Life, Death and Mid-Life Crises...

Despise my best intentions, it has been entirely too long since my last blog. The actual reason (laziness due to lack of inspiration) is far more common and uninteresting than the underlying problem: I think I'm having a mid-life crisis. No, I'm not having an affair, I don't plan to buy a sports car (we have one, thank God!), and I'm still genuinely in love with my husband and family. So it's a little hard to explain, and it's a lot hard to understand.

Like most people today, there is a loosely accepted definition of "mid-life crisis" that I've always just accepted and didn't give much thought to. For one thing, it was usually something that affected men. For another, it almost always involved adultery and embarrassing behavior, two things that I don't have much respect for. However, about six months ago, I became acutely aware that something was happening to me, both inside and out, that I had no explanation for. I was aging, and while I was intellectually aware of the ramifications that come with that, I was a lot less able to comprehend some of the other ways it was affecting me.

I don't remember the exact date, but I was surfing the internet for some long lost friends and when I typed in the name "Ty Westerhoff," I got back a hit that included the words "date of death." I was flabbergasted. Not just because he'd died, but because he'd died in 2005! He'd been gone for four years and I was just now finding out about it. I was sad but I was also angry. I'd last seen him around 1994, just before I moved away from Los Angeles. He'd been tall, blond, talented, kind and drop-dead beautiful. I mean, he was so good-looking it was kind of embarrassing. He was made me laugh, he kissed like an angel, and he was probably the only guy I ever dated that never once made me cry. He was honest, easy-going and neither of us was in love. We were friends, often lamenting about the people in our lives who hurt us, and though we drifted apart, there was never an unkind word between us.

In the end, my tears over him were because it was such a tragic loss at such a young age (he was 42), in such a painful way (stomach cancer) and without saying good-bye. If I was being honest, I would admit that most of my tears for him were really for myself. My lack of closure, my worry that maybe I hadn't been a good enough friend, and my disappointment that there isn't even one picture of us together. For a week, I cried in the shower and said good-bye to my friend. Then I printed a picture of him, put it on my window sill in a little frame, and started thinking about all the things I still want to do that I am not doing but could be doing. Maybe they were some of the same things the Ty wanted to do but never got the chance.

A few weeks later it occurred to me that, for the first time, I could empathize with all the men in the world who'd gone through the proverbial 'mid-life crisis." I don't necessarily condone their behaviors, but I absolutely understand their motivations. The thing is, I'm having a lot of those kinds of thoughts and behaviors, and it's starting to frustrate me. Why am I thinking about good-looking men all the time? Why am I pulling out all my favorite rock and roll CDs, buying new ones, watching rock videos on YouTube, and spending a lot more time putting on make-up? Why did a few new gray hairs freak me out? And why on earth was I putting together a bucket list?!

The sad truth is that I've been surrounded by death the last few years. Losing my grandparents in their 80s and 90s was sad, but not life-changing. That is the order of life, after all, and living to be 93 is a decent run, but dying at 42 is another matter altogether. When someone who's larger than life dies, it's even more jarring. Michael Jackson, in his prime with a young family and all the money he could want, did something stupid and never woke up. I know there's a lot of controversy about his death, and that's neither here nor there because I have no idea if it was a homicide or not. What made it hit home for me is simply that it can happen to any of us. We all know, intellectually, that we could get hit by a car right now, today, on the way to the grocery store, and die. We simply don't dwell on it because it would probably immobilize most of us.

The problem comes when we become emotionally aware of death. There's something disturbing about your contemporaries dying. No wonder there's a huge amount of depression in the elderly! People who hit "middle age" (regardless of the exact age this is defined as) are suddenly acutely aware of it and it's scary. For example, there are three people in my life right now with cancer; one of them is almost 80 years old and though he doesn't admit it, I know his time is limited. Another is just 40. She's beautiful and vibrant and fighting for all she's worth. I know she's doing her damnedest not to give in, but it's spreading, and deep down I'm terrified every time I don't see her on Facebook for a day or two. The last is my 70-something Uncle who refuses to acknowledge it and tells everyone he's fine even though he's barely alive.

So everyday I look at my children and think, I could be next. They could be without a mom. My husband could be alone, my parents would lose their only child and all the things I want to do would never be done. It's terrifying enough to send you right into the arms of a long-haired bad boy with flat abs, young enough to be your kid! I haven't done that, mind you, but there's no doubt that it has some appeal... thank God for the bright red 2007 Mustang in the driveway that moves that second you touch the gas and has a decent stereo system. There's something exhilerating about the movement, the wind in your hair, the music playing. When I'm in our mini-van, I fade into oblivion; when I'm in the Mustang, truckers often honk and men with wedding rings lean out the window and wave. In the past, I thought they were idiots who didn't love their wives. Now I understand that most of them are just like me; human beings whose contemporaries are fading away, leaving the rest of us to ponder our own existences. Acting "young" (or at least younger than you actually are) makes you feel alive again--because aging is related to death, no matter how much you try to think otherwise.

That's not to say there aren't assholes out there, men who cheat because they can, women who drink because it's something to do, and teens who do drugs because they don't have the sense to realize what they're doing to their bodies. There are bad, stupid and/or misguided people everywhere, but they're not the ones I'm talking about. I've just been thinking about regular people, like you and me, who aren't so much afraid of death as they are afraid that their lives aren't what they should be or could have been. What I'm most afraid of is to be lying on my death bed thinking not about my wonderful family and the memorable moments of years past, but about all my regrets and how I would never get to do this, that or the other thing.

And so, as I ponder the days and weeks to come, I've suddenly started thinking about doing, as opposed to hoping or wishing. I'm going to take that trip back to my home town to see a few friends, even though I could probably pay off a bill with the air fare. We're planning the details of how to affordably visit my in-laws even though I despise the drive and we can't afford to fly. Mostly, I've stopped automatically telling myself no, I can't, I shouldn't, it's not possible. Everything is possible. The world is there for the taking. I still believe in moderation, in practicality and in saving for a rainy day, but there are always going to be rainy days, both now and long after I'm gone. So I'm going to start pretending that a few sunny days are actually those proverbial rainy days, and dip into my savings. It's got to be better than a mid-life crisis.