What is a Mid Life Crisis?

Webster dictionary meaning for mid-life is- middle age
and the meaning for mid-life crisis is- a period of emotional turmoil in middle age characterized esp. by a strong desire for change.

Lol - I believe you are in control of the foolishness, Linkat!

I would see it as a realization that:

a. You are REALLY going to die - and relatively soon.

b. You REALLY have wrinkles - which you never believed would happen.

c. You are unlikely to do anything remarkable, or be anything remarkable, that you haven't already done and been. (Though a number of folk do REALLY make their mark during or after middle age.)

d. Life REALLY is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.

e. You are unlikely to still be able to get out of stuff, or into stuff, by being cute.

f. If you have always measured yourself by how gorgeous you are, you're stuffed.

g. Dammit, I am sick of this!

It is a time when you need to get a real life - if you don't have one - or do shallow crap - or ignore it.


I like the idea of already having a real life, and still feeling sexy - droppages and all - and embracing mutability, mortality, and generativity.


I am pretty happy.

linkat- dlowan is "right on the money". As a result, many people do something similar to what is happening to your friend.

The weight comes off, the clothes get sexier, the car gets sportier. Sometimes, (usually in the case of a man) the middle aged wife is "traded in" for a younger model. All of this is done because the person cannot face up to the fact that he/she is no longer young. By donning the artifacts of youth, the person falsely believes that he/she can stave off the inevitable.

"Mid-life crisis" is not always a bad thing. It is a time of evaluation, of looking inward.

Bad marriages that provide more comfort than joy can be exchanged for more rewarding relationships. Often the kids are grown, the nest is empty, so that there is no longer the moral imperative to "keep the family together", if the marriage is no longer a source of contentment. Some middle agers reevaluate their life's work, and opt for a radical career change, which can be more fulfilling.

But that is the exception, IMO, rather than the rule. The average person in mid life crisis tends to make a damn fool of himself, until he gets beyond that stage of life.

Oh - I think that many of us can have a mid life crisis without the silly clothes and cars!

It is just a re-assessment in the light of an enhanced apprehension of reality, for many of us.

A crisis is not necessarily productive of silliness - it is often just a normative crisis.

(I wish I WAS getting thinner, dressing more sexily, and could afford a new car!)

Dlowan - the funny thing is about the dying stuff is my 6 year old likes to remind me about it. She will say, mom you are going to get old and then you will die. Nice, thanks kiddo. Of course her concern is what will happen to her. When I tell her possible people who can take her of her she seems satisfied and then does say she will miss me.

b. I am starting to get wrinkles and I am starting to pull out my few gray hairs. I think I need my hair lightened that may hide them better.

c. I do think I am settled already with being unremarkable. Maybe having children at an older age helped as raising them is a remarkable thing after all.

d. Luckily for me I did live while I was still making plans. I try to do some things as I want (like fun vacations) rather than wait until a more affordable time.

e. I think I can still get out of stuff by being cute - now though my targets have to be a little older - and fortunately I still look years younger (Up until about 6 months ago I was still getting carded for purchasing liquor at some stores).

f. I never (at least 100%) measured myself by how gorgeous I was. And any amount in which I did previously ended when I had children. Now I am just happy to leave the house without any spillage on my clothes, with everything buttoned/zipped and matching shoes on (believe it or not I once left the house with one black shoe and one navy shoe on).

After all this - I think I am pretty happy. I do feel better - maybe I just had spring fever.

Well, those out of sorts times can be a damn fine prompt to re-evaluate and think well and clearly.

Lol - yes, kids DO think a lot about death - especially at various stages. It is refreshingly blunt, no? Actually we all do - but lots of us do not allow the thought much space.

Like a little Buddhist consciousness of illusion in the house?

Sigh - hormones play weird tricks, too.

At least, the damn things do on me now - I always thought that was just a scam for men to be nasty and prejudiced - and women to be badly behaved. Now I get it. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. They shall not prevail - I shall overcome.

Odd, isn't it, that far more middle-aged men than middle-aged women feel that their troubles can be solved by a divorce and a little red sports car?

The fault, Dear Brutus, is not within our stars
But in ourselves that we are underlings.
Men at some time are masters of their fate.

Heehee - one of my female colleagues bought a little red sports car.

She kept the spouse, though.

She is now deeply ashamed of the sports car. I think she wants a ute.

dlowan--

Did the little red sports car solve her problems momentarily so that she no longer needed the little red crutch?

Hmmm - I do not know.

She married early, and not well - and spent her twenties with 2 real babies, and one big, hairy one.

Mebbe she just wanted a synbol of the feckless youth she never had?


Her second husband is a keeper...

I like happy endings. Who says wisdom can't arrive in a woman's heart in red chariot on wire wheels?