Yes, you read that correctly, as this is, by careful calculation and analysis, my fourth mid-life crisis since about 2014, but the happy news is that this one is a fun one, taking place mostly in my mind, and marked by giddy hands-in-the-air abandon as if I’m on some perpetual high, perhaps teetering to a psychedelic mania just this side of hallucination – and all without the sting of drink.
Skip introduced me to the following song, which is characterizing this particular moment of time in ways both exuberant and desperate. It spoke more deeply and plaintively to me than I was expecting, perhaps because my most recent mid-life crisis came with the death of my Dad and the aftermath (despite what this post tried to pretend) and that was decidedly less fun. By then, I’d done it twice before, and the first two were pretty damn near disastrous.
Julian, it’s a hungry world
They’re gonna eat you alive, son, oh-yeah
Oh, Julian, when their fangs sink in
I’ll stitch you, but then I gotta throw you back in, oh
According to my therapist, many people, especially men, will go through several mid-life crisis moments – something she wisely neglected to warn me about when I was having my first because I probably wouldn’t have continued on had I known that it was only the beginning. (I also only-half-jokingly tried to tell her that I did not sign on for more than one.) This time around is decidedly less worrisome than the first three, as I’m aware of how to navigate the pull of drama in such a way that I don’t make life-altering/endangering choices. This one also comes just as I’m working on a project that aligns itself perfectly with the theme at hand – and whenever I have a creative outlet in heavy flow it’s like having a multitude of therapy sessions, all of them deeply illuminating and helpful.
You just try and sleep, even though you’re alone
You just close your eyes, boy, you dream of home
The light is always on, you just keep that in mind
When you wake in the morning, you’ll be satisfied
As we are also in the throes of a Mercury-in-retrograde moment that looks to last for most of the month, I’m going to let the universe guide me on whatever merry-or-not-so-merry way it wants to take. A helpful bit of advice I’ve heard of late is to stop trying to force things to go the way you think you want them to go, especially if signs and people and gut-feelings are giving you pause. Give in to the pause, and just fucking pause. If anything is truly meant to be, it will be, and it will unfold as it’s meant to unfold.
‘Cause there is always a wrong to your right
And there will always be a war somewhere to fight
And God knows I’ve had some rough fuckin’ years
Ooh, oh Lord, oh Lord, keep on keeping on
As for navigating this bit of tumult, it comes with the course of a fifty-year-old. I’ve reached the age where more years are behind me than in front of me, so the past will revisit and rear its old head, and it need not be so haunting and bothersome if we simply acknowledge it, and move on with the day. There is no way to go back and change things – life fell as it fell, and if there are still broken bits and pieces of destruction you either pick them up or kick them out of the way. If it doesn’t serve you, let it go.
So hide this song away for a darker day
When you’re down on your knees, screaming “Oh, Lord”
I am always there, you just keep that in mind
When you wake in the morning, you’ll be satisfied
Unless this is the last day of your life (and if it is, what the hell are you wasting it reading my drivel?) another one will follow tomorrow. So pause… wait… hold… breathe. Let the mind go a different direction for a bit then revisit whatever might appear to be ailing you. Don’t immediately act when the dander is up; don’t change your life in the heat of the moment. This is how you get through a mid-life crisis – at least, this is how I’m getting through mine – and it’s my fourth, so I know a little of what I speak – but only a little…
‘Cause there is always a wrong to your right (yeah)
And there will always be a war somewhere to fight (ooh)
And God knows I’ve had some rough fuckin’ years
Ooh, oh Lord, oh Lord, keep on keeping on
