There is a reason there are crises defined as occurring in middle age. I'm not quite sure what "middle age" is these days....perhaps this "crisis" has more to do with stage than age.
Maybe it comes later in life, but with losing one's parents comes some rapid growing up whether you are 14 or 40.
We are forced to stare down the inevitability of ageing and mortality. At 14 you might have the advantage of youthful enthusiasm and sense of indestructibility to see you through this unscathed, but the experience on the other side of 35 is quite different. Your gym trainer looks at you earnestly and uses terms like 'peri-menopause.' The mirror tells you that your metabolism and collagen stores are not what they once were.
But why do I even care? I am past husband hunting stage by about nineteen years. My friends are genuine and more concerned with the content of my character than what the scales tell me of my worth.
Because the person looking back at me from the mirror with the wrinkles and the thirty pound weight gain isn't me. Looking back at photos of me in my teens, I was skinny as a rake and had a face that exuded confidence. But I don't remember being at all concerned about my appearance. For all the warnings about teens and self image, mine was more secure at 14 than nearly 40.
My therapist has helped me explore some of these issues. I still remember the gasp when I said my mother told me I'd never be beautiful. But is it important to be beautiful anyway? Apparently....yes. Or at least in my head.
There are things that just come with the passage of time. Lines on my face as a legacy of teenage sun worshipping are something I do just have to learn to accept. A whole new body shape thanks to affluenza is not something I should accept, especially with spectres like diabetes and heart disease tapping on the window asking to be let in.
Acceptance. It's a difficult place to find. My mind wrestles with the desire to duplicate my confident, beautiful teenage self, and the reality that those days are left behind in the photo albums stashed in my late mother-in-law's china cabinet. Even necessary change for my own self-preservation is hard. I have to be convinced I'm worth it.
Lana del Rey is on the melancholic playlist, but the answer to her question is "I know you will."
If only I were so sure.
