I’m filled with a horrendous thought, technically an horrendous thought. It’s that life is passing me by, my kids are growing up, and instead of being present for them I am wasting my time refreshing meaningless apps and pursuing meaningless pursuits.
And at the end of my life I will regret the way I spent most of it. I will wish I had been a more present parent, I will wish I savored each day. I will wish I had spent more time living and less time lying in bed with a heat pad on my midsection. (That being said I would leave my family for the one I just linked.)
To be honest, I think I’m having a midlife crisis. Many of my friends—ones not in entertainment although a few who are—are talking casually about looking forward to retirement. They are making plans. I am… not. I am still semi sort of trying to achieve the things I set out to achieve when I had the energy and free time to dream big.
Except I’m not really, because I’m no longer an ambition-monster (who has the time for that?) and I struggle to push myself out of my comfort zone.
I’ve given myself a grace period in that my parents died and dealing with that was a full time job but the clock is kinda running out on that one and now it’s time to get my head back in the game.
So let’s say it was just this, this was all I ever achieved—I wrote some things many years ago that some people remember but none of which went viral (this was before virality but you get the idea). I’m a podcaster and personality who is a part of some people’s lives but I never hit it big in the ways that it once seemed I had the potential to—Is that enough?
Can that be enough?
I am the age now—50, soon to be 51 in a few months—where people start to think about wrapping it up.
So how is it that I feel like I’m still just starting?
I have always been a late bloomer but come on.
Is it just silly at this point?
Embarrassing?
Even the plastic surgery which I just got—nose job, midface lift, fat grafting. My husband keeps telling me I’m a dime piece, which is a phrase I did not even know he uses, but what is even the point of being a dime piece at 51? I’m not exactly on Raya.
It’s as if I always wanted a canopy bed but my parents never got one for me so now that I’m a grown up I’m gonna get myself the canopy bed only it’s not a canopy bed it’s a nose job and while I’m redecorating I also got some other items for the room.
Or maybe I should have said it’s as if I always wanted a pony so now as an adult I’m gonna get myself one. There are women who actually do this. I follow them on Tik Tok and watch their content instead of talking to my children. They were into horses once and then left it behind and then return in middle age.
I was also briefly a horse girl until I was thrown and then my sister was thrown and then it was declared in our house that The Rosen Girls Won’t Be Riding Horses Ever Again.
Then the Christopher Reeve accident happened and my parents felt even more sure of their position.
I do miss riding and thought maybe I’ll get back into it, it can’t really be as dangerous as my parents said. But then I did some light research and it actually is very dangerous. I can’t endanger my precious babies (nose and snatched profile) in that way.
I do like watching the content though. “Rise and fall with the leg on the wall” is something a riding teacher once told me, and to explain what it means is beyond my horse comprehension at this point. I think it has to do with diagonals which I also don’t understand.
Actually I do understand but to explain it feels too hard. Similar to when my son asked me why it’s called Independence Day and it seemed too hard to explain so I said, “Huh, I don’t know!” and my husband yelled “Are you serious????” from the other room.
Anyway I can remember that horse wisdom but not when it’s pajama day in my kid’s class because I don’t open the specific classroom app enough to stay on top of it. I also forgot his social skills teacher was out of town so I sent him to class. He was delighted for the break and didn’t care about wasted travel time but things are falling through the cracks, you guys. I’m not on top of my shit.
My midlife passion project has been fish tanks which I won’t shut up about. I have four and the only thing stopping me from more is lack of horizontal surfaces. The key to hobbies, I found myself thinking, is to choose one where there’s no end to the tinkering. There’s just always more you can do. Sort of ike old cars where there’s seemingly always something to wrench on (did you know I speak car?)
The problem with the never-ending maintenance is that if you go a handful of days without doing maintenance because let’s say your face hurts and you’re depressed and having an identity crisis, it gets gnarly fast.
Such is the case in my turtle tank which has a fish poop and fish baby problem right now. There’s just so much fish shit. It is impossible to keep up with. There’s also a ton of babies which is adorable and becoming a fish grandma is beyond exciting but these literal fuckers are reproducing too quickly and I need to figure out how I’m going to deal with the inevitable overpopulation.
I actually have a plan involving separating the males from the females but it’s going to require a bigger tank which means potentially consolidating two other tanks which is not without risk. Or maybe I do a double decker situation meaning I put tanks in the bottom of the cabinets there are now tanks on top of. Now I gotta get out a measuring tape and bend over and measure. This isn’t how I envisioned my life!
Which is really the crux of the midlife crisis, right? Making peace with how you envisioned your life versus the life you are living and realizing that some of the dreams you had just might not be possible and some of them might not really be that important to you or else you would have made them happen by now.
I guess?
I’ve only just started using the phrase midlife crisis a couple days ago. I’m even late to that!
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