Mid-Life Crisis Handles

"I can't seem to get a handle on my mid-life crisis."

These were the words of my longest and dearest friend, trying to sum up a string of difficult days and challenges.  In truth, the two of us have been sharing our various travails for a year or more.  Work struggles, relationships, body changes, health issues, parenting teenagers, and aging family members are the frequent topics of our conversations.  At some point my friend wisely reminded me that we were women of a certain age. She intimated that our malaise had a little bit to do with our denial that we were in our mid forties. We needed to talk with some older women and be reminded how very normal we were. Our struggles stemmed from working so hard to keep our feelings, bodies, and activity resembling our 30 year old selves.

Just Between Friends (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Our brilliant, nursery rhyme singing toddlers are now know-it-all, social media dependent teens. Hugs and snuggles are traded out for new clothes and rides to other people's homes. Enduring the advice and judgement of older family members, we now assist with retirement home decisions and funeral arrangements. Birth control choices and pap smears are old hat. The new ailments du jour seem to never have definitive prognosis but rather involve changing our normal routines and diet to accommodate our aging bodies and then getting used to the new set of limitations.  Every order of fries, drunken party, and dropped yoga class seems to all have converged on us over night.  There is the quiet lingering questions, for me at least, "Will I have enough money when I retire? for the kid's college? What should I be doing with my life? Am I in the midst of doing it already?  Will I ever have a grown up bed with headboard?"

"I can't seem to get a handle on my mid-life crisis."

It sounds depressing when I read it on the screen but in the moment I burst out laughing. I don't have a handle on all of "it".  But my friend has a handle on me and hopefully I have a bit of a handle on her. There are so many things out of my control and so many places in my life where I lose perspective. Be real with enough people and if you're lucky they can keep hold of you.