Death, Love and Children

I don't know if you've noticed, but there is a decided lack of positive stories about the female mid-life crisis in popular culture. 

Thelma and Louise is one of my favourites out of the few and after watching it again recently, I feel disturbed. I mean, it's all you want in a midlife crisis story; sex, intrigue, revenge murder of your rapist (we all have one!) and good old fashioned blowin up stuff. That is, until they kill themselves. *wide eyed emoji*

Really the only other story we are presented with are the ones where middle-aged women leave their high paced careers/wild lifestyles for what's "really important", like marriages and babies (barf). 

So, let me get this straight; I should have a baby...or drive off a cliff? Don't worry, neither option is appealing to me. In a way, I've chosen a harder one. The one where there is no solution. I just have to get up, face myself and my disappointments/emotions/failures and walk through the day. I choose to sit with my thoughts for good or ill. Some days feel good, some feel terrible and some feel like nothing. Some days I need to engage in gratitude exercises to remind myself of everything I have. (which is a heck of a lot)

I have a partner whom I love dearly, a dog who makes my heart swell when I look at him and a job I don't hate that pays me ok. "It's the American dream of the 90's!" as Lilaina Pierce would say. Or in the words of everyone's beloved Nam vet, Walter Sobchak: "Nothing is fucked here, Dude."

Yet it is fucked. My life was in my hands! What did I do with it? Is it as simple as just telling a new story? Releasing my ambling thoughts into the ether and hoping someone hears me? In a world where my options are death, love or children, can I choose none? (and believe me when I say "love", I mean that impossible instagram-life-saving-soul-filling-eatpraylove-love that does not exist on any plane in any universe and you can @ the fuck out of me on that) 

Can I just choose me? Am I enough? If this is it, am I ok with that? Maybe it's supposed to feel like this. Maybe one's life dips down at this age so we can catch our breath, regroup and ask ourselves these types of questions. Instead of resisting it, or trying to solve it, maybe we're just supposed to ride it out and take the break that's being handed to us. 

If that's the case, I'm going back to bed. 

Tune in next week where I talk about my dog.