Your mid-life crisis

[scotrace]

In four years, I'm selling the lot and off for Europe. I'd rather be wandering and homeless in France than out of a job and miserable in Ohio. Once my youngest is out of school - Away I go.

 

[JimWagner]

Well, I'm looking to retire inside of the next 6 months, with luck maybe even 2 months from now. I plan to have my mid life crisis then since I seem to have missed it when I was 40.

 

[angeljenny]

I think I have just hit my quarter life crisis!

 

[Atticus Finch]

So I'll be turning 40 (I said it!!!) this December. If I had the funds, I'd buy a sexy hot rod and leer at handsome fellows while driving in it! Since that's not an option, I need to figure out an equally good scandal or event to bring in the next decade in a couple of months.

So, if you are 40 or over, did you have some kind of existential dilemma and deal with it by buying lots of age inappropriate things? What did you do if you care to share? Any suggestion for a glamorous crisis?

I don't recall having an identifiable crisis as I approached forty. Then, again, that was almost sixteen years ago, and I may have repressed the details.

I expect that there are more than a few scandals that you could get yourself into between now and December. And there are tons of age inappropriate toys you could buy. But I doubt that either of those things would help you have a more satisfying mid-life crisis. Well...on second thought...the scandal might. I guess it depends on the boundaries of your comfort zone and how far you're willing to tiptoe outside of them...

But maybe it would be better to ignore the shiny, new material things...and to stay out of trouble...and instead, do something big and good that you've never done before. Maybe take a sabbatical from work and hike the entire Appalachian Trail. Maybe find a church that does missionary work in a foreign country and tag along on their next trip. Maybe run for a public office in your community and help improve the lives of your neighbors. In other words, do something that will break the pattern you’ve established in your first forty years, and break it in a positive way.

Then get a new tattoo and an old leather jacket. Drive eighty miles per hour while throwing your empty beer bottles at road signs and get caught by your local police, at five in the morning, sleeping on a park bench next door to a grade school.

AF

 

[PrettySquareGal]

I don't recall having an identifiable crisis as I approached forty. Then, again, that was almost sixteen years ago, and I may have repressed the details.

I expect that there are more than a few scandals that you could get yourself into between now and December. And there are tons of age inappropriate toys you could buy. But I doubt that either of those things would help you have a more satisfying mid-life crisis. Well...on second thought...the scandal might. I guess it depends on the boundaries of your comfort zone and how far you're willing to tiptoe outside of them...

But maybe it would be better to ignore the shiny, new material things...and to stay out of trouble...and instead, do something big and good that you've never done before. Maybe take a sabbatical from work and hike the entire Appalachian Trail. Maybe find a church that does missionary work in a foreign country and tag along on their next trip. Maybe run for a public office in your community and help improve the lives of your neighbors. In other words, do something that will break the pattern you’ve established in your first forty years, and break it in a positive way.

Then get a new tattoo and an old leather jacket. Drive eighty miles per hour while throwing your empty beer bottles at road signs and get caught by your local police, at five in the morning, sleeping on a park bench next door to a grade school.

AF

Oh, thanks, but I survived it! I posted that in 2007. I'm loving life! It's not that the fate fairies have made things perfect and easy for me; I've gone through some painful things. But I learned that happiness is something I bring to my days and not the other way around but if they do it's bonus.

I'm still interested in hearing about others experiences before, during or after!

 

[Atticus Finch]

Oh, thanks, but I survived it! I posted that in 2007. I'm loving life! It's not that the fate fairies have made things perfect and easy for me; I've gone through some painful things. But I learned that happiness is something I bring to my days and not the other way around but if they do it's bonus.

I'm still interested in hearing about others experiences before, during or after!

Shoot. I had already marked this on my calendar. After Christmas, I was going to find this thread and see if you had been caught sleeping on the park bench, yet.

AF

 

[PrettySquareGal]

Shoot. I had already marked this on my calendar. After Christmas, I was going to find this thread and see if you had been caught sleeping on the park bench, yet.

AF

Sorry to disappoint! But it's never too late to make the police blotter!

 

[kyboots]

Mike and Gregg thanks for the explanation. Still young enough to learn. I have been doing all those things for the past 20 years. Why wait? European castles were not built for the handicapped, go now and enjoy. Be certain you don't take it with you. Name it I probably tried to do it!---John