JCC ITT we have a mid-life crisis

A lot of us are of an age where we grew up with the OT films and suddenly find out that The Crow was released 22 years ago (wtf?) and... let's face it... we've all turned into grown ups. Kinda. Yikes and ****. So what the hell, let's compare notes.

A few things have reminded me of my own mortality over the last year. My mother is slowly dying of blood cancer and that's not been fun to watch. Her body's now rejecting pretty much everything and we're into the 'making her as comfortable as possible' stage. Not a cry for support - I have real life friends for that who can do things like hug me - just an example of something keenly reminding me that I'm not going to live forever, and making me wonder what I would regret being in the same situation. It can be much more trivial things, though... I went for a vision test recently to get an up-to-date prescription before driving. Suddenly there are numbers on my prescription where there were no numbers before... suddenly I realise that the changes that will lead to needing glasses for reading as well as for distance have started. Just another reminder that my body is - in very subtle ways for now - beginning to age.

The positive outcome has been a good look at where I am and where I want to be. I don't want to spend the next 27 years until retirement working as a ****ing data analyst. I don't want to live in London. I want to use the knowledge and experience I have to help people become healthier, stronger and more resilient; physically and mentally. This is entirely a good thing... I'm not going through the motions of living, I'm being a bit more deliberate and taking steps to make this **** happen.

It's weird, but - despite having quite a lot to deal with at the moment - I'm happier now than I ever have been. Less adrift, more purposeful. Also, absolutely no desire to drive a Ferrari or pester young women, which is a bit of a relief!

I did enter a few strongman competitions last year with a bit of an 'I'll show these young whippersnappers how it's done' attitude, which is probably not healthy (and I'm still recovering from an injury from the last one, damned psoas!). Getting a photo done for my driving licence was also a reminder that I'm not as pretty as I once was...



..but also that I've had the same haircut for the last 20 years, so now I'm growing hair and beard just to see what the hell it looks like. This is a worry... I've always been massively irritated by people who dye their hair stupid colours in middle age, and I keep getting tempted to do something really stupid with my hair and maybe beard when there's enough of it to work with. I may become a bit of an embarrassment in that regard.

So how's your mid-life crisis going? Even if you're not the sharing type, I'm pretty sure we can all agree that things aren't like they were in our day, right? Young people? Not up to muster if you ask me!

 

i keep waiting for my wife to ditch me and find a trophy husband, but so far I've been lucky.

 

I guess spouses and kids add another dimension... my only responsibility is for my goldfish. Why not have a spectacular mid-life crisis together? Elope and get remarried in Vegas or something.

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

 

I'm having a great time being embarrassing dad to my two kids.

I don't feel middle aged though, I'm 37, have kids, mortgage bills etc... but I'm still doing my best to have fun.


I do however recognise, my body can't deal with getting drunk anymore, hell, salty food like KFC gives me a hangover now through dehydration.
My sense of mortality kicks in every time I go out mountain biking and whilst I was heavily into downhilling as a youth, I don't go beyond cross country now and steer away from anything risky.

 

**** CANCER!
and you get virtual hugs whether you want them or not..

i am gonna preface this entire post with the fact that for the past 25 months i have been waving my vibrant purple (sometimes pink) freak flag hair around, and i will be 46 this year... also, for the record, i have been shaving the sides of my head since june 2013... this is who i am, with colorful and shaved hair... in some fashion or another since i was 13. sorry not sorry for being (among the) massively irritating

in the past few years i have been dealing with the aftermath of a very traumatic relationship - i see a therapist weekly, which has opened up a lot of old (childhood) wounds. it has been healing and liberating - for the first time in my life, i can honestly say i like who i am and am proud of how i came to this self acceptance - by acknowledging the recklessness of my decisions in the past, making amends as i could, forgiving the people who have hurt me and who actually have and deserve a place in my life.... and forgiving myself... that was the biggest challenge.

physically, i am better off than i was 4 years ago... but not optimal. diagnosed with degenerative disk disease in 2010... the pain used to be constant, and now it comes and goes - as i have learned how to manage it better - i used to take pain meds for it, 2011 through part of 2012, but had to stop..
i need, and wear at all times, bifocals...

i started my apprenticeship at the Tattoo shop in 2014 - and know that i am on the right path - finally found my calling (which was my calling in 1989, but i didn't pursue it for lack of opportunities.) at 44 years old, i had finally decided on a career. (that i love!)

i am a grandmother now (as of Nov 2010). - 4 lovely grandchildren. it is a mixed bag, as i not only have 5 adult children, ranging in age from 27 to (almost) 20.. i also have the 2 still "underage," 16 and 7, at home... my eldest grandchild is only 10 months younger than my youngest son.

also, no desire for fast cars and boundaryless relationships... apparently boundryless isn't a word. it is NOW.

 

My parents are both gone (**** cancer) but they were in their 80s so they had long lives. Dad went first and Mom was never really happy without him so we weren't surprised when she went a few years later. On the up side, I've had my flat long enough that the mortgage is now paid off (beginning of last year) and I don't have the stress of kids. On the down side I was diagnosed with very early stage glaucoma last month so I've had to join the 'daily medicine dose' brigade. (Eye drops at this stage - once a day in the evening) and I am becoming familiar with the local hospital and eye clinic due to visits to both. Can't fault the NHS so far. I've worn glasses since I was a kid (nearsighted) so adding reading glasses to the mix wasn't too bad. I can function with no glasses when I'm reading in bed though - being nearsighted is a bonus when presbyopia sets in.
Thanks to money from my parents I was able to retire early and I'm basically enjoying myself - doing what I want to do instead of spending 9 to 5 doing what someone else wants. No desire for fast cars, motorbikes, etc. No grandkids but I am an aunt - younger sister has a couple of almost-adult kids.

 

slightly_unhinged and Rylo Ken what if we become pirates? We can steal a ship and sail the seven seas, raiding other seafarers for their booty.

This isn't midlife crisis talk, either.

 

I'm 42, and there's no midlife crisis in sight. I don't know... I actually looked forward to turning 40.... new decade, new experiences. You couldn't pay me to relive my 20s and 30s again. I mean, for the most part, they were really good years, but I'm interested in forward motion. I definitely enjoy looking back, but I also enjoy being happy today and looking positively towards the future.

 

Old people thread is that way --->

 

My dad has is bedridden and has vascular dementia, and my mom broke her hip a year ago, so now I'm fulltime caregiver to them. Mom is at the hospital right now while I'm home with Dad; just got a text saying her present malady was just diagnosed as blocked bowel. So even if I wanted to get a faster car and younger women, I couldn't get out to chase them now.

My eyes aren't what they used to be either. At a distance, I was 20/15 or better most my life, which is great when you're flying airplanes and looking out for midair collisions. But a couple years ago I needed to get some cheap glasses at the drugstore so I can read fine print. Glasses suck.

Who else has given up pepperoni pizza because it leaves you thirsty all night?

 

The 10s are going to be terrible.

 

Yeeeesh, there's a lot to reply to! I'll start with Plunk

Thanks

Yeah, but you rock that ****. It's a question of authenticity; that's genuinely you. You have the charisma to pull off wearing a 1970s tabard, it's just who you are.

It's like the difference between someone who is so lost in the world of their own thoughts that they end up wearing odd socks because they can't get their head around trivial things and people who carefully select glaringly odd socks in an attempt to look like they're lost in deep thought and have a fantastically rich inner life. The former are utterly charming, the latter are belly-crawling lizards.

I work with a few people who've become very LOUD in their 40s... LOOK AT ME MY HAIR IS GREEN AND I'M DRESSED UP AS A BLANCMANGE but it just comes off as affected. (Ah, so good to be out of that office).

This, so much this! This is the f'ing AWESOME thing about getting older. Khalil Gibran, the Lebanese poet said something like 'the deeper sorrow carves into us, the more room there is for joy'. I'm totally getting that now... **** that's torn my life to shreds in the past is all pretty much resolved; all the scars have healed and I'm comfortable in my own skin. No more gut-churning, self-destructive BS; just the outrageous happiness of loving being me and not having anything to prove to anyone.

Ah, this sucks. I'm glad you're managing it, though. I'll be joining the bifocal club in the not-too-distant.

Boom! This is what I'm working towards! Picking things up and putting them down again rather than drawing skin pictures but the point is doing what I love. THIS is what a mid life crisis is for. Tame your dragon and ride it!

I have two beautiful goldfish

I feel like I've missed out but I've never been together enough to have kids.

Like the iron, language commands respect but - ultimately - must to yield to your will!


Right, I have a medical need for steak. Back in a while.

 

i'll share my getting old story. it's a bit of an overshare, not my usual style, but maybe some people can relate. i think having kids really young probably forced me to grow up too fast and in some ways i think it stunted my own emotional growth. i was 21 when my oldest son was born and now he's approaching that age himself. when people talk about how they can't get wild like they did in their twenties i kind of just laugh because my twenties were by far my least wild decade. in some ways it was good to have that sense of responsibility early on, but i think that stunted personal growth really messed up a lot of my relationships and left me pretty deeply depressed without the time to even realize it, much less do something about it.

i feel like my thirties were sort of a reaction to that and maybe in some ways an early midlife crisis. i often partied like i was in my teens, got married a second time even though i knew it was a terrible idea, dated several people much younger than me, and basically fought off the growing that i needed to do because it so often feels like the hardest path.

now i'm 41. i have been single for seven months, which i know isn't very long but it's approaching the longest stretch of my adult life. it's good. i think there are important things in life that you can only really figure out on your own, and while my outward attitude and personality probably haven't changed much, it has been a time of a lot of introspection and deep reflection. i'm nowhere near all the answers but just looking for them has been really gratifying and in a lot of ways freeing. when you can finally put some of the baggage that's been holding you back into perspective then you can finally let it go.

luckily, despite my own ups and downs, my kids have both turned out to be genuinely great people. my youngest has one year of high school left, and then i think it might be time for a change. at that point i will have worked the same job for twenty years, and the prospect of starting over somewhere new is scary but mostly exhilarating. i need to get out of this small town, i know there is an adventure to be had and i don't think you're ever too old to have it.

anyway i know i was supposed to talk about my grey hair and fat appearing in weird places. but i guess that stuff just doesn't matter much to me. i hope it stays that way.

 

Your sense of perspective is as admirable as all the other things I admire about you tom.

Sounds like you're up for Diggy's pirate adventure as soon as the oldest graduates.

 

I had a mid-life crisis when I was 14... which was 14 years ago and...


Oh no.

 

Unhinged you can't say you don't want to drive a Ferrari when you haven't truly driven at all.

Anyway, I suppose in some ways I'm the same age as some, but I'm physically younger than all ages (except for Guy now) mentioned so far.

Glasses have been a thing since middle school (nbd love my current frames.)

No kids but plenty of caretaking between Mom (alzheimers, gone now 8 yrs,) The Siblings (sis & bro in law - bro is paraplegic, sis is really not suited for sole caretaking,) and a cat (her last year was a whooole buncha crazy stuff but she gave me 10 extra months. )

Fast cars has pretty much always been a thing. I loved riding in a car even before I got a license and it's just kinda kept growing. Soo much envy of anyone who has driven a Veyron.

Attempting to commence to start to initiate keeping track of my diet to know what's causing me to feel good vs bad.

Have a 9-5 (well, 8-5) but the work is easy for me and frankly the only things I can complain about are heavy traffic commute and not awesome pay. Like, I want to transition to at home work but I would actually feel bad leaving the company. What they do is great and the environment is extremely healthy.

Would dye my hair unnatural colors but ironically, the movie theater doesn't allow it while the office would. So I make it look like a glass of soda (deep brown.) Have loved funky socks since high school and you cannot make me feel bad for wearing holiday socks all year. I think xmas and St Paddys may in fact be the only days where I wear the matching holiday come to think of it.

This caretaking thing has caused me to question all the things over the last few years. Literally a week ago I wasn't sure how I was going to come out of it at all, but after a long talk with my boss and seeing some comments here I think I'm beginning to see how one gets stronger.

 

you don't get over a friend or parent dying of cancer or ending their days with dementia. I'm lucky my father survived his double cancer hit (simultaneous squamous cell throat cancer and thyroid cancer), but it left him a lot more feeble. I'm trying to learn what I can from helping my parents manage their twilight years with dignity, because my turn is coming, if I live so long. In the meantime, I try to do the right thing for my kids and my parents while it's my turn to be the grown up for all of them.

 

I'm 40 with a 2 and half year old. No time for a midlife crisis. My only beef is that I don't have time to play video games.
Also **** Cancer. My mother died two months ago way too early at 67.

 

I plan to die in my early 80s. Quickly. Like go from healthy and strong to lifeless and cold in as short a time as possible. I'm half way there and I'm definitely having a crisis

Sounds like you're crushing it; I salute you!

Yes. **** yes. I live by the sea, I'll steal a ship.

The kiddies playground is >>here<<. You're welcome.

Sorry about your parents :-(

I've not had pepperoni pizza for years but I feel like I'm missing out on an important element of crisis now!

Point of the thread, tom! I'm all for being reserved but what good is a crisis if you go around being all British about it?

So you did your 30s in your 20s and your 20s in your 30s? Makes sense.

7 months? Pfft, amateur! Totally relate to figuring stuff out alone, I've just been doing it for a whole lot longer! It's funny, until a few months ago - shortly before I moved out of London - I really didn't want a relationship. I think now I'm all happy and at ease with myself I want to share some of that.

Not at all surprised your kids have turned out well... and enjoy the adventure!

OH GRATE TOM WAY TO MAKE ME LOOK SHALOW