Mid-life

At my age (41) I hear the words which I thought I'd never hear "Mid-life". Usually coined with the word "crisis" afterwards, Mid-life seems to be on the tip of my peers' lips. And I'm thinking about why.

Some time ago, I remembered a book my mother had around the house: "Passages", by Gail Sheehy. To be quite frank, the actual title was, "Passages: The predicatable crises in adult life". The book explored how, in each decade of our (American?) lives, we come to certain maturity or wisdom... and each of these seemed to be generally repeatable by other people who may not ever meet us. The interesting part was, Ms. Sheehy was, in a long-winded way, rather dead-on.

After reading about Mid-life in that book and others, I realized that this phenomenon was not necessarily meant to be lived in fast cars and loose liasons. Mid-life wasn't about dumping a spouse or suddenly getting the urge to drive a big rig cross-country. Mid-life is, in a nutshell, a middle-life reassessment.

Okay, it's true: some men may decide that they want some trophy girlfriend instead of the tired wife ... or that he never had a sports car and that old sedan just didn't make him feel "alive". These behaviors aren't 'defining' of the man: they are simply behaviors. In the same way that a wife may get sick of a tv-watching - beer-guzzling man who pays little attention to the family. She decides that she would like a life with full participants... and she decides to start a new life looking for a partner in 'participating'.

Mid-life seems to be (in my humble opinion) just a time when we aren't "waiting" anymore. We finally notice that it's time for action; things we felt were pushed aside may be picked up again. Perhaps they are values... or people ... or hobbies ... or the open road. Mid-life seems to say, "Where am I now, and where can I go from here?"

These Mid-life issues can be anything: career, physique, friendships, physical injuries, relationships, vacations. In a way, Lance Armstrong's decision to end his bicycling career was a Mid-life decision: after 30 years on a bike, says has reassessed his priorities and has decided to 'move on'.

"Passages" also mentions that if someone tries to delay (or ignore) these Mid-life demands, those demands will return - and in more vicious temperament. Someone who feels frustrated with the entropic state of his/her homelife might begin a destructive affair instead of calmly asking his/her partner to help upgrade their lives together. Someone whose dissatisfaction with a job might find himself... well... shooting up a post office.

I discuss Mid-life with great respect; I have had many recent discussions with friends, and another one just wrote me today with his own reassessing thoughts.

I think that Mid-life reassessment is a great idea... and long as it doesn't swirl into a full-fledged tornado.