Mid –Life, Life

Mid –Life, Life  

Alright I tell myself, “Just when, will I have this all empowering mid-life event.”  I’ve heard people say that they get up in the morning and if their name is not in the obituary column they are good to go another day. I say if you get up in the morning and you are still sucking air you are good to go.  When do you know when you are in your mid life?  If your parents have already gone to their reward do you divide their ages in half and go from there? If you do that and you have already passed that age did you miss you mid life event?  Do you go by what some insurance company tells us that the average lifespan is? Can’t you just see a group of people sitting around a table and deciding how old we all should be when we die?  How surreal is that?

So, here’s what started this little journey to find my “mid life event.”  I’m not going to call it a mid life crisis.  I feel that the word crisis gives credence to bad behavior and just looking around there is already enough of that going on.  No I like to think that my mid life event is still to come.  I was reading the obituary column a few days ago. No I don’t do it just to see if my name is there!  Anyway, I saw that a doctor I use to see had passed away.  He was 88.  So I’m thinking about when I saw him for the first time and turns out it was some 40 years ago.  Oh my stars.  At the time I was going to him he was in his mid life.  His event was happening then.  Did he know it?  What was he doing?  I remember he had recently lost his wife and was moving on with another woman.  He was bigger than life to me.  I was young, a bit stupid to know much of anything. But I’m not like that now. Uh, young I mean.  He was brash and saw people in the ER with his cowboy boots on which could easily be covered in cow manure.  He was living life, to me, in all its glory.  I hope he continued.  I don’t know.  I got married, moved away, still saw him a few times but then he moved away with his new girlfriend.  I moved on to another doctor. Now has died.  Of course there was that forty year time span thing.  But in the picture his family printed with his life ending story, he looked pretty happy.

What if we miss our mid life event?  What important thing marks that occasion?  Is it when I finally learned, the older I got the more my mother knew?  I tell this line to young brides and mothers because I love to see the light go on in their eyes when they realize what I’ve just said.  Ding! You can almost hear the bell.  Yes I’ve had that revelation several times.  I now know that she really did have eyes in the back of her head.  How she ever found out I was smoking in high school is still a mystery. I’ve since quit.  One of the best things I did for myself.  She and that doctor were right, it was bad for me.  Then of course she was right again; Mr. Right did come along thankfully and Mr. Wrong hit the bricks.  I did have to drive into Mr. Right’s yard and snatch him up.  But that’s another story.

Maybe it was when I thought my hair should be red instead of brown.  How nice my friends were to tell me that I looked good.  I looked like my head was on fire for goodness sakes!  Or when I wore those cute cut off over-alls after I was forty.   I saw those pictures a few months ago.  Yuck!

Knowing that just because I can afford the proverbial little red sports car doesn’t necessarily mean I should get it.   Nope.  I don’t think I’ve hit my “mid” yet.  I don’t feel like I’m in the middle. I think I’m pre-middle. As long as I can stay in front of my mid-life life I’ve got a lot of living yet to do.  I look forward to learning a thing or two.  Having hard knocks come my way yet.  Not too hard I hope. Some soft knocks would also be welcomed events.  I wish the same to you.  Call, write, or send up a flare when you figure YOU get there.  I want to know how you know.

Trina Machacek lives in Eureka. Her book ITY BITS can be found on Kindle.  Share your thoughts and opinions with her at itybytrina@yahoo.com.