Mid-Life Musings

A couple of years ago, I was at the hair salon explaining to my 20-something-year-old stylist why we were moving from Colorado all the way to Alaska. It was a question I got a lot, and I gave her my usual, rehearsed answer.

“We think Alaska will be an adventure,” I said, “it’s just a mid-life crisis thing.”

Usually people smiled at this, and seemed to understand, so the fact that she looked confused had me confused. Didn’t she think Alaska sounded like an adventure?

Turns out, that wasn’t it.

“But…” she said as she slathered more hair color onto my roots, “aren’t you a little past the mid-life crisis point?”

Life Past the Mid-Life Crisis Point:

We spent this past spring break in Florida at the beach, and in Orlando. And during the week I thought about the concept of “age” a lot. Like, paranoid-ly, a lot.

For example, at 4:50 a.m one morning, I found myself sitting in the patch of grass that separated the two rows of rooms at our Cocoa Beach “resort.” Really, it’s a motel, and I love that it’s a motel. I stared up into the sky, waiting to see a rocket. It was due to launch at any minute.

I found out about this NASA launch the same way I get most of my practical information and life advice, and that’s from talking with store cashiers.

“Are you going to watch the rocket launch tomorrow?” this cashier had asked me as she rang up the food we planned to grill for dinner. I told her I didn’t know anything about it, and asked how I could see it. It suddenly hit me that “seeing a rocket take off” was not on my bucket list, and it should be.

“It’s at 5 a.m” she said, “and you just go outside and look up.”

Five a.m. came and went, and a few minutes later I saw a man approaching from the beach. As he stepped into the light I recognized him, the young guy in room one. I saw him and his girlfriend the night before, also grilling dinner. I guessed they were in their early twenties, and watching them reminded me of how fun it was to hit motels like this one on a road trip with a college boyfriend years ago.

“Excuse me,” I said approaching him, “any chance you saw a rocket recently.”

He had. He tells me that the rocket launched thirty minutes early because the weather was right, and that I needed to follow the Kennedy Space Center web site for the up to the minute schedule changes.

I continued asking questions about the best beaches to surf (learning to surf is part of my too-late-for-a-mid-life-crisis plan) and where they had traveled from, and where they were going, and then I realized  something. The guy looked less like someone interested in talking to me, and more like someone being held captive.

Oh no, have I turned into that chatty “old person” who corners the young? I could now see it from his point of view – just a few steps from his room door and the freedom inside. But, he can’t be rude to this older woman in a kimono robe who won’t stop asking him questions, and who keeps going off on the most random tangents.

By the way, the kimono robe is silk and perfect for travel because it’s super light weight, and it can easily be rolled into a ball the size of an orange and then stuffed into the corner of a suitcase which is otherwise wasted space!

A Few Things That Make You Realize Your Age:

I think I’ve been hyper-aware of aging recently for several reasons.

One: birthdays (obviously)

My birthday is always just a few weeks after spring break. And this one is a milestone one. I won’t say what year, but the average woman’s life expectancy in the U.S is age 76, so going by that, yeah, this birthday puts me well past mid-life.

Two: Moving your parents out of your childhood home

We moved my parents into senior living just a month ago. After over forty years in the same house, 40 years climbing up and down the same set of stairs without a second thought, and it seems overnight those stairs transformed into a dangerous obstacle course. So, after a few 911 ambulance visits, which is a few too many, my siblings and I moved my parents into the first nice and available room at a senior living center. The fact that their balcony just overlooked a store parking lot wasn’t ideal, but…otherwise, it was comfortable and safe.

Three: Amusement Parks

There is something about amusement parks that definitely make you realize your age. I chose Universal and Disney in Orlando this trip because it’s fail-safe choice for a successful family vacation. And I want my soon to be applying to college daughter to remember how much fun our trips are, in hopes she will still want to travel with us.

And I think she will, we are as dorky and obnoxious as the Griswalds (again showing my age with that reference.)

Kids and my husband Mark passing time in line for the Tower of Terror.

At Disney World it was more about the nostalgia. But at Universal it was more about the rides and which ones wouldn’t make you feel dizzy the rest of the day. For the first time ever, I passed on a roller coaster, and I love roller coasters. But I didn’t like the incline on this one at Universal. Aside from the upside of smoothing out my wrinkles, it just looked like a headache. Not a position I’d want to be in if it got stuck.

But at Universal’s Volcano Bay Water Park, I hit every slide even the one that drops out from under your feet and shoots you straight down from the top of the volcano (if you look closely you will see the tube in the picture below). Also at the waterpark I discovered a benefit to my age – I didn’t care how I looked in my swimsuit. Our stuff stayed in a locker the whole day which meant I ran around for hours in a swimsuit without a towel or cover-up. And, I don’t remember the last time I sat down wearing just a swimsuit and wolfed down fries and a slice of pizza. This freedom rediscovered made me feel both old and young.

As we retrieved our phones later that day from the lockers, and rode the shuttle back to our hotel I noticed a series of texts I had missed as were were busy having fun.

“Are you safe?” one read, it was from a friend in Texas who I hadn’t talked to in awhile.

“Are you and the family okay?” read another one from a friend in California.

And on the scroll of texts went.

Oh no, I thought, and I checked the news. Another Colorado shooting, this time at the King Soopers in Boulder. The grocery store my parents balcony overlooks (they watched the handcuffed gunman being led out). The store my kids hang out during lunch, as their high school is just down the street (thankful it was spring break) and I couldn’t count the number of times I have been in that store over the years, these days usually wandering the aisles listening to a real estate or true crime podcast…I would have been totally unaware. Later when I saw the photos, names, and ages of the victims, recognizing one employee I chatted with multiple times as she had been there for years, it dawned on me that an age like 51 now just sounds as young as it always was.

I couldn’t help but think of the stores we visited regularly in Alaska. My guess is a shooter like this gunman (who did not take his own life, but surrendered) would be less likely to attempt  this there. If only because half the shoppers are carrying firearms themselves. But, if it did happen, it would likely have turned into a full on shoot out, people not being positive who was who.

So, I’m actually writing this post on the morning of my milestone birthday. And my husband Mark just read it, and reminded me that his grandfather lived until he was 102. His grandpa was the only doctor for years in a small town in Michigan, and I attended his 100th birthday there. I remember seeing one man, using a walker, approaching Mark’s grandpa, “Remember me, Dr. Hammerberg?” the man asked, “you delivered me 76 years ago!” If 102 turns out to be my number, then I’m actually a couple years too young to have a mid-life crisis!

So as not to end on such a tragic, sad note with the shooting, I’m wrapping this post up with a video my son watched over and over to get psyched up for the roller coaster I passed on at Universal.