Stuck in the Future

I have a dear friend who’s husband is going through a mid-life crisis at 38.  I’ve known them both for many years, even before they got married or started dating.  My sister asked about them last Sunday and I explained the crisis that had gripped the husband.  “So he’s left her?  He’s gotten an apartment and he’s gone back to living single?”  No, I explained, he’s undecided.  “So he’s still at home with his family?” she asked, confused.  “Sometimes.” I said, unclear myself. “But sometimes not.  Sometimes he’s back to his old family guy self, other times he’s trying to relive the past.  He’s trying to figure out what he wants to do.”  My sister said that it didn’t make sense.  I grunted a little.  “I’m not going to say I condone what he’s doing but I kind of understand it.  We’ve gone through it. We just didn’t have kids and a mate to watch us do it and suffer the consequences.” 

I’d come up with that while talking to her.  I’d sounded just like her for the past month while I was a listening ear but at that moment I looked back on my recent years and what I’d gone through.  At 38, I too had tried with all my might to remind myself of the best times of my youth.  I’d fulfilled my dreams I’d written down when I was 10, convinced myself that the achiness I felt in my body after doing regular tasks was laziness that I had to work out, decided that age was not going to catch me, and made a list of all my regrets I could recall.  I’d taken a good hard look at my personality flaws and after a year or so, decided what I could live with and what had to change in order for me to keep my self-respect in any kind of shape.  It was tough and brutal; I had many a wine-filled weekend where I just cried for two solid days and felt sorry for myself.  I did all this on my own time and at my leisure.  The only constant interruption was work and walking my dogs.  My dogs don’t really ask me why I’m crying as I walk or why I’m not in a talkative mood for days at a time.  I work with women so they know when to back off and let a woman have her reconstruction time.  Three of my co-workers are a little shy of 50 and had warned me of impending mental illness as I cried over my spent youth and upcoming adulthood. 

Some people welcome this time in their lives.  They can’t wait.  They have children on purpose because they await with open arms the waves of years to wash over them.  They’re excited about their mistakes and can’t wait to benefit from them. They take their place in the world early on – solid in the satisfaction that this is what being a part of mankind is all about.

 

Others of us have chronic “Peter Pan” syndrome and believe that time should stop for us and repercussions should be selective.  Youth is a place, not a time and aging is an evil task master that must be outrun at all costs.  Sometimes you get caught up with having a good time and wake up one day to find that you’ve been robbed.  Robbed of surprise, innocence, ignorance.  You no longer get that euphoric feeling of experiencing something for the first time – you can relate everything to something else you’ve done or experienced.  And like a sugar addict coming off bread, you get angry about it sooner or later.  The indecisiveness sets in – sometimes you’re happy you’re grown up and knowledgeable but sometimes you wish you could get away with some of the stuff you did when you were younger.  Finally (and thank God the learning curve is sharp), you realize this is a no-win situation and you should cut your losses, cherish what you have accomplished and change what you can.  This is my first year out of the “crazy years” and I feel calmer each day with less sadness.  But, like I said, I did that at my leisure with really good friends and family that interjected periodically.  My friend has a whole family in his wake.  His tantrums will be the building blocks for relationships for his children and his wife is becoming shell-shocked.

My sister shook her head at my explanation and though she too is going through her transformation without any casualties, she explained that not everyone has that luxury – especially when they bring children into the world.  We sat in silence for a few moments, both thinking our own thoughts about our own father, who’d lost his mind early in our lives and when he recovered, he had a new family.   I could see why we would not cut anyone any slack over this situation.  Either way, I realized that there were a great many of us stuck in the future, unable to travel back and forth at will, disgusted that time had solidified on us and left us to age with the rest of humanity.