Allow Me to Introduce My Mid-Life Crisis
A hiccup comes out of nowhere. The sudden spasmatic jolt of my abdomen surprises me. An involuntary “hic” enters my ears, grabs onto my thoughts, and tosses me into the past. Landing in a heap of memories at my mom’s feet, my mind hears her say what she always says. “You’ve got the hiccups! You must be growing. The problem with my own hiccups is that I keep growing out instead of up.” The corniness of her tired old joke rattles about in my brain and lifts the corners of my mouth. The thoughtful residue of her voice fades as my smile descends into the realization that my growth is neither out nor up. I retreat inward, away from the complexities of us toward the solitary confinement of self-preservation. I reach for my morning cup of tea and apply the 10 Sips Rule to end my contemplative bout of hiccups.
My daily ritual of pulling back the curtain to peer at the degradation of society has begun. A shrewd chirping travels with purpose along the early morning sunbeam and coats the back of my neck with the confident assurance of a new day’s arrival. I bow my head to the small electronic window cupped in my left hand, ignore the warm optimism resting on my skin, and delve into a chilly virtual world. The mechanical movement of my index finger against the glass screen triggers the zombie-like detachment symptomatic of doom scrolling through trending reports of violence and corresponding hateful opinions pouring in from couches across the country. A storm brews out there beyond the birds and right here in my own heart. Nestled in the corner of my modern sofa sectional in the tree-lined urban neighborhood I call home, I cling to an imaginary bond with the worried minds of a scattered fellowship listening with me to the background noise of the morning anchor. Worming into our ears are the disturbing details of the angry mob of insurgents forever inscribed into the history books for deciding the storming of the White House sounded like a clever idea.
I press on the back arrow to move in the direction of a longing for kinder times to ease the foreboding pulse racing through my soul and I focus ten therapeutic minutes on the #CatsOfTwitter. Call me crazy, but I remember the whole nostalgic world of the past as a nicer place than the real, or virtual, realities of the 21st century. Fast approaching my sixth decade of life, my complexities live in a churning atmosphere measured on a teetertottering scale from calm to primal. Longing for the deliberate simplicity of a bird’s life and admiring the passion of misguided followers fighting for a shared belief is both understandable and confusing to me. I fear my anxiety is boiling up like the darkening sky of a Kansas thunderstorm into a dramatic release of anger. Or is it desperation? On second thought, do not call me crazy. I wear many hats, but crazy is not one of them.
A squeak to the right of the top of the bell curve is a modest little dot. That is me. The miniscule spec of a flawed perfectionist dangling her feet over a mid-life crisis. The date on my birth certificate pronounces me as a baby boomer, just barely. The end of a generational classification. Not the very end. I was born in February, not on December 31, 1964, at 11:59 p.m. Somewhere out there in the universe an interesting person holds the honor of being the very last boomer ever born. Not me. I am an average, run-of-the-mill baby boomer.
A retired accountant with meager career success, above average intelligence, and basement level athleticism, I possess much empathy for nonhuman animals, and little patience for people who should know to be better. The summation of my life to date lands me and my contribution to the world somewhere in the land of average near the top of the bell curve of humanity. From my bird’s eye view of the past, present and future, the fading light within me is obvious and alarming. The diminishment of my instinctual need to do the right thing, to be likeable, to be smart, to be more than is possible for me to be, has progressed to an undeniable prominence.
My arm raises my plain white tea mug with automatic precision to my lips only to render a trance breaking disappointment to my tongue. The mug is empty, and the meteorologist is signing off with an optimistic, “Make it a great day!” Time to move on. People would say time is running out for my generation. I do not believe this statement is accurate. The continuous, flat movement of time has no life span. Opportunity runs out. Opportunity to seize the moment, to speak, to act, to appreciate … to remember. Opportunity to meet my full potential, before it is too late.
My travels along the perpetual stream of time have brought me to my half of a granite topped dual vanity in an enviable place of comfortable teeth-brushing, contented application of my public face, and the reassuring security of knowing the sink next to me belongs to more than just a wet toothbrush and well used mustache trimmer. My mind knows my cup is full, but my eyes see a plain, pale complexion of emptiness wearing the dark weight of guilt and doubt. I do not remember the last time the smile on my face meant the message it portrayed. The unassuming surface of me proclaims no statements of greatness. For half a century I have strived to please the world around me to find, in the end, the one most disappointed is the wee bit overweight, graying woman in the mirror.
I stare through the vacant image and watch the reflections of my seasons play out like the flickering trailer for a movie. I jump from snippet to snippet of pivotal moments and corresponding consequences. The naïve squirming of a small red-headed, freckle-faced child focused on the wonders of the world, unaware of the mirror’s existence. A young woman driven by expectations she thought were her own, seeing only herself until that moment of adulthood when the people standing next to her become visible all around her reflection. Mature eyes drifting through life as a spectator, trying to keep up as the next generation’s world speeds by without time for a caring glance. The proverbial circle of life.
I am not alone in front of the mirror. The future and the past are with me. Always have been. I just was not in the season to notice, until now. Over half a century old, I am on the downhill side of this ride, looking back at my past wondering what happened to the lovely young woman who left her parents’ nest wearing the smile of a kind heart and the hopeful ambition of making a positive contribution to the world. My mid-life crisis arrived in the form of a half-inch stripe of white traveling down the right side of my faded red hair and the unraveling of the mystery of my lost benevolence. I need to recharge my waning confidence and discover my value as I inch closer to becoming a senior citizen. Am I done becoming who I will be? Are my opportunities running out? How did I get here from there so fast?
My microscopic spec on the infinite road of time came about by way of the usual means. Like the genesis of your existence, I would guess. You and I are alike in as many ways as we are different. Our stories unfold this way and that along the journey between our respective beginnings and ends, comparable at birth, intersecting here and there in the middle, and if we are lucky, we will both leap across the generation gap to a new perspective before the inevitable crossing of the finish line. And we all know how life ends. The somber finale of an empty vessel lying six feet under in a field of faded remembrances.
My preferred finality will be in a drawer stacked inside a climate-controlled building. A room of filing cabinets filled with unalphabetized endings resting in an organized framework. A personal cell of eternity in a three-dimensional spreadsheet with my exact coordinates logged into a database somewhere in the ethereal abyss of the cloud. Seems appropriate for a retired accountant. We are who we are and that is part of who I am. It is no wonder an ending such as this appeals to me. For thirty years of my adult life equations ran through my brain, resulting in the footing and cross-footing of a life that matched and defined my persona. People plus places multiplied by passion and divided by perception. Gains and losses recorded in an emotional balance sheet of a life traveling toward a death.
From the moment of conception, life creeps towards death, the speed of encroachment determined by a constant grapple between choice management and uncontrollable forces of fate. The landscape of life varies as society travels alongside me through the decades, changing with exponential rapidness. Will society leave me behind or will there be a place for an aging baby boomer in our future world of growing distrust? A credible concern made more ominous by the realization it is my fault the world is now a meaner place. Somewhere along the way, I misplaced my own benevolence. I do not like people very much and that feels wrong. My circle is shrinking. Of the billions of people in the world, there are only about six I wish to speak to in person; another five I reach out to via texting, and a handful I prefer to keep within waving distance while my Google assistant screens the rest. Insincere conversations, intrusive encounters, and disrespectful experiences replay with randomness in my mind leaving no doubt as to how I lost my benevolence.
Chased by the urgency of knowing I can do nothing to repair society without first repairing myself, the real mystery lies in how I ever became kindhearted in the first place. How was my compassion sparked and can I compel lightning to strike again? My quest begins with the family, friends, and community credited with molding me into the lovely kindhearted young woman who soared from the nest on the wings of hope, wearing a smile she meant. My hometown raised me to be a compassionate, thoughtful human being. So begins my journey back to the past to walk my old roads and examine the causality of me, influenced by a perspective born from a lifetime of flawed perfectionism.
Not long ago, someone asked me, “Is your life interesting enough for this?” Now look who is wearing the crazy hat. Of course, my life is not interesting enough for this. My position on the bell curve firmly entrenches me among the throngs of average people trying to make the most of time and opportunity. I am not extraordinary, but I am to blame for the degradation of society. I will say it again. It is my fault the world is a meaner place. To be honest though, I have not wounded civility in an instant and I have not wounded it alone. Journey with me in search of the creation of the benevolence I have lost. Let us begin with a story of discovering how the circle of my life started with my earliest influencers, two people walking arm in arm down a sidewalk in front of a little house on Fifth Street in a small, quiet Kansas town. Let us see where my story takes us.
