don't call it a midlife crisis
but then what the hell is it
Welcome to episode 2 of exploring like, what the fuck is happening to us 30- and 40-something ladies and why does it have to be such a big deal. I started this last week just wanting to celebrate my new ear piercing and discovered there is so much to say about a so-called midlife crisis, doing what we want, not giving a shit what other people think, and how it just sort of coincides to A Certain Age but not necessarily! Last week was the piercing story and an anecdote from Lisa, who recently decided to say eff it and do something fun with her hair.
If you have a similar story of fuck-it-ness (hair? tats? moving to Germany? divorce? affair with a pool boy? are we still calling them pool boys?) to share about yourself or a friend, submit it right here.
When I turned 26, I was newly self-employed and, I think, looking for a way to celebrate. I had always wondered about coloring my hair or getting highlights ever since my first attempt went terribly wrong.
My first foray into “self-expression" via hair color, I hated my newly colored hair, and was so afraid of what people would think (probably), caught up and concerned about what it meant to be “professional,” and very absorbed in my own idea of what that looked like - and didn’t.
The year was 2009, I was 22 (don’t make it about Taylor Swift), and less than 3 months into my grown-up job, after graduating from VT with a Bachelor’s degree in Make Sure to Shove the Stick Up As Far As It Will Go, and a minor in Gotta Do Everything The Same As Everyone Else, plus everyone’s favorite post-grad weekend certification of You Have To Put In Your Time Like The Rest Of Us.
what a way to make a living
really half-assing it on the lyrics today, ok? don’t get excited.
I had OPINIONS about professionalism, plus baggage I had somehow acquired at only 22 about what it meant to be a *ahem woman in technology* and was extremely preoccupied with how I showed up as that in this job. My collection of peep-toe pumps was unparalleled, I’ll tell you that much.
Needless to say, I hated it so much I called my mom’s [very reliable, trusted, talented] hair stylist the next day to have the color I paid dearly for covered almost all the way up. Double the money, double the fun?
Fast forward 5 years later, I’ve moved to Raleigh, I live in my first ever non-roommate apartment, I’ve quit the job that I used to be so concerned about (lol how the tables turn!) and am loving my new post-corporate-office-job life which involves not having a commute, working in pajamas most of the time, mid-day workouts, and oreo cookies whenever and however frequently I desire!
I do it right this time though and look up a thousand photos to take to my colorist. Her name was Heather and she was brilliant and I had never - up to that point - loved anything about myself as much as I loved my new purple hair. And the people in my life were hilariously cliché about it, too. Absolutely epic comments like, “Oh! Your hair is purple!” which say nothing and everything, and my favorite from the man I would marry a few years later: “Is this permanent or like, what is going on with you.” Just like that - not as a question. Spoiler alert for Man-Piece, hair still purple, things still going on with me.
ok, so you’ve got a car
When I was in middle school, my parents went to a BMW dealership to test drive the brand new Z3. The dealership was running a promo: test drive any BMW, get a free Good Housekeeping cookbook! What a promo for the late-90s cis-spousal dynamic, eh? Hey, MEN! Do you want a BMW? Bring your lovely wife who loves to cook for you down here, give her a free cookbook, and maybe get the car of your dreams! Or better, take a test drive without her, relive your fast-paced youth sans minivan, buy the car, and bring her a cookbook so the sting isn’t as bad! I mean, classic, for any and all extremely normative suburban couples in 1998, amiright. I can’t roll my eyes enough for this promo, honestly.
Well, GUESS WHO HAD A NEW CHERRY RED BMW Z3 TAKING PRIDE OF PLACE AS THE ONLY CAR PARKED IN OUR 2-CAR GARAGE LATER THAT DAY! It is still one of my parents’ favorite stories to tell. Most expensive cookbook of all time! Hilarious! Chuckles all around! Who wants to go for a spin and feel young?!
she just wanted to feel cherry red
Up until like, now, this is really the clearest and most obvious example of midlife crisis I had seen in my life. I’ve known people to divorce and even cheat, and my favorite aesthetician is moving to Mexico City next year, but none of this presents to me as midlife crisis. The New Yorker published an article in 2018 diving into this, discussing one author’s book on the topic, supposing that “people married too early during the conservative postwar decades, then reëvaluated their lives…” in the 70s and 80s. Thus: divorce, running away with someone else, buying a car, seeking youth in some way.
But we aren’t doing this anymore, not really. I just read this in one of my favorite newsletters, The Ann Friedman Weekly:
When do we stop saying the adult timeline is "changing" and simply declare it changed? The problem is not that we're failing to meet the old standard. It's that we're failing to imagine a new one.
This is obviously a peek into a room packed to the ceiling with a completely different topic, but it’s adjacent. We aren’t doing things like we used to! Marrying later, buying houses later (if at all), having kids later (if at all), still going to college a lot, but doing it in less traditional ways, and then using those degrees or certs (if at all!) in a more DIY career path, no pension, no 30 year work anniversary with cake in a break room full of people you moderately despise.
THUS, the midlife crisis is not the same anymore either. We are, collectively, more “woke” to our own needs and wants, what makes us tick, what turns us on and off, and I also like to think, we in general have a higher emotional intelligence than ...I dunno, just previously. This is both a slight misuse of “woke”1 and a gross generalization - check the news this week (or any week since 2016, sob) and you’ll probably think I’m living in an alternate universe. But look at our gentle parenting tactics and trends, look at all of us quiet quitting, look at all the good and the progress since 1998, when a free cookbook for wifey got you a fast car so you could feel young2. Or whatever. But only if you were a MAN, obviously.
We aren't fixed, but we're better, if only by degrees.
I’m close to saying the midlife crisis isn’t a thing anymore. I want it to be normalized, that we don’t need to be “in crisis” to do or buy or be what we want. I just saw a story on Virginia Tech’s insta account that a 70- or 80-something-year-old lady just graduated with a new degree. She had been a student and teacher at VT for years, and after retiring, decided she wanted to study and learn some more. Was she having an end-of-life crisis? Or did was she just like I WANNA! And then did it!?
A woman I follow on instagram quit her very lucrative job in Hollywood to have a baby at 43, and moved to France to raise her kid (this is almost offensive levels of financial privilege but it’s lovely and it still counts). She wasn’t in crisis, mid or otherwise! She just decided she wanted a baby, and a change. And boom, France!
do you really want to hurt me
I think a lot of times, we - us on the outside of all of these kinds of stories of people doing A Fun Thing - need to rationalize, because WE aren’t doing A Fun Thing. It maybe speaks to an insecurity we have inside of us, if we are living in a way that isn’t in exact alignment with what we want, or with our values, or whatever. MAYBE. So we see this lady, leaving a conventionally “really good job” to have a baby and go live overseas and we’re like YIKES, MIDLIFE CRISIS MUCH!? But if we dig deeper, she’s just doing what she wants! Hers is an extreme story: we can’t all decide to have our first kid post-40 and then buy a cottage in France, et voilà, new life for us.
Certainly does not seem like apples/apples comparison, moving to France and deciding you’re allowed to wear crop tops if you want to. BUT IT IS.
Taking time and making effort to do A Fun Thing for ourselves within the constraints and context of our every-day lives I think helps with this, maybe, desperation to feel something. It can get all bottled up inside and then suddenly you ARE cheating, or abandoning something you care for deeply, or doing something super reckless to try to get a dopamine rush. What if instead of suppressing these feelings and desires, we just go with it? There are no rules. NO RULES.
I'm like Chardonnay, get better over time
This next response to my inquiry of Fun Things is a perfect example of this, in my mind.
Alisha, 34, mom of a 4-year-old, entrepreneur, author, and community builder: The Thing She’s Doing is crop tops! “I remember a couple of years ago, my 21-year-old cousin had a crop top laying around and was like, “You can’t wear that!” I put it on and she was shocked that it fit lol. I told her age doesn’t mean anything, and I could wear what I wanted.” YES GF! This example maybe feels super small in the context of what I’ve been talking about here - leaving a spouse, running away to France. But these little acts of Fun and Fucketry (a new word I just made up, I love it) (should it be Fuckitry?) are what makes our lives the kind that we DON’T need to run away from, or have a crisis in order to escape.
Alisha isn’t solving all her problems or curing herself of what may ail her on a day-to-day basis by wearing crop tops, lol I’m not delusional. But she’s injecting FUN into her life, and not giving a shit what other people - much less YOUTHS who think they have a monopoly on everything fun - think about it!
And maybe, Alisha is setting an example for her younger cousin to carry into her later years: that there aren’t any rules, that crop tops and rhinestones on your face are for everyone and anyone, and there’s no expiration date on this kinda fun shit.
What do you think? Am I losing the plot? Next week I want to take it further into the pit of motherhood and how that shapes how we find ourselves, if we find ourselves, how many years it takes to find ourselves, how many years we lose doing The Kid Thing, and how we can reset or gradually insert things we love into our lives again, instead of reaching a crisis point. If you want to submit your Fun Thing, please do so here. I will not share it without corresponding with you first!
Thanks as always for being here. We are approaching the 20th tuesday snarky memoir, and I feel giddy to have made it this far and kept this up. It’s bringing me joy to share, and that’s all you! Without you, I’d literally be shouting into the void, which I do enough of at home with my angel babies, so thanks for that. If you like snarky memoirs, I’d love if you share it with a fellow human who might be a mom or just a person who might find it entertaining.
kbye!
Wikipedia defines “woke” as an adjective derived from African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) meaning "alert to racial prejudice and discrimination,” which in recent years came to “encompass a broader awareness of social inequalities.” My argument for using this word in this context is that it kind of fits: more of us are in therapy, more of us are reading self-help books, becoming more aware of our own inner prejudices and biases, our own weaknesses and general issues - and applying this knowledge to our lives in our activism, our donations, our volunteer work, joining of causes, and smaller things like how we relate to our partners, and how we parent.
Sounds kinda like I’m hating on my dad for this but I am not. My parents both have and still do enjoy this car, and I am happy for them that they both found joy in this, have a funny story they love to tell, and were in a financially capable place to make this dream come true for themselves. I’m simply calling out the marketing tactic because it feels like something 2023 could never. Or at least, I hope so lol.