What A Midlife Crisis Feels Like
November 11, 2008
In the next hour I will be at my aunt’s funeral. Aunt Hazel died last Friday at 79. And to be honest, I can’t imagine the world without her. My earliest memories of her are of a loving woman who always said what she meant and meant what she said. “No nonsense” was her mantra. Good cooking and a great sense of humor were her forte. She was part of the fabric of my life.
I talk a lot here about midlife and transformation and how this is all a bridge to the better half of life. Most of the time that’s really what I believe. But today, life is feeling more like a midlife crisis. Here’s how it’s hitting me right now:
- My aunt has died.
- She was my mother’s younger sister–my 10 years–and my mother is still living.
- My mother has dementia and although we’ve told her about her sister’s death, it’s hard to know how she’s taking this sad news.
- That makes me sad.
- I’m here in Virginia surrounded by cousins–Aunt Hazel and Mom are the last elders on this side of the family. My mother and immediate family can’t be here so it’s just me from the Michigan contingency.
- All the young cousins I held as babies are now grown and having families of their own.
- My older cousin who’s 75 feels like a peer and my cousin who’s just a few years old is about to turn 60.
- Yes I pretend sometimes that I’m only as young as I think but 60 is around the corner for me too.
Well enough from me now. I’ve got to leave for the funeral. You’ve got a sense of what a midlife crisis feels like to me today.
What about you?
Ever So Fine Paul Newman Has Died
September 27, 2008
One of my earliest crushes was on the ever so handsome, incredibly fine actor Paul Newman. I remember sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the television gazing into those blue eyes that looked out from many a movie. As I got older, Paul remained one of my favorite actors. Well, now he’s gone — dead today of lung cancer at 83 years old.
Now only was Paul excellent at his craft of acting but he channeled his success into making an impact both on the screen and off. His focus on making the world a better place through giving back to those less fortunate was an inspiration to so many.
I don’t know about you but there’s something particularly sobering about the loss of yet another “senior” legend. It’s that mortality thing. It’s feels a little closer today.
What do you think?
What Keeps Me Up at Night in Midlife
September 18, 2008
One thing that went out the window when I hit midlife was a good night’s sleep. I started midlife in the throes of an early menopause. Sweet dreams turned into nights of swimming in my sheets with unrelenting night sweats.
I remember waking up drenched on cold wet sheets laying next to my then husband who always seemed to sleep through it all. Have you ever tried to dry out a bed without waking up the other person in it? Well I’m here to tell you it takes lots of ingenuity and lots of towels.
But even after the night sweats passed I still never went back to a good night’s sleep. Want someone to talk to at 2am. Just call me. It feels like I’ve been up for 10 years as my physical “awakenings” were replaced by the issues of midlife that swirl around my daytime thoughts and haunt my subconscious at night. I “night-think” (day-dreaming in the dark) about:
- Whether I’ll ever be able to retire
- Whether I even want to
- My best friend who has Alzheimer’s
- My mother who has dementia
- Will I stay in Michigan where I live now
- Will I find my soul mate
- Money
- The economy (I’m surprised if anyone can sleep this week!)
- The outcome of the presidential election
- Will I stay healthy and yes, occasionally
- What I’ll blog about the next day.
The transitions of midlife bring so many opportunities for rediscovery, reinvention and renewal that there simply aren’t enough hours in the day to dream, plan and process. But I realize, I’m not the only one up at 2am.
What keeps you up at night in midlife?
Text Generation Gap: U R 2 Old
March 10, 2008
yt. In the language of text messaging, that means “are you there”. Maybe because my son is a 30-something, I missed the advent of text messaging in the parental relationship. So I didn’t have to learn text or remotely figure it out. But now I have friends who sometimes text me. To say, I’m clueless on what these little acronyms mean is an understatement.
Until now I’ve always just rme (rolled my eyes) about the issue. But when I read the scary statistic in yesterday’s New York Times article on the Text Generation Gap: U R 2 Old that ”by 2010, 81 percent of Americans ages 5 to 24 will own a cellphone”, I thought em? (excuse me?). Text messages from my 4 year old niece could be just around the corner.
So I was grateful for the article’s primer on text acronyms, some of which you see me trying to use in this post. imo (in my opinion) you have to start somewhere. Check out the NYT article to see if u r 2 old to text.
b4n (bye for now).
Midlife Moment — Reading Glasses A Must
January 14, 2008
This is the first in my series of Midlife Moments. Midlife moments are just those quirky odd little experiences that are unique to this time of life. If you have a moment you’d like to share that’ll make us all either laugh or appreciate the little glitches in the journey through midlife, please post a comment. And now for my midlife moment #1:
Yesterday morning I got up and headed half awake into the bathroom to wash my face. A glance in the mirror at my “morning face” without make-up convinced me that I should some astringent–thought it might my skin look tighter or something. So I opened the cabinet under the sink, spotted the bottle of blue-green astringent and pulled it out. I dabbed a little on with a cotton wipe and headed downstairs to make coffee.
Fifteen minutes or so later I went back up to the bathroom–now with my reading glasses on. I glanced at the bottle of astringent I’d left on the counter and realized with horror that it was, in fact, the new aloe scented blue-green nail polish remover I’d bought recently, largely because it didn’t smell like nail polish remover. As the realization hit that I had just wiped nail polish remover all over my face, I turned on the water and plunged face first into the sink hoping to avert whatever awful reaction to the nail polish remover I was starting to dream up.
Well everything turned out OK. Instead of breaking out in hives, I broke out in laughter on the lesson learned about the times when reading glasses are a must. So, for starters, if I want to really see what I need to see, I’ll always use my reading glasses to:
- Read the label on anything under the sink
- Shop for anything
- Put on make-up
- Read a menu or
- Determine whether the spot on the wall is a spider or not.
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Karen - Midlife Coach
