Mid-Life Crisis

You always think there are somethings that only will happen to the other guy, not to you.   Lung cancer, prostate cancer, a flaming-gay child, stuff like that.  I would never have thought that I would be vulnerable to a mid-life crisis, but now in retrospect I see that I was set up for it all along.

I never really felt like I left my early twenties.  My life was pretty much open and I could do as I please.  I owed no one anything and I kept my promises.  My life has few regrets.

Yet here I am, now 47 as of a week ago, and I have nearly 3-month old first born child, a son, and it has put me in touch with my own mortality, my own advancement into my elder years.  I realize that I probably only have enough years left in me to see my first born son graduate from college.

I have noticed that as I have aged the years pass faster and faster.  It is as if our lives are like an airplane in a fatal dive, we accelerate to death, we auger in.  The older we become the faster time flies by.  I remember when I was just kid it took forever for my birthday or Chirstmas to come, now it seems these days are upon me like wolves in the night.

I have noticed that I have sunk into a deep depression lately.  Work means little to me even though my livelihood depends upon my being attentive to my business.  A great despair has come over me.

I mentioed to a friend of mine that I had sunk into a depressed state of mind since my wife had become pregnant and that I did not know what was going on with me.  It was just a statement in passing and he said,”it’s simple, you are going througha  mid-life crisis”.  I researched that and after just reading the first two sentences in the Wikipedia I broke into tears.  I recognized myself there.

It used to be thought back in the ’70s that the majority of adults went though mid-life crisis, but more research has shown that only about 10 to 15% of people actually suffer from this syndrome.  If you are 45 years old and you lose your job, that does not necessarily make it a mid-life crisis.  In this case I do not have children leaving the home, I have not lost my job, instead I have a thriving business.  But with the birth of my first born child I have new responsibilities and duties that will never end.

I remember conceiving my son.  I remember telling my wife,”you are fertile now, if I pull the trigger you will likely get pregnant, Do you want me to give you a child now?” and she said “yes” and the trigger was pulled and 9 months later precisely on his due date, my sone was born.

Most people go through having children in their 20′s. Yet here I am at 47 years of age.  The depression set upon me when my wife began to show a swelling belly, and I began to lose sexual interest in her.  I have been around for long time and having sex with a pregnant woman has never been a fantasy of mine.  But it got worse when my son was born and he was so adorable, so very handsome and nice.  He only cries when he is hungry or when his diaper needs changing.  When he is othewise awake he is attentive and playful.

I realize now that is is very unlikely that I will ever see any grandchildren.

My life has changed and people told me my life would change as a result of having a child.  I just never expected to be so overwhelmed. .

This entry was posted on Friday, April 18th, 2008 at 12:20 and is filed under Family, Personal, Philosophy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.