Too Late for a Midlife Crisis?
Posted on December 12, 2012
Nostalgia is considered one of the lesser emotions, like sentimentality, a cheap thrill, not a worthy feeling like love or a passionately intense one like jealously or envy. But lately I’ve been feeling nostalgic for the most passionate and intense period of my life—the Sixties! Is it too late for me to have a midlife crisis?
What would that look like for me? Instead of having an affair, or buying a snazzy racecar like some men do, maybe I’d buy a beat-up old Volkswagen van, preferably one with the split windshield, pre-1968. I’d go to a pawn shop and buy an old battery-operated 40-watt amplifier, and a Fender Stratocaster guitar. Then I’d set off across the country, on a musical road trip!
from a store window in Woodstock, NY
I can’t include the picture of myself on a similar trip in 1969, because I’d blow my avatar cover as the blogger Metatron here at HNE, though many of my co-workers have already figured out who is Metatron.
But there’s a bigger meaning at play here, and that is—why should I have a midlife crisis at all? I’m not in crisis mode. I’m fairly comfortable with the arc of my life. Though realistically my life is at least two-thirds over, I have some satisfactions and some still unrealized hopes and dreams. I haven’t given up. I’m certainly not seeking to retain what’s left of my youth. I don’t dye my hair, I don’t wear make-up (though a surprising number of men do these days!), and I’m not going in for cosmetic surgery. What then is the source of my longing for those “thrilling days of yesteryear”? I don’t want to live in the past. The present and future are too exciting. Maybe it’s natural and universal to start to look back when you reach a certain age.
What about you? Are you heading into those twilight years? What would your mid-life crisis look like? Have you had one? How did you fare? I’d love to hear from others about how they are doing with the aging process, and whether they are looking back, and if so, with what kinds of feelings?