How do you recognize a mid-life crisis?

By Lynne Hale

We all make bone-headed mistakes. They’re good for us; usually we learn from them and change our actions so that we don’t keep doing the same stupid thing, with the same stupid results.

Shopping for any clothing is something that I find about as appealing as a trip to the dentist for a drilling procedure. Shopping for a swimsuit is particularly loathsome. I somehow convinced myself that if it were a family activity, I may actually tolerate it. This is what I like to call “exhibit A” from the ever accruing pile of evidence that I am losing my mind.

Lynne Hale is a semi-regular contributor to Main Street Newspapers. Aside from writing for fun and profit and raising her three adorable, wonderful, funny, intelligent, creative, and all-around brilliant short people, she spends her time fighting mountains of laundry and conqering the monthly bills by working a nine to five gig. She trained for all this through life experiences and a short stint, comparably, at Hollins University.

My teenaged daughters and I were in different changing rooms trying on our possible choices. Though the suits I tried on had much more fabric than those I recall wearing previously, I found one that I thought was appropriately concealing. In a moment of pure dumb chance, all of us emerged into the common area at the same time.

One thought dances through my mind semi-regularly: How do you know when the crisis you are living through is the mid-life crisis? It seems that it would be difficult to determine the mid point if you have no end point by which to gauge it.

On this day of supreme humiliation, I launched into a true identity crisis. As I stood there in what now looked like a muumuu, my daughters came out in very flattering suits which, if combined as one suit, would still not have half the material of the one I was wearing.

We left the store that day, the girls smiling ear to ear, loving their new purchases. I was dazed and wounded in some primal way, and vowed to myself that I would never go near the water again unless I was wearing a nun’s habit.

We like to stereotype the changes that people make in their middle years as typical behaviors of those who are uncertain of their own contentment.

We like to classify actions that seem to portray aging persons as trying to recapture, or at least revisit, a fleeing youth. We make jokes at other people’s expense. We tease our friends when they begin to display symptoms that may be categorized as “crisis” behaviors.

It’s all funny until you wake up one day to the realization that you are there.

I have decided that when I rebuilt my life in my 30s it was merely a prelude to what is to come in my 40s. Yes, I changed my marital status (a couple few times) and yes, I decided that I needed a new career, but those were minor changes. Besides, I’d like to think that I’m going to live longer than my 60s or 70s.

If I am having a mid-life crisis, I want to have fun with it. Maybe what I need to do is to save the practical seven-passenger vehicle for family excursions and purchase something built for two (or one and a really large purse). If I do, I want it to fly on land and hug curves like a teenager’s jeans, or even a bathing suit. And it should have the capability of going topless.

I could, I suppose, go on a real exercise kick. Maybe I need to start preparing for an Appalachian Trail hike (you know, Georgia to Maine). Or maybe I should ready myself for a marathon in Boston. Heck, maybe I should simply start doing a couple hundred crunches each night. If there’s any justice, I’ll be back in shape about the time the girls are grown, married, and eight months pregnant.

I don’t want my time to be wasted doing all the things I know don’t work for me. I don’t need to drink or drug. I don’t need a younger man who’s really easy on the eyes. What would I do with him, realistically, other than have him start doing a lot of yard work before I send him out to a paying job?

Perhaps I should invest in a lot of nice sheets and blankets and pillows, as my main interest seems to be getting myself a really long, comfortable night of sleep, or even a brief, but fully satisfying, nap. The added bonus is that compared to a mattress and pillows, I look thin, almost svelte.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 26th, 2010 at 2:23 pm and is filed under Confessions of a harried mom. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.