A Note from the Author: I was looking at my old blogs to see if any of them should be moved over here before I deleted that account. When I ran into this one, I hemmed and hawed over whether I should move it, because it's no longer true to my current situation, but that's when I realized that's exactly why I SHOULD put it up here.
Because maybe someone reading this will still relate, even if I no longer do... and maybe now I can give them some hope on top of it. :)
Originally posted April 2018...
Without going into detail on very personal matters, it's contextually important that I mention I went through some traumatic experiences not too long ago. I wasn't the only one hurt, and not even the one most hurt, but it did effect me in a deep way. That said, I have had over a year of healing, and at this point life is fairly stable and peaceful.
Recently I have found myself feeling... odd. At first I thought it was a continuing, though muted, pain from that experience, and in fact it could easily be mistaken for the logical conclusion of my personality metamorphosis from it. But something has niggled at my brain that this is different. The changes in me from the trauma are, at this point, mostly positive. I've grown and learned, become stronger, more mature, and more responsible. To be fair, I am also a lot less trusting and more cynical too, but even those, when used properly, can be very good things.
This feeling... is anything but good.
I'm going to attempt to describe it, both for your own understanding and mine. It looks, on the surface, like depression. Sleeping a lot, loss of interest in what used to make me happy, lack of energy, all of that. But I have gone to a therapist for it and gotten nowhere, plus each of these symptoms has a strange added caveat I've never heard of in any of my depression studies. I'm sleeping a lot BUT only because I'm tired; when I'm not tired, I don't want to sleep, though I don't really know what I DO want to do. I have lost interest in the things that made me happy BECAUSE I feel like they should have evolved inside me somehow, and it all feels so... repetitive now. Like I've grown as a person, but my interests haven't, and I'm not sure why or how to change that. I have a lack of energy BECAUSE I'm not doing anything to build up energy because nothing sounds worth it because...
What's the point?
Depression often has no rhyme or reason. You feel that way, and you can't break free because you can't understand it in the first place. I'm not only understanding this, I'm actively trying to study and change it. Every day. It's not that I'm staring at walls, lost in my sadness. I'm staring at books, trying to find an answer to it. The big difference, I think, is that I still have MOTIVATION. Every day. To break free somehow. Yet it still feels futile. And the worst part is, it feels futile for a reason. It's a conclusion I've come back to again and again.
I've already done everything I possibly can within the boundaries of the life I am capable of leading right now. In a word, life has gotten BORING. And in a way that is, well... depressing.
They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. With that in mind, I have changed up things in my life a lot lately, from moving to a different place to changing my financial attitude and habits, to crossing over into videos for my books. I've literally tried everything I can think of to create a turn in my path. Or a twist. Or, hell, even a little BUMP. But it remains as straight as it ever was, running into the horizon until it feels like the only thing that will change anything will be death itself.
And today, my brain finally told me what this IS, and I almost stopped breathing at the realization.
THIS, my friends, is what a mid-life crisis feels like!
It's mostly touted as a joke in our society. Middle-aged man buys a Porsche. Middle-aged woman gets a boob job. Haha. Look at how silly they are, wanting to be young again. But I think nobody has actually explained WHY they make those choices at that particular time in their lives. It's neither shallow nor, really, an attempt at regaining their youth. At least, not physically. No, it's an attempt at regaining the HOPE and EXCITEMENT of youth. Plans made with nothing but potential ahead. Looking forward to the great unknown adventure that is life. New milestones to experience.
At 40, I have experienced almost all of those. And while some of them have been wonderful, some have been downright terrible. Still, either way, at least they were something.
I might have grandchildren to look forward to, though with how society is right now and how my children feel (which I don't begrudge them at all), that may never happen. I might, still, have trade publication to look forward to, but after two and a half decades trying a million different tactics to get even a TOE in the door, that, too, is starting to look like a silly, frayed hope from yesteryear. I may be able to buy a house someday, but not if I stay where I am in my job, which pays the bills but gives no leeway for saving or paying off debt for credit fixing, and while I am thankful for that stability at least, I'm not seeing any place for advancement at all. In fact, one of my co-workers has been there for 11 years, and has had NO chance to move up the ladder in all that time.
In the end, I'm just... stuck... on a path with no more surprises, no more adventures, no more ANYTHING. And that, my friends, is what a mid-life crisis actually feels like.
Maybe I just need to buy a Porsche. Followup, November 2022...
Three months after I posted this, in August of that same year, I started a new relationship with the man of my dreams. We're still going strong today, working on 5 years later. I knew him when I wrote this, but just as friends, and, ironically enough, we met at that job I said was going nowhere! My life has changed exponentially since then, and I have experienced new things I never thought I ever could. Many with and because of him, yes, but some also because I made them happen myself.
So if you relate to the above feeling, just know that it doesn't have to stay that way forever. The horizon may look straight and flat, but I've learned that things have a way of only revealing themselves as you get closer to them on your journey through life. So keep journeying forward. You never know what may pop up unexpectedly to change everything! Maybe even today!
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