarter. I watched their snotty "I'm young and sexy" struts, felt jealous because I'm old and dumpy. :) But then I realized...they've got all the hard work ahead of them, and I'm past that. They still have to find someone worth marrying, pop out a few babies, spend mind-numbing days watching babies toddle around and sit with other moms at the playgroup comparing stretch marks and labor stories, lamenting how they've lost their groove...and I'm done with all that. My kids are now old enough to make their own breakfasts and even stay home for an hour while mom goes to run errands...and they go to school all day, so I can too!

Like that scene in Fried Green Tomatoes where the young'uns in the little car beat the middle-aged lady to the parking space..."haha, we're younger and faster!" So she crunches into them and pushes them out of the way?! "I'm older, and I've got better insurance!" :D

That was really well put. The certainty that I had in my youth slowly slips away. It seems the more I know, the more I don't know... and never will.

The mortality issue has begun to weigh more heavily upon me as well. Perhaps thats why I am doing more now - I wanna do this or that or whatever. If I don't start doing stuff now, I never will.

I feel that as I turned 40, I am more comfortable with myself as a woman. Can't really explain it though. I feel good about myself more and more as I have really cranked up the workout regime and am completely obsessed with it now. The results are showing more and that's a good thing for my self esteem.

Mid-life Crisis. Certainly in mid-life and in crisis most of the time unfortunately.

I love that movie, juniper, and that part is classic!

I love that book ;)

I read the book, too. I read most of Fannie's books.

Oh, speaking of books, I got Cider House Rules out of the library the other day because so many people here were talking about Irving. I had read Garp but not CHR...haven't started yet as I'm reading some others I got, but will post thoughts in the book thread when I do.

I really loved Fried Green Tomatoes and Daisy Fay, but after that she seemed to get unbearably twee... Maybe she always was and I was too young to recognise it? Lots of God in the ones I read recently too. I'm interested in your opinion.

Cider House Rules was pretty good from what I remember (was that the book where a man was looking for a woman with an aperture as small as a mouse's ear?) I prefer A Prayer for Owen Meany though. I heard a recording of Irving doing Owen Meany's voice a while back - it was as I imagined it.

Well, I wouldn't call Fannie's books great literature, but they are amusing. I liked the recurring characters. A little too much God for me, but...oh, which one was it where God was that old lady in that house? I don't remember. I liked them, in a amusing story kind of way.

I had just seen Cider House Rules on TV a couple weekends ago. I am anxious to see if there are major differences between the movie and book.

I read "Standing in the Rainbow" but apparently didn't think much of it, because I can't remember much about it...I think it had something to do with traveling singing families and radio stations out in the boonies.

Oh and yes, I've read the book and watched the movie too. I really liked the movie because it has two awesome actresses in it, Kathy Bates and Jessica Tandy, couldn't go wrong. Loved the look on the hubby's face when he came home to find his wife all wrapped up in plastic. ;)

Yeesh.
Remind me never to venture into your old people threads.
not for a long time at least.

*shiver*

at least ive got a good twenty-odd years before i get there.
if i get that far.

You're in a different crisis stage. Psychologist Erik Erikson postulated eight stages of psychosocial development in life, each with its own crisis:

Infancy (Birth - 18 months)
-- Psychosocial Crisis: Trust vs. Mistrust
Muscular-anal stage (1 1/2 - 3 Years)
-- Psychosocial Crisis: Autonomy vs. Shame & doubt
Play Age (3-6 Years)
-- Psychosocial Crisis: Initiative vs. Guilt
School Age (7-10 Years)
-- Psychosocial Crisis: Industry vs. Inferiority
Adolescence (10-17 Years)
-- Psychosocial Crisis: Identity vs. Role Confusion (thus "identity crisis" -UT)
Young Adulthood (18-40 years)
-- Psychosocial Crisis: Intimacy vs. Isolation
Middle Adulthood (40-65 Years)
-- Psychosocial Crisis: Generativity vs. Stagnation
Late Adulthood (from 65 years)
-- Psychosocial crisis: Integrity vs Despair

Actually, I havent been all identity crisis-y for a while. I'm pretty set when it comes to that, for now, I think.
I'm actually moving more into the next crisis, lately, i think.

Sounds like you are on the right track Juniper.

Mr. and Ms Warch are 43 and 46 respectively. And it has been a wild ride since around 38-39. Big changes and new chapters. We're still together, but watched many others separate as they took on new paths.

Ours involved moving across country, me in school, him making a big identity heavy and uncertain job change, dealing with health things once taken for granted and the deaths of peers from both illness and bad choices. We want to keep alert, keep learning and exploring. Travel is what we want more of, next. The raw perception that comes from a new place, but with our secure home base to come home to.

I think its an exciting time. Every decade should get more interesting.
Griff's and Tony's comments made me think of this lovely poem by Mary Oliver.

The Summer Day

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean--
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down--
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

I like that poem... a lot. Thank you. :thumb2:

I love it too! Thank you for posting it.

And BTW Shawnee, of course you can call me Junie. :)

Very nice warch.

The poem was outstanding. Really. Thank you.

I got out of the Army in '93 and spent 6 years out. Got back in in '99. One good thing about the Army is that every couple to three years I move on to something a little different. I haven't been stuck in a rut professionally. I'm 41 now, have about 17 or so years total in. Most guys are looking forward to getting out at 20, I volunteered for an airborne slot and am changing my career path in a big way. I like it. As far as doing something more exciting to wake my old butt up, it's hard to to top dodging bullets and jumping out of aircraft. Maybe my "crisis" will come when I finally get out of this racket. Mrs. Joe thinks I already had mine, but that is another story.

Juniper, I don't know why they call it a crisis. Get out, challenge yourself, use all that life experience for something good. With all the factors that conspire to keep us healthy and alive a good 20-30 years longer then people 100 to 200 years ago, I say go for it and enjoy the ride. I bet it doesn't end up where you think it will now, just like when you were 20.

I hit a major age-crisis round about the age of 29/30. I was obsessed with age for about 4 years. I'd watch old programmes on TV and try to imagine what I was doing when they first aired. Sometimes the sense of loss, of being dislocated from 'home' was quite profound. I also had to know the ages of actors. Whenever a cool female character was in a programme, I needed to know how old she was. If she was younger than me, I felt cut off from her, older than me and I'd feel a sense of relief. Bizarre huh?

Thankfully, I got over that lol. I am quite comfortable with my age and where I am at. Most of the time. Except when depression hits. Hell, don't we all carry our shadows with us?

I love that poem, warch.

I'll take this opportunity to add my favorite quote, words I try to live by, from one of the coolest people who ever lived, imho.

“Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor
do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is
no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.”
-Helen Keller

Perhaps this is my cue to let out the comment I stifled before... "Don't you own a comb??"
Mrs. Dallas has defined middle age as "10 years past wherever you are now."

As the age of 40, previously some mythical beast, now begins to resolve itself with increasing detail on the horizon, I think about certain things.

I think about whether I screwed up my career choices in my youth. I think about the fact that it's really too late to go back and change. I think about the fact that I don't want to go "back" (to greater hands-on techie involvement) in my career, and I can't go "forward" (to greater administrative responsibility) without increasing my "people skills," a prospect that makes me physically nauseous. I think about my great eagerness to see what my brilliant children will do with their lives, coupled with fear (borne out by observation) that I'm daily bequeathing my own psychoses to them. I think about whether I'm one day going to crack and give in to my desire to disappear off the radar screen and just.. go do something else. I think about whether one day I'll give in to my sometimes overwhelming desire to just stay in bed, indefinitely. I'm thinking about whether anything I do or have ever done will have any lasting impact after I'm gone.

Call it a mid-life crisis if you will.

I think 40-50s is profound because you really start to not know your physical self or are forced to relearn it-- those things that were so familiar...what you've always thought of yourself- your hair, the shape of your face, even your height, your strength, what you can and can't do--- is really morphing. You catch that glimpse of yourself or see a pic and think, dang! (I unsuccessfully attempted to execute a cartwheel earlier this summer...yikes! Luckily the grass was soft.)
Like other women I know, I look back pictures of me at 15, 25, 35 when I felt uncomfortable, fat or squatty or plain and think what a shame I didn't realize how perfectly fine I was at the time--- and I am working on realizing that right now, too, as I am learning the patterns of my face wrinkles!

Wow, isn't that the truth? I try to do things I used to be able to do and I'm shocked that I can't or that they're harder than they ought to be. Like those cartwheels. I still can do one, I think, but it's not pretty, and it hurts. Things I didn't think about keeping up with because I thought they'd always be there! Simple things, like bending over to weed the garden. Or, say, I want to paint my living room and I'm shocked at how hard it is to move the couch over a few feet.

Yet, I think I'm fairly active -- I do enough carting laundry up and down the stairs, that's for sure!

I catch my reflection in the mirror, or see a snapshot and think, "that can't be what I *really* look like!" OMG, when did I start looking so...so....solid? So middle-aged? I have wrinkles at the corners of my mouth now. So far, the eyes are unlined, but my chin! I have wrinkles on my chin, of all places!

But there are also improvements that can take place. Really. For example, I think as we age, most of us start paying more attention to our health and for a while actually end up feeling better and stronger than we did. For example, I quit smoking about 6 years ago and noticed an immediate improvement climbing hills and stairs. Last year I found out I have a problem with high blood pressure, started taking meds for it, and after I got used to them, I felt more energetic and had fewer headaches.

And there are certain other changes that happen to women 'round about that 40 year mark...:blush: Certain activities seem to be more interesting than they were a few years before, when we were focused on child rearing and avoiding Mr. Gropey, if you know what I mean. ;)

See? Look for the silver lining. :D

Oh, and by the way...never give up, or give in.

My father in law is 78. He runs a mile every other day, drives a sporty little Mazda and has a girlfriend 15 years younger. The ladies at the "spa" where he works out call him "Love Machine." What an inspiration!

I freaked my niece out about 3 years ago by doing a handstand. I am not known for being physically active, beyond walking and dancing. I think that was the first handstand I'd thrown for about 15 years or so.

Don't know if I could still do one.

Warch, I've printed that poem out to hang on my noticeboard. It really got me by the throat. I know this isn't the thread for it, but it reminded me of this one:

First Lesson

Lie back daughter, let your head
be tipped back in the cup of my hand.
Gently, and I will hold you. Spread
your arms wide, lie out on the stream
and look high at the gulls. A dead-
man's float is face down. You will dive
and swim soon enough where this tidewater
ebbs to the sea. Daughter, believe
me, when you tire on the long thrash
to your island, lie up, and survive.
As you float now, where I held you
and let go, remember when fear
cramps your heart what I told you:
lie gently and wide to the light-year
stars, lie back, and the sea will hold you.

Philip Booth

Never a truer word spoken.
Learning to accept my appearance has been a lifelong task, and it's only in my mid thirties that I'm beginning to accomplish it. I thank maturity, anti-dpressants and the Cellar for that. BTW, turned down a snog on Friday night. And probably more. Aren't I a good girl? I'm learning to value myself too.

Now just gotta work on liking the inside. Sigh. Why did adults always seem so together when I was a kid? Oh yeah, because they were too busy for the self-indulgence of introspection.

And they didn't show their insecurities. I think there were probably plenty of adults around when we were kids, who felt a little like they were playing at being a grown-up.

I had a breathtaking revelation a few years ago that has never really been forgotten. Lil Lookout was newborn, we were just on the upswing from being flat broke, and I had a career decision sitting in front of me that was really stressing me out. I'd really gone into a funk at my incompetence and inability to deal with adult life with some sort of plan and confidence. At some point while I was completely frazzled with hundreds of things spinning in my skull and rocking Lil Lookout back to sleep at 3 in the morning, I just stopped as it finally hit me... My dad didn't have a fucking clue either.

Sure that seems simple enough, but up until that point in my late 20's it had been a touchpoint for me that the people I respected were plowing their way through life with confidence and wisdom. But then it all kind of clicked as I realized that nobody had a clue. Everyone wakes up and makes their choices, hoping they are doing the right thing and they just keep doing the best they know how to do. To me it was pretty big revelation that really helped me start moving forward with life.

I'm looking at 40 a few years down the road and I know that I'll have other revelations and I find that kind of exciting and terrifying.

I think the mid life crisis has come and gone for me, I am well past 40 and a bit off from 50. I retired from the military at the age of 42 and entered a completely new and significantly better income bracket the day after I retired. As we launch our second of three off to college there is a bit more pain there but it is all for the better. I had life change, job change, income change, and freedom to do more all at once when I retired, which is a misnomer as I work longer and harder than I did when in the Army. I don't know if I had time to have a mid life crisis.

I havent had the typical sort of life. I didnt get married until I was 40 and I never had any kids of my own. I have never ever really felt 'grown up'... and actually, I have sort of enjoyed that. Im 46 now and wonder if I will go through a midlife crisis. I suppose that will be the day I decide to shuck itall and move to the Keys.

THAT conclusion was a liberating one for me as well. I used to always assume that everyone but me knew what the fuck they were doing and that made me feel really small and useless.

It could be you got your needed changed when you switched careers or maybe you're just well grounded and don't feel the need for turmoil. :)

Mid-life crisis? I'm not really sure if I had one or not - as dumb as that sounds. Wife and I were kind of busy with family, and I don't mean "our kids." More along the lines of my BIL's, and MIL. Of course, when our daughter divorced, that was another pain-in-the-ass story.

Long stories made short and brief...

Brother-in-law #1
Released from prison. We took him in.
Got job rather quickly.
Got car - decent car.
Got promotion on job.
Got drunk.
Got DUI.
Paid fines, went to classes.
Got drunk again.
Got DUI.
Told him to GTFO.
Got apartment after 14 months in our home.
Got girlfriend.
Got a dog.
Got loans for girlfriend.
Got drunk.
Car went over steep hill.
Got different job.
Got evicted.
Moved into friends house.
Got kicked out.
Dog ran away.
Failed piss test.
Got fired.
Went to shelter.
Got kicked out of shelter.
(The wife and I gave up at this point)
Homeless.
Arrested.
Back to shelter.
Unknown
..................................................................
Brother-in-law #2
Wife left him on his b-day.
Moved in with mother
Mother drove him crazy
He moved into our home.
He got job
He had a car
Car broke down.
He had bad credit.
My wife co-signed
He got late model used car - nice car.
Got drunk with crazy loser brother
Got into fight with crazy, loser brother.
Got arrested.
Went to court.
Got two years probation.
Tried to get back with exwife (the one that left him)
Told him to GTFO.
He assured me he would straighten up.
I relented.
He stayed with us for a total of 20 months.

I only have one thing to say... "Never again!!!!!!!!"

I think that might have been my mid-life crisis.

You know, Madman, this is a lesson most guys learn too late... you don't just marry her, you marry her family too. :o

Makes me awfully glad I'm an only child. And that my DH only has one sister. Who isn't exactly brimming with wisdom, but she's OK.

DH has a few lame-ass cousins, but we're not responsible for the cousins. :)

My wife, being the eldest, had this idea that she should "care" for her younger brothers and sisters. After these two she has definitely changed her mind. I believe the reason she wanted to "help" the second one out was because two of her other brothers had passed away just about a year before. I objected, but then relented after I saw her concern for him. Neither of us knew he was so unmotivated to be independent.

I have a difficult time understanding why a single adult male pushing 50 cannot care for themself. That has to be one of the easiest freaking things in life to do. Yet, I see so many of them around.

Count your blessings.

My lesson learned... Never let them move in and let them deal with the problems they created.

I was pretty lucky when I was in a long term relationship, in that my partner and my brother got on very well, became close friends and went into business together. There were the odd times of tension and arguments when the business was struggling, but on the whole they were pretty close and have remained good friends in the years since we split.