Mid Life Awakening or Crisis? Reframing our outlook.

Who would have guessed that around 40-42 and I don't know what to do with my life? Midlife crisis? Maybe its the average age that someone realizes what matters in the long term. Time and how we squander, cherish, and maybe even savor every single moment of every day. You may realize that you have worked more than played and it has not gotten you ahead. And others of us have been in helping profession that becomes burnt out or just walked the path as far as necessary and jumps onto another new path that you never saw running up beside the old path. New flowers, plants, and trees to see along the way and the sympathy of the insects are in tune with your heart song.

Is that a midlife crisis or is it a true awakening? Some would say "Woke" and it is a clarity of wants, needs, and desires of the brain and heart. It's hearing each note as the song in a whole is just as memorable. Stopping to feel the light breeze causing you to close your eyes long enough to inhale the wind into your body.

So yeah, I am having a mid-life

crisis, which also lines up with about the age I thought I would die, about 86. That was the number I have visualized since I was a small child.

We see our grandparents aging, a sad group who has already lost a parent or a child, we know that every day is not guaranteed. This moment is all I have right now. I am joyous to spend this moment now, writing this blog. I love creating things from words. I truly love the research and thought processes that go into creating a new villain or plotting on a new book. And I have been blessed with the frame of mind to be able to write and read since decreasing epilepsy meds almost a year ago.

But the real question is where do I go from here? A master's degree? Technology classes? I have taken assessments and career quizzes and they all say I am a thinker or thinking type. I love to learn, I love to discover but how to progress from here? I am continuing to pursue my path, trying to enjoy the journey.

I am not having a mid life crisis... Am I?

I turned forty in late January after a month of headaches and migraines. I had thought it was this damn Ohio weather one day we were cold and blistery and the next it was mid-fifties with a chance of rain. My thought was my body was assuming it was spring which brings my body headaches. My surprise birthday weekend in Fort Myers Beach was a headache free!

When I came back from my mini-vacay the headaches returned. Six weeks have passed and I have been to the doctor, dentist and it's easy to guess that it's not a typical medical diagnosis. But I did do a treatment of sort. I came home early one day because of the headaches and I was talking to my husband and in my ramblings, I began to cry.

He stopped what he was doing and hugged me but was taken back and asked if my pain was so high. I said no. It was at that moment that I realized that my job which I started to get away from another soul-sucking place was now the source of physical pain. A large crystal globe around my world just broke. And the tears flowed. Ahhh. It was like a shower for my soul. Just to recognize what the source of my soul's soreness was the first step in healing it.

The next step which took another week or so, maybe more my memory is hazy; Was telling my boss how the job was making me feel. I needed her to know how the job had changed for me, a direct staff over the last eleven years with only a four thousand dollar pay increase, watching the decompensation of families and children. Second-hand trauma is real and harder to cope with when your job causes financial strain on your own family. I did tell my boss I had a few ideas of how I could help the agency. She liked the idea but it is in a very early stage. I started the initial research for the Project-GC and felt good with my honesty with my boss and with taking the initiative.

I cannot say the headaches are zero. But they were like 7-9 every day all day. Waking up and falling asleep to them. Now I have a couple a week and they are more 3s and 4s and much more manageable with Aleve and Ibuprofen.