A Midlife Crisis And Blessed Feet
Do you know this feeling? Life just rushes by and you don’t know where all the time went. It seems like you got married just yesterday and suddenly it is fifteen years later and you can barely remember what you did between now and then. You soldier on and yet, something is nagging at the back of your mind. These voices, something or someone keeps insisting that things are not as they should be. The harbingers of your inevitable midlife crisis keep showing up like bad relatives that invite themselves over without calling ahead. Lately, they have been visiting you every other day. You are uncomfortably asleep. Have been for years. But you can not be asleep forever. Something will eventually jolt you awake.
Then the day comes. Life hands you one too many lemons and you snap. You never liked lemonade, to begin with, and this just will not do. You wake up and look at your life and find yourself miles away from where you thought you were headed the last time you were paying attention. When was the last time you paid attention anyway? What is the last decision you made on your own?
You read a self-help book. Then another one, or two, or twenty. You soak up everything from “follow your bliss” to “how to find your purpose”. You do something radical. You dye your hair a bright colour and leave your family behind to find yourself somewhere on a small island in Greece or the Carribean. You pick up some crystals on the way and learn your personal mantra. You chant it faithfully. You lean into the yoga, the breathing, the spirit of “find enlightenment and oneness with the universe, preferably by buying more crystals, sacred tea infusers and sound bowls.”
Sometimes, you miss your family.
Even though you are doing your best to dance with the waves and follow the sacred path of cosmic harmony, guilt finds you. Eventually. You do more yoga. You still miss your old life.
You wake up - again. Why do you have to wake up again? Well, turns out you woke up from one kind of trance and just went right into the next. You were so busy being off the track, that you didn’t realize that you had gotten onto a cable car. Different mode of transport, sure, but still going only one way.
You don’t know what to do. Now, you’re breaking down in earnest. How are you supposed to get anywhere if all these mediums of transportation only go in one direction? You are tired. You sit. For a while, you just breathe.
You sit some more. Your feet fall asleep from all the sitting. That’s when you finally remember that you have them. You remember that they used to carry you everywhere, willingly, lovingly, multiple directions, anywhere you wanted to go.
Would they still?
Tentatively, you get up and try.
A step. Then another. You walk. In circles, spirals, back and forth, side to side. Finally on your own way. You find out that you can walk a path that goes by your house as well as the crystal shop. Your family and the crystals will both be happy to see you. If you are feeling adventurous, you can even take yourself past an ice cream shop on the way.
