Midlife Crisis

Today I am grateful for all the people and things on my A-Z gratitude list I did while I was exercising. I am also grateful for Oliver and the way he follows me from place to place.

Back to Dani Shapiro's book Devotion. She had me dog-earing numerous pages. These words on p. 123 were noted:

"Who was I, and what did I want for the second half of my life? I mean, I was in the middle of life, the middle of midlife, the middle of a midlife crisis. I had been shaped by choices and decisions, not all of them conscious. I had turned left instead of right; had taken (or not taken) the trip, the flight, the challenge, the chance. Everything I had ever done had led me here-and while here wasn't a bad place at all, it also wasn't enough. Some essential piece of me was missing . . ."

I think many of us have some version of a midlife crisis. It's personal and it's real. When do we know we have survived the crisis? When do we know we have defined our own level of "enough?"  We are each the only ones who can answer such questions for ourselves. And crisis may be too strong of a word to use. The crisis, as I see it, is how close is my life today to the goals I set for myself? The bigger the distance between the two, the more serious the crisis.

My perspective on midlife is a bit skewed. I drank for ten years, between ages 14 and 24. It is said that when you start drinking you stop growing emotionally. In that case I didn't really "grow up" until I was in my thirties. But before I left my thirties, marriage, motherhood, stepmotherhood, and marathoning had all helped me "grow up" in many new ways.

A cancer diagnosis at 42 presented a look at mortality that you can't get any other way. Before that diagnosis, I was feeling a little stale in my job, and had been trying to write more and seek publishing. Cancer was a catalyst for me, helping me keep the right priorities front and center. Writing gets more time and focus and has really taken off. My job gets kept in a healthier perspective.

Midlife crisis or midlife perspective?  It sure feels less like a crisis today and more like a healthy perspective. I have gratitude practice to thank for much of that.

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