JCC ITT we have a mid-life crisis

My father died of cancer about twenty years ago. I was too involved in a kinda party lifestyle to fully face his death. I'm not sure I could have handled it. So years later I had the opportunity to step up and volunteer to take care of my mother who has Alzheimer's, that's what I'm currently doing in life, I'm a full time carer.

I've a daughter who lives with me, Bronwen, she's fourteen and came out last year to me as gay, then she came out to everyone on facebook, I had a fair idea she was, I mean her walls had posters of women, it reminded me of my room when I was a teen. Anyway I read up on it, and it seems that some people just know their sexuality at that age, at the time I felt she was a bit young and didn't fully understand herself.

This is how I became a single parent. My father's passing years before coincided with me making improvements in my life, what happened to him was the catalyst. I went back to education and fell in love. After my partner gave birth she suffered from postpartum depression, she changed and was diagnosed with paranoid bi polar schizophrenic disorder. She took our daughter and went to the states, I live in ireland by the way, and the rights of an unmarried father were minimal. After a long couple of years, while I was studying english, philosophy and anthropology a court in Oregon awarded me custody. So I became a single father, I had a greater understanding of the mental illness afflicting my partner and it's as real as the cancer that killed my father.

I decided to see if it could work as a family, she came back to ireland. It was a tough few years, my partner was on meds, she functioned fine and was a great mom at times, but other times the world seemed weird to her. So I put the upbringing of our daughter first. We separated, my daughter still sees her on weekends when she's well.

I'm forty three this year, so regarding a pending midlife crisis, I feel calmer and more grounded than ever before. I've never driven a car so I've no urge to buy a certain type. I do get nostalgic, I try and avoid sounding like grandpa simpson to my daughter, though I do frequently tell how brilliant the 80s were. My eyesight is holding up but my knees get a bit achy.

I eat healthily, I cook for my daughter and mom. I don't drink, smoke or do drugs, though they were all part of my life at one stage. I sometimes dwell on mistakes in my past but because I'm content with life, those mistakes helped me get to this place. And I wouldn't change a thing about my life at this moment.

 

Howsabout this? Last 12 years, I have basically had no ties, no debt (thank you, universal tertiary education), no home that I 've had to pay for and have been ticking off my bucket list (cliched stuff like swimming with sharks, living in France and crazier ****) - I have absolute freedom and have just turned down a stable, pretty well paid job in a place with people who totally respect and appreciate me and though I am screaming on the inside for some form of stability (at least location wise), I am terrified of turning back into the miserable person I was before I dropped out of the system, a decade ago.

I am buying stuff I really don't need and have no idea what I am supposed to be doing for the rest of my life, other than some small sense that I should prepare to take care of myself (financially, accommodation wise) for when I invariably and inevitably get older and eventually get sick .

 

I'm so boring.

 

No, you're not.

 

Okay, I wear clown pants all the time, but apart from that...

 

^^ dad joke

 

Does your left hand try to strangle you to death at random points too?

 

Shot out of the womb at high speed, aimed directly at your own grave in a largely uncontrolled flight. Perhaps the best television commercial ever made.

 

Last year I had a partially herniated disc at C5/C6. Apparently as you get older "it just goes".


What the actual ****, body? You turncoat!

 

Or in the words of Louis CK: "When you're forty, if you go to the doctor - they stop trying to fix ****. They just go "yeah, it starts to happen." They don't care!"

 

I can't be old yet. I still haven't been to Ibiza.
Despite the fact I've done drugs in some pretty strange places....

 

On the plus side, it's taken 48+ years, but I can finally grow a decent beard.

 

oh crap i forgot about my crem google project.

 

NOOOOOOOOO!

 

Endoscopy and colonoscopy this coming Wednesday.

 

Yeesh good luck with that.

 

The day before is gonna suck. I can eat jello but nothing red or purple. I can have popsicles. Vitamin water. Applesauce. And broth. That's it. All day.

 

Oh and you have to take the stuff that cleans you out. So far I've not done but I know a few who have. This is one of the things I fear.

 

On the plus side, you'll get to see some quality footage of your pewp chute.