So Is This My Midlife Crisis?
July 04, 2011, By Jason Avant 0 comments
In the book "The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy," author Douglas Adams takes a humorous look at the meaning of life—specifically, the answer to the great question of Life, the Universe, and Everything. In one of the book’s most memorable passages, a group of aliens builds the most powerful supercomputer in the universe—a computer named Deep Thought—for the sole purpose of finding the answer to that question. After seven and a half million years pass, the computer finally comes up with a solution: “42,” it tells a flabbergasted audience.
It wasn’t a coincidence that the number 42 has been on my mind. I celebrated 42 years on this earth recently—actually, “celebrated” probably isn’t the right word. “Observed, with a few accompanying beers” is more accurate. I was one of those rare people who actually welcomed my 40th birthday. I saw it as a chance to reboot myself, to remind myself that 40 is the new 30, and that I was in the prime of my life. Forty-one came and went with minimal fanfare. I approached 42 with more than a bit of trepidation, and while I had a perfectly lovely birthday, leading up to it there was a certain amount of unease, the realization that if I was lucky, my life was just about half over.
And what do I have to show for it? During the week leading up to my birthday, I was pre-occupied with the usual stuff: long days (and nights) spent working and stressing over work, a never-ending pile of bills, a definite lack of vacation and personal time, and more gray in my hair than I care to admit. The kids are a challenge—both of them with fiery personalities, “pushing boundaries” as the child care specialists and teachers like to say, with all of the accompanying tantrums and haughty, cross-armed refusals. (No surprise there—my wife and I are both headstrong, so my son and daughter have learned from the best.) Hours upon hours of sitting in front of the computer have taken their toll: I don’t remember the last time I went surfing, and when I do manage to get out of the house for a run down our local trail, I feel like my bones are made of lead. I need three cups of coffee to get me through the morning; I’m snoring on the couch by 9:00 every night. Good times, right?
