Mid Crisis of Life

I've thought for a while now that the term "mid-life crisis" was just a cop out for people to blame irresponsible, self indulgent behavior on. The man who hits his "crisis" leaves his family, runs off with the secretary, and buys a red sports car. The woman who falls in "love" with a man on the Internet, sets her kids on her mother's doorstep, and leaves without looking back. That's not a "mid life crisis". It's stupidity.

I do believe that there are crisis in life. Heck, I believe that life is a crisis. The fact that we have to be born and live here outside of whatever paradise you think exists, is enough to send someone over the edge of sanity. What I have come to understand more than anything though is that it's how you handle the crisis that matters.

So now, after all the pontificating that I have just done, you probably want to know if I have handled my mid crisis of life any better than the examples I've given above. I don't know for sure, but I think I have handled them better than I could have, but not a well as I should have.

I think my crucial crisis times began about six years ago and has continued to today, this very hour, this very minute. I sure didn't handle it like Mother Teresa, but I think I've handled it the best I've known how.

I think that I have grown...maybe matured more and maybe some people will attest to that. The sorrow with this is that I think I have lost some of the fun I used to have and I'm currently trying to figure out how to meld the two.

My eyes are wide open to the darkness in the world now. Darkness that surrounds all of us each day. I'm also keenly aware that this darkness can inhabit even the best and kindest of us. The sorrow here is that when the darkness does touch us, it leaves a mark on us we can't erase. The scary bit is that it has been in me more than I care to admit and the fact is I am more comfortable in the darkness sometimes than I am in the light.

But there is the light (at the end of the tunnel). I think I am seeing it more each day, at least I hope it's the light and not a train rushing head long into me. I'm doing more things for me while trying to do all the things for others as well. Others will still need me for a while, but there will be time for me alone, someday. Until then I will look at the each day as another mid crisis of life and attempt to solve it, the best way I can.