"We may become someone someday, but we haven't yet."

"It's a sad man my friend who's livin' in his own skin
And can't stand the company."
- Bruce Springsteen, Better Days

When I started this journey in writing about a month ago, there was so much I was unsure of. One month down the road, there's at least as much I'm not sure of. Maybe more. That's okay. I think I expected that, but I'm not sure. On a conscious level, I wasn't sure that I would quit my job. I think some part of me knew, but my conscious mind was not, by any stretch of the imagination, ready to admit it.

“The images of the unconscious place a great responsibility upon a man. Failure to understand them, or a shirking of ethical responsibility, deprives him of his wholeness and imposes a painful fragmentariness on his life.” – Carl Jung

I think the first person to use the words "mid-life crisis" in relation to what I was going through, was my friend Cameron. When I heard those words it scared me. Absolutely chilled me to the bone. I was never a strong believer in the "mid-life crisis" being anything more than an excuse to behave reprehensibly for a while. That's okay. Not too long ago I was also sure that Attention Deficit Disorder was an excuse to do the same. I just chalked up my ADD symptoms to personality and stayed the course.

As a teacher, I was almost conditioned to look down on the term "ADD." Even when my friends started calling me "ADD-man" or "AD&HD" I still laughed it off and tried to focus. As my job stress increased, my symptoms went out of control. I know a lot of people out there still think the way I used to think. To them, ADD is an excuse; an easy way out. Believe me, it is NOT an "easy" way out. Dealing with the symptoms of Adult Attention Deficit Disorder while holding an extremely stressful and demanding full-time job is a formidable task. Add to it the task of keeping relationships intact and a house in order and it becomes mind-boggling. Since I reduced my stress, the symptoms have dropped back down to manageable levels, for which I am extremely thankful.

"Did you forget about the passion living day to day?
You keep your dreams locked down inside
Choking on a lifetime of 'never take a chance'
Wake up one day wishin' you'd tried."
- Edwin McCain, What Matters Most

Over the past two months, I have come to the conclusion that the term "mid-life crisis" is just as valid. Sure, I've read the research. I know there have been studies that concluded that there was no such thing as a mid-life crisis. I also used to think that the mid-life crisis was unique to (puffs up chest) the male of the species. I now know that this too is incorrect. Some of the best writing that I have encountered on the subject has been written by females. I also know, thanks largely in part to these female writers, that due to a wide variety of factors, this transitional period can occur at any time between late-20's and early 60's. Let's face it. As life spans have increased, this mid-life transition has become more apparent. Advances in our understanding of brain function and in the field of psychology have made the term "mid-life crisis" more acceptable. It is now less of a stigma. We have the "boomers" to thank. As the boomer generation passes through the gauntlet of mid-life, we learn more and condemn less about this passage.

"All true things must change and only that which changes remains true." - Carl Jung

Not everyone experiences the transitions of mid-life in the same way. Our culture has embedded within us that stereotype of the 40-something man in the bright red convertible sports car having affairs with younger women. While this does represent how some of us experience mid-life, it is obviously not universal. What is accurate about this portrayal are the symbols of longing for a return to the simpler days of our youth. We have looked in the mirror and watched, little by little, as the smile that people found so beguiling in our youth, has given us permanent grooves on our faces. We may be watching the lines as they begin to cross our growing foreheads. When we venture out into the world, at clubs and restaurants, grocery stores and especially the beach, people look at us differently. We have more aches and pains than we ever had before, and we have begun to notice that in photographs, we now look... like... our... parents... How did this happen? We thought, on some level, that it could never happen to us.

What about our parents? Many of us are reaching the point where we are taking care of aging parents. Some of us have already said goodbye to them, and the rest of us know that the time for goodbye is coming soon. We see, in our parents, a mirror of our future selves, and we are beginning to realize that this future is not as far away as we once thought. Time is up to its old tricks.

"Time is a pretty pony with a wicked heart." - Stephen King

I took my mother to the doctor this morning. Just as her mother did, she is beginning to lose weight. My father, who still weighs in around 350, is worried about this trend. Now, mom's doctor is also worried. She was told that if she loses any more, she needs to call her doctor. I enjoyed the time I spent with mom this morning, and am glad I was able to take her to her appointment, which I wouldn't have been able to do if I was working.

That's right. If I hadn't resigned from my job, I would've started drum line and color guard practice and leadership in-service yesterday. Now, I am officially "missing work." Vacation time is past. I am now faced with my first late July in about 14 years without my career. No more sweating on a football practice field in the late-July heat, sometimes on a metal ladder. This is going to be the catalyst for some interesting feelings to well up inside me as the next few months roll past. Marching band season is always the busiest and most emotional and stressful time of the year for a band director. I have been on a marching band field from July through November every year since 1984. I am not sure how that's going to make me feel yet, but as I hear the band practice at the high school just a few blocks from my house (they were cross-town rivals), I am sure I will feel... something.

What about career? During mid-life, so many of us find that the careers we chose in high school or college or soon after graduation are like so many of the clothes in our closets. They just don't seem to fit the same as they used to. Maybe we made hasty decisions about our careers without stopping to consider all of the information, or maybe there was a lack of information about an emerging career field. Some of us may have felt our skills sets or transcripts were limiting our options. We may have even chosen a college major and a career because someone else thought it was what we should do. Quite possibly, some of us even chose the best career for us at the time, but now fifteen or twenty years down the road, it just doesn't suit who we've become. Perhaps we've grown disillusioned, made bad choices, or watched a field dry up through changes in society. At any rate, this transitional period is the time when many of us see the road behind us stretching longer than the road ahead of us and decide that we cannot travel any farther without a change.

“We linger in manhood to tell the dreams of our childhood,and they are half forgotten ere we have learned the language.” – Henry David Thoreau

This "mid-life crisis" is a rite of passage. We sometimes hear people say, "I found myself." This is a time of throwing off the visions of self that were imposed upon us by our parents, mentors, or other loved ones. We are not re-inventing ourselves so much as we are seeing ourselves for the first time as what we really are. We are seeing ourselves with our youthful veneer stripped away, but not yet old. This is, quite possibly, the first time in our lives we have an authentic vision of self and we guard it jealously. We don't want to let this new being we've discovered slip away or go back into hiding. We nurture and indulge it and watch to see if it grows.

“We are not what we are, nor do we treat or esteem each other for such, but for what we are capable of being.” – Henry David Thoreau

This is when we discover that some part of us wants more than career advancement. Maybe that part of us also looks at his or her little piece of the American Dream (TM) and decides that it isn't quite what we saw in the advertisements when we were younger. We look at what we are and what we have and weigh it against where we are going. Quite often we decide that our travel plans need to be changed. Or perhaps, like Robert Frost's traveller through the woods, we simply want to see what another path is like. Frost's narrator in "The Road Not Taken" admits that both paths look to be about equally promising, but he decides to take the second path. Why? Simply because it called to him. Sometimes the grass really does look greener on some other path.

This is also the time when many of us realize that we cannot rely solely on others for strength. When we were young, we relied on parents or older siblings, or maybe grandparents or aunts and uncles. We gained strength from our elders. Then we saw that they were fallible. Even worse, we learned that they were mortal. We began to see their strength fade and fail. We realized that relying on other loved ones for strength often gave us a tenuous footing at best, since those we were drawing strength from were also going through their own struggles. Finally, we begin to look inside ourselves and find new reserves of strength and courage. We see that we can make it through challenges in our lives that we thought would crush us by drawing on these inner reserves. Hopefully, we still support each other, but this reserve of inner strength surprises many of us during this time of crisis. As a result, we focus on us. We give ourselves attention. We start to treat ourselves better because we know that we will have to be nurtured in order to make it through the challenges ahead. Stephen Covey reminds us to "sharpen the saw" in order to make it through the tough times ahead. As we reach mid-life, hopefully, we begin to heed this advice.

"In life we're the writers to our own books."
- October Fall, If We're All Alone, Aren't We In This Together?

In our modern society, we also begin to feel a certain aloneness at this time. Notice that I didn't say loneliness. We may have spouses, children, friends and other loved ones around us at all times, but we begin to realize that we can be in the middle of a crowded room and still feel a profound sense of being alone. That last time we actively sought out new friends was probably, for most of us at least, more than ten years ago. We have settled into the routines of life. We wake up and perform the same rituals everyday with the same people. This mid-life transition has become a time to reach out for other people; other companions on the journey. We tend to strike up friendships not only with people our age, but with older and younger people. The internet has greatly facilitated this searching for travelling companions. I know from personal experience that I have "met" some wonderful people and found some new friends in just the short time I have been writing about my journey. Though nourishing our inner strength is important, we must share our journey and allow others to be able to reach us and affect us. We are not alone unless we isolate ourselves.

“If you want to end your isolation, you must be honest about what you want at a core level and decide to go after it.” – Martha Beck

Once we find our inner strength and make a decision to end our isolation, then and only then we can we help support our fellow travellers on this path through mid-life. We can indulge ourselves for the good of others.

"This is your life, are you who you want to be?
This is your life, is it everything you dreamed that it would be
When the world was younger and you had everything to lose?"
- Switchfoot, This Is Your Life