Now, the Mid-Life Crisis

I suppose it’s a little late to have a mid-life crisis. I didn’t have one at forty — at forty, I barely felt thirty. At fifty, I felt rebellious that anyone would think me old, because I didn’t feel old. Now, at almost 60, I’m horrified that I’m now old enough to be my students’ grandmom (if the generations had babies really early, that is)

A lot of things have changed. I no longer feel that sense of possibility that I felt, even in my fifties. I don’t feel that my life could change for the better at any moment. My life is stable, with no magnificent giddy highs. I don’t know what I think of that, because magnificent giddy highs are fun. Or, at least, they were.

My Big Audacious Goals are not so big or audacious. I miss the ability to dream big. I feel like I don’t have the sweeping vistas in my head to make big goals. My goals are more realistic, more grounded. I achieve them, but with little fanfare.

I will find something of worth at this stage in my life. Maybe my writing will become more grounded and need less editing. I may be less distracted by pretty things. Perhaps I will make deeper goals. It’s just that I’m shocked by the change and wonder where it’s taking me.

Lady of Storms

There’s a pink sky this morning painting the maple leaves across the street apricot. No sailors in landlocked Missouri to take warning and no storms in the forecast, bringing the lie to the old saw about red skies at morning.

I crave more rain. It’s a part of my being that I have forgotten for too long. Once, I may have walked through lightning unscathed; I do not know if I believe my perception anymore. I am an unreliable narrator unless I speak from science.

Before I spoke from science, I spoke from storms, feeling the sodden leaves dragging at my feet and a cold rain lashing my ears.I need, I, the storm shouted. I need more.

I have grown past that part of my life; I do not need so much and I know how to get what I need. I speak in measured sentences that psychology tells me are the right ways to communicate. But I miss the ferocity of the storms and the power I felt when I hid in them.

Thoughts about Death

When I was younger, I used to be so much more outspoken. If I was upset by something someone did, I let them know in the most forthright (and sometimes belligerent) terms. My friends christened me “Our Lady of the Two-by-Four” for the force with which I would address a problem.

I have lost some of that as I’ve grown older. I think this is for several reasons; first I have gained some consideration of others’ feelings and believe that the two-by-four is less effective than the — I have become trapped in my own extended metaphor and will get back to you later. Second, I understand the complexity of situations enough to know that I don’t see the complexity with ease, and especially when I’m in the emotional state where I want to express myself right away. Third, because society has conditioned me to keep quiet about what is bothering me, because that’s a sign of something not right.

I have let the latter rule me too long, having spoken obliquely in my post yesterday, not talking from my heart.

My dad is 86. He’s in hospice. I don’t think he is doing well. He’s … fading. Logically, I know that 86 is a good old age, and that people die. I would not stand in the way of a good, humane death and I know hospice does those well.

But I think about death and its starkness and my reluctant belief that there’s nothing on the other side. Not that I mind that too much; I will not be around for it, so to say. It’s just that looking at the finity of life from this end is jarring; the very notion that there will be an end to my cognitive and sensory partaking of the world chills me.

Maybe I’m wrong and we get another chance in the afterlife, but then, what would distinguish it from this one? I know I have many stupid things left in me; what is an afterlife for if I keep my stupid deeds? Alternately, if we became all-wise in our transition from the world, what would we live for? And doesn’t life, by definition, include pain that our dreams of the afterlife exclude?

I’m almost 60. I maybe have 30 years left; probably less. This is the life I get, so if I’m unhappy about anything, I get to settle it here. If I want to experience moments of bliss, I have to find them here. It sounds like an Ebenezer Scrooge epiphany; it feels like a trudge through dusty clay. Outside there’s a perfect autumn day beckoning me, and that’s where I need to be, away from the corridors of my mind and into life.

People My Age

From radio to playlist

It is said that people in general do not develop new musical taste after their mid-thirties, and continue to listen to the music they listened to when younger. In other words, someone my age should only be listening to the Oldies station, with music from the 60’s through the 90’s (and yes, it’s frightening to me that the 90’s are considered oldies).

My husband and I seem to be exceptions. First, we introduced our favorites to each other, so he became immersed in folk rock and I in classical. Second, our musical tastes have expanded because I love listening to musicians with reputations of being groundbreakers and avant-garde performers. Before Itunes, these weren’t accessible to me because I didn’t like prowling through record stores (ah! vinyl!) and hated to buy a whole album as an experiment. With today’s technology, I have a world of music in front of me.

Sometimes I do listen to the oldies. Right now I’m listening to an 80’s singer-songwriters playlist, and I recognize most of the songs. In 1981, I would have been starting college, and in 1989 I was in the middle of my PhD program. But I’m just as likely to listen to Brian Eno or Erik Satie or Ludovico Einaudi or some electronica.

Places to go

This is where I might be a little more stereotypical. My husband and I have favorite places we like to go — Kansas City, Starved Rock State Park. But we do go new places too and try new food — oh, we always try new food. We haven’t been on a cruise (nor do we intend to go on one) so we don’t have that senior destination in mind. We do want to go on that big ferris wheel on Navy Pier in Chicago (at least I want to; not sure about Richard.)

I guess we’re not that settled

We’re somewhat settled — after all, we’re not skydiving or bungee jumping (although indoor skydiving in on our list). But we still want to try new things, which makes us still somewhat young for our ages. I’ll take it.

Looking Toward Sixty

Nothing to see here, move along

I don’t know if I have anything new to say. I’m teaching classes and they’re going pretty well. I’m avoiding my next novel in favor of some advertising stuff I need to do. I’m hopefully losing weight (SLOWLY). I turn 58 in two weeks —

That’s it, isn’t it? A year closer to sixty.

Close to Sixty

Do I feel close to 60?

My body — well, that feels old. I’m out of shape and my right knee is oh, so messed up.

My mind? I feel 40, only with a lot more memories than I should have. In fact, it’s only when I think of my memories that I feel old in my mind. Like when I think of old technologies — dial phones, vinyl records, 8-track tapes. Or when I think of pasting Plaid Stamps from the A&P into a booklet to redeem, or going to a real ice cream parlor at the little pharmacy right in town. Was it a better time? No, it definitely wasn’t. It was a time of enforced conformity, one I didn’t fit into. I guess I’m not so old that I see my childhood in sweet sepia tones.

What about myself as a sexual being? That’s not a problem, except that I still find myself attracted to younger men (about 30 years old at this point) and any fantasies in that direction seem ludicrous.

From the outside

I get mixed information from the outside, somewhere between “You’re not almost sixty!” and “When are you going to retire?” The latter comes from my colleagues, because the MOSERS retirement plan I’m in would pay for retirement already. (The reason I don’t is because the University no longer funds health insurance for retirees during the medicare gap.)

Retirement dreams

I know what I’d do if I retired now — I’d go full-steam into my retirement career. And nap a lot. I’d sit in the coffeehouse and write. I’d relax. I wouldn’t miss work at all. If I could retire now, I would, and it wouldn’t make me feel any older.

But for now, I’ll work, and remember what it was like to be younger, and make little fuss about the passage of time.

We Get Older

Not who he used to be

I had a dream last night that I hadn’t really met an old friend after years and not recognized him, that it was all a joke someone pulled on me and he was still the same compact, bearded young man I remembered when he was nineteen.

Back then, he had a dark charisma (like a good English major should) despite his straw-blond hair and blue-grey eyes. I had a little bit of a crush on him back then, although he certainly wasn’t good for me.

When I met him last, all that had changed. He was no longer the attractor of my shadow-self, but was taller, paunchy, and affable. He had given up writing. Not that this is a problem — all these are signs of a happy marriage, which he had managed to find. It was just — different.

My shadow self, the part of me that likes things that are wrong for me, the me that I have sublimated into stories, was disappointed.

Of course we all change

It’s not like I haven’t changed. I weigh more or less the same as I did when I left college, but that’s because I’ve always been overweight. My hair is almost completely grey and has gotten thinner. My moods have been changed with the medication I take, so I don’t waver between despondency and elation. My shadow-self isn’t running the show and making mistakes.

How does this look like on the outside? I’m probably not as interesting as before, especially to those persons looking for dark and complicated. I probably don’t have the erratic energy, attractive energy, that I had before. In effect, I have changed in the way my friend has changed, but haven’t noticed because I changed so slowly.

Angst, perhaps, is the thing we leave behind in order to grow. I know it’s for the best, but my shadow-self is a little disappointed in me.

Struggling with Time

This morning, I’m listening to Parliament-Funkadelic and drinking my coffee to wake me up. If this doesn’t work, I’m not sure what I’m going to do. The mornings are pretty dark now and getting colder.

I don’t feel like I’m 57 years old until I remember and then count the years from that point: twenty-nine years from the time I got hit by a car; forty years from my first boyfriend; fifteen years from when I got tenure. Fifty-two years from when I got my tonsils out.

I remember fixtures from my life that changed in the technological revolution. I remember my speech teacher recording me with a reel-to-reel tape recorder. I remember my first transistor radio. I remember the portable tape recorder roughly the size of a package of Chips Ahoy. The computer with the grey screen and the green letters, typing in commands at the prompt.

Still, I don’t feel 57. The number seems too high; its proximity to senior-citizenhood too close. I’m not resigned to go quietly into my twilight years. Expect me to make waves. Expect me to write.

Feeling young today

Sometimes, I feel really, really old.

Today, I feel younger than my 56 years of age.

I don’t know why — it’s not that I feel young. I just don’t feel like someone inching toward “senior citizen”.

I wonder if there’s something more energetic to listen to than classical music (Mahler) on this Sunday morning. Have I been missing something by not listening to Lana Del Rey? Lady Gaga? (I don’t feel like I’ve been missing anything with Ed Sheeran.)

I wonder if there’s a new hobby I could take up, as if writing isn’t enough. Or someplace to go (during COVID, this is a tall order.)

I suppose if I want to feel every minute of my age, I could just take a walk in this 100+ degree heat index. That would make me feel about 120, I suspect.

So maybe I’m not that young. But I refuse to think I’m old.

Musing on Mortality

In the pandemic, I’m thinking of my own mortality.

I’m 57 years old with a spate of minor health problems. I’m of the age where I start to fit into higher risk categories. Given my age, I’m closer to the thing that’s going to kill me than I used to be. If it’s not coronavirus, it will be something else.

I’m trying to come to terms with this. It doesn’t help that 70s music reaches deep into my soul and connects with my childhood, and it’s almost 50 years old, or that I actually find myself saying “I don’t like today’s music.” (That’s not totally true; I love ambient and electronica, Beirut, and modern singer-songwriter types.)

I’m going to die someday. I’ve honestly never looked at it that way before. I’m going to die sooner or later. Coronavirus, cancer, heart disease, old age. I’m hoping for the latter, because I have books to edit and write. I’m hoping my death isn’t painful, that it’s merciful, and that I’ve done what I’ve wanted to do before then. I hope I’m ready for it, or that it catches me so much by surprise I don’t have time for regret.

I don’t know if there’s a heaven, honestly; most conceptions of heaven seem very — well, exclusive, like Heaven is a country club where only certain Christians can enter. (This goes with the attitude of “love everyone, even if you’re certain they’re going to Hell). I have fantasies about the afterlife, that it’s the extended family I never knew how to have when I was younger, and we’re having a big banquet in harmony. I know this is a fantasy and that the only way I will live on is in people’s memories of me, unless (as I sometimes hope) my consciousness mingles with the stardust.

I try not to dwell upon this too much — after all, I have things to accomplish and depression won’t get me anywhere. Still, musing on mortality is a sign of the times.

Happy 56th birthday to me

Today I’m 56 years old.

This is not me. This is Belvedere the kitten, who’s 4 days old

For you younger people out there — time just chugs along and you hardly notice it until you get to one of those milestone years — 40, 50, 55. You’re too fixated on things like careers and children to wake up and think, “wow, I’m getting older.”

The grey hairs, the wrinkles, the thickening of the body come gradually, until you look in the mirror and see someone who looks older than you remember being.

You don’t even notice that the cultural touchstones — the music stars, the memes and jokes — flow and change around you, and you wake up one morning to find that the younger people around you don’t get your jokes anymore.

But you’ve survived so much! Everyday events that would panic you before — a flat tire, sleeping through the alarm — you now handle with aplomb. Your fears that you can’t handle crises have been proven wrong time after time.

And you have stories to tell. Middle age (late middle-age?) is a great time to start writing. Or find friends who like to tell stories and swap them.

When you’re older, you have the perspective of years, and that is your gift to the world.