mid-life crisis?

when i think about the words "mid-life crisis" i automatically have this picture of men in their 40's with thick hair and (for some reason...) mustaches, buying red sports cars, flirting with younger women and desperately trying to reclaim their youth. it feels very 1980's as a concept (and in the way those people in my imagination are dressed). was it something from the '80's that we've now evolved past?  was it a baby boomer thing?

i am in the middle of my life.  i've been joking with mike that i'm having a mid-life crisis: meaning that for the first time, i don't like telling people how old i am, i cringe when i hear '42'.  for the first time i have a sense of having reached a peak and now being on the down-sloping side of the equation.  and things are sloping down, literally.  gravity has taken it's toll and it takes a lot more cross-fit than it used to, to combat that sloping.  the sun has taken it's toll, and i have more freckles and inverse freckles (that's what i call the white spots all over my arms and legs) to prove it.  years of facial expressions have taken their toll, smile lines and frown lines and all sorts of lines now decorate my face. 

let me start by saying that no one over 40 should have a magnifying mirror in their bathroom. they just shouldn't.  no one should see their face up that close even if it means you're make up might not look perfect.  in fact it might even be better to not wear any make up so as to avoid that magnifying mirror.

perhaps it began when i turned 40 and my eyesight suddenly took a nose dive.  i mean it felt like overnight i couldn't see.  so i went to the optometrist for the first time in my life.  he told me i needed +1's or maybe even +1.5s and that soon it would be +2s.  he told me that basically everyone over 40 needs reading glasses and that for some people it happens slowly, for others it feels like it just happens overnight.  i was not happy.  i felt betrayed by myself.  when i was 26 and in med school i'd bought +1s to help me "focus"- and i was sure that i was just now paying the price for the wearing of unnecessary glasses back then, not that my eyes were....old.

but my eyes are old and getting older.  the part that makes me wonder about a mid-life crisis, is that i basically refuse to wear glasses when i should. i mean i will wear them when i'm reading.  alone. by myself. when no one is looking.  but not at a restaurant, not when i'm with other people.  it's not because of how i look in glasses (although it's not great) it's because i don't want to have old eyes. when i was 26 i thought it was cool to wear glasses, i didn't care how it looked, but now that i actually need them, now that it actually is a reflection of my age, now that it's less of a choice and more of a necessity,   i don't want to be that lady in the reading glasses.  it's because i don't want to look old.

the other day i decided that i might feel better about the whole thing if i started lying about my age. i decided i should pick an easy number like 32 which is exactly 10 years younger than i am, so as not get stuck on the math when asked to "prove it" by stating my year of birth.  this seemed fine until i began to run the idea past people. 

i heard comments like,  " you might want to go with 36 or 37..."
to which i responded, "but the math..." until i let the weight of the comment sink in,  'oh they don't think i can pass for 32...doh!!"  that didn't make me feel so good.

when i told my kids the plan, they were horrified.  " but mommy!! you are 42! you can't be younger than aunt linds!" 
"mommy's just kidding!!" i replied, "i would never lie about my age! but could you please stop saying i'm 42 out loud! and stop telling people! let them think what they think!"

when i told mike he said, "what about me? i'd be 15 years older than you."
"that's okay! i can be your trophy wife!" i chimed back.
"but i don't want a trophy wife."
"oh."

another friend said, "but you do realize that you will have to forget the first 10 years of your life- i mean you can't say, 'i remember when starwars came out'- or 'where were you when john lennon was shot?' and isn't that kind of sad?" 
"i guess so....i hadn't thought of that...i think maybe i'm having a mid-life crisis...." i mumbled.
"do women even have mid-life crises?" he asked.

i thought about that....i thought about why i now feel...old....  is it the freckles and the lines that sit on me even when i'm not smiling? is it the +1.5s? is it that i have a teenage daughter? or is it that i live on a college campus and hang out with a bunch of 20 somethings? and then i thought about why i care....why getting older bothers me?  is it a number? is it fear of continued decline? is it ultimately a fear of death?

yikes! it's worse....i think it's vanity!

then i thought about how completely absurd i am. not just absurd, but how wrong i am.  how i don't believe in any of this way of thinking.  each line and each sun spot and each southward sag has a memory or an experience, or even if not, it's ME.  it's part of me.  my body is 42 years of story.  my face is 42 years of laughing and crying and wondering.  and i still work pretty well. i can run and even kind of fast.  i can climb a tree.  i can dance. and all those beautiful, and hard, and terrifying, and peaceful years that i stand on, they have shaped and formed me and given me and taught me and grown me.  and the best things in my life have either shared these years with me, or given me the gray hairs and stretch of skin that i'm fighting- and i would never trade in those best things!

so i've decided to go with 42. i've decided to embrace it.  to even feel fantastic about it.  i am 42 and i'm proud of it.

(but i will still be avoiding that magnifying mirror.)