During this life we all go through stages. We start out young and grow older. Many of us don't like the growing older part. Why can't we start out old and get younger. That way, when we are 13 we really can know everything right?
Well unfortunately this is an impossibility. We all must face the fact that we are going to get old. We are going to start to look older as well. Our bodies are simply not going to do the things that we want them to do. Some people just don't handle this very well and begin going through what most people call a midlife crisis. Although not really a medical or mental health condition some people look at those going through it as if they have lost their minds.
Midlife crisis to me means that one is looking at the past and the future at the same time. Now, this exercise is not the crisis. The crisis comes in when an individual doesn't approve of the future or is afraid of what is to come. Another case can be when we don't necessarily like our past and feel as if we have wasted our entire lives up till now.
Getting older happens to everyone. Well, if we are lucky it happens to us. Lines appear on the face, gravity takes over our body, sometimes there is all kinds of gravity taking over. We begin thinking more and more about our lives. We think about how old we are, what we have done with our lives so far. We wonder if we are where we should be. We look at others our age and wonder what possessed us to make the decisions we made. We wonder if we could have had more or done more. We wonder if the remainder of our lives will be the same or if we will make different choices to better our lives. To further this massive thinking era we wonder if we still "have it." We wonder if we are still attractive to the opposite sex.
Sometimes this time of thinking leads people to do things that they wouldn't normally do. It is scary to get older. There are so many changes, so much is expected of us. There are so many people in this world who cannot handle the pressure of being an adult, or rather the realization that they are an adult. Some people handle this fear with style some handle it with strange behavior.
Some women will color their hair, get a breast augmentation, have other forms of plastic surgery, etc. Men will color their hair, buy a sports car, or hang out with the guys more. Both men and women have been known to have affairs with much younger partners. Apparently the attraction to younger people all has to do with making them feel younger themselves.
I suppose that my definition of midlife crisis would be the fear that occurs when one reaches the age of real adulthood sometime between the ages of 30 and 55. Fear can make people do many things and just like anything else love is the best cure because we simply are not going to get any younger.
