I’ve been thinking/reminiscing a lot lately, well, as one does as they are in the middle (after 10+ years, are we now not in the end stages of?) mid-life crisis. So, we LOOK BACK at things done/not done and wonder… did we make the right choices? Crap. When you’re young, you don’t THINK! You ACT! This is potentially why the Army doesn’t recruit fat, balding, poor eyesight 50+ year old men. They recruit BOYS. Boys who will ACT without thinking. They will act on the training given. Without question. It’s the expectation.
Fast forward a couple of decades or so. We are supposedly SMARTER now. The choices should be easier, as one has all this experience to draw upon. Since I made this or that mistake in the past, now I can right that by choosing the CORRECT path.
The issue… there are fewer paths. From 18ish to 30ish, there are TONS of choices. Opportunities galore. Like, the whole world is before you. Again, you act. And do everything. And you don’t think. At least I didn’t. So, rather than “you don’t know Jack”, I became him. I DID everything. But focused on nothing. And all those opportunites. They were right in front of me. People believed in me. Some of them paved the way for me. And rather than seeing those paths as a WAY to the future, I just found more paths.
Until the paths started getting narrower. And rockier. And fainter. And then… you find yourself in the middle of the forest without a defined path in front of you. And the path behind you has faded. Your eyesight is gone so you can’t even see where you’ve come from. And there’s just trees around you. And if you were smart(er), you’d find a saw and cut down those trees. But, you just stare at those trees. And long for the days when there were more paths. Even one path.
I’m not sure why, as one (ok, as I) get older, those opportunities are fewer. We had no resources then. Why do I feel my opportunities are limited by lack of resources now?
I see my kids. And their friends. And see that they have no resources as I didn’t at their age. And yet, the world is standing there, wide open to them.
I realize now that I need a category called “self loathing”. And then find all the posts with that category and delete them.
And then there would be no blog. It would be gone.
Or maybe just title it “ugh”. There, that’s better…
Such is the story of midlife.
At least I have the opportunity to write.
And self loathe.
Carry on.
