Tell Me About Your Midlife Crisis

Or the ongoing crisis that has been your life.

I knew I wanted to be a writer from a very young age, but I didn’t pursue writing as a career until I was nearly 30. I figured I had nothing to say and besides, I wasn’t good enough. In my 20s, I feverishly wrote short stories, submitting many of them to the then-new online workshop from Zoetrope. Despite positive feedback, one crushing and cruel review made me stop. It was all so confusing. Maybe, I remember thinking, I’d be better when I was older. 

I look back at my youthful energy and ambition and wish I’d taken myself more seriously. Lacking confidence, I was easily swayed by the opinions of others. You like books and kids, become a teacher, people told me. And so I did.

That was nearly 20 years ago. Elder millennials like myself are entering middle age. My 40th birthday came and went in muted pandemic fashion; I accepted that, like much else, the moment would feel less special and more mundane than the anticipation of it. I soon realized that turning 40 isn’t a one-time event; you remain in this middling decade for a whole 10 years. I’m almost 42. Now what? 

If you haven’t read Jessica’ Grose’s recent NYT essay on millennial middle age, I highly recommend it. She argues that many millennials are still searching for stability in middle age, and so the idea of blowing up your life feels exhausting.

There was another NYT article on the midlife crisis just a few months ago, which looked at the 40s-50s from a totally different angle. Midlife is when people tend to come to terms with their mortality, Peter Coy wrote, noting that even chimpanzees and orangutans may experience a kind of midlife crisis. There’s a psychological element to entering midlife that is certainly related to our material circumstances, but not contingent upon them.

In other words, midlife has always been fraught.  

Jessica Grose @JessGrose

As Elizabeth Hora, born in 1983 and living in Utah, said: “This is a joke, right? Who has midlife crisis money? That’s a boomer problem, not a millennial problem. We just increase our Lexapro.”

I certainly don’t feel at risk of a stereotypical midlife crisis — as many of the sources in Grose’s article suggest, my entire life has been a series of crises. But I do notice tiny fissures in my perspective that, I worry, are a sign of a big tectonic shift to come.  

How can I explain it? In my 20s and even 30s, I remember feeling dismissed and underestimated for being young, and being a woman, in so many situations: as a waitress who didn’t know how to open a bottle of wine, as a teacher who struggled with classroom management, as a journalist who feared being too pushy, as a new mom who just couldn’t get it right. 

@rashaaneWhats a midlife crisis when you are in constant crisis? 😌 #millennial #genz #midlifecrisis

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I was counted out, not taken seriously, or condescended to, and I craved experience and expertise, which I saw as a golden ticket to being a serious, grownup person. Maybe then I’d have something important to say, and people would listen.

Now that I have experience and a bit of expertise, these traits don’t seem all that important. I find myself looking back at the energy and ambition I had when I was younger with a kind of awe. I wish I could be lighter, but life feels heavy. I feel very grownup, whether I have the security that’s “supposed” to go with it.

Trust me, I don’t idealize being young or youth culture. But….I used to know every lyric to every hit song. By osmosis, trends made their way into my consciousness, even if I didn’t follow them. I felt ahead of every development. I had ideas and got excited about them. Instead of doubting their validity, I wish I’d had the wherewithal to hone them and take feedback gracefully instead of letting it destroy me.

Now, it seems, I have to try hard. I’m more set in my ways; adapting can be a challenge (see my TikTok). Is this just me? Or are we forever destined to look forward with anticipation, and behind with longing and nostalgia, never landing at a place of arrival.

What’s disconcerting about middle age is the realization that you’re all you’ve got. Either you live in that awful limbo between I want more (money, success, adventure, etc) and is this all there is? or you find a way to settle in (without settling) to the life that’s yours — because it’s the only one you’ve got. 

By your 40s, no matter who you are or where you’re from, you’ve seen the world change. You’ve met lots of people, and probably lost a few of the ones you care about most. That, in itself, is a kind of arrival — the realization that you can’t keep circling, that you’ve got to land, because we all, eventually, run out of gas.

I’m curious. What do you think? If you feel so inclined, leave a comment.

Xo

Alizah