Midlife crisis or just a bump in the road of life?

NELSPRUIT – The definition of midlife is when you can stand naked in front of a mirror and you can see your rear without turning around.

For women, it’s when you go for a mammogram and realise that this is now the only time someone will ask you to appear topless. It’s also the time you want to grab every firm young lovely in a tube top and scream, “Listen honey, the Roman empire fell and those will too!” Yet sceptics wonder, does it exist?

Living in Nelspruit and watching my friends fall into this trap one by one, I wondered if sceptics have friends or live on earth.

For my safety, I will refrain from mentioning my friends’ names as there is that Italian saying, you can tell the crime, just not the criminals.

The most interesting creatures to observe going through this transition are your male friends, like the chubby one who was happy to slouch in front of the TV for hours, who now has joined the gym, got his hair dyed and bought a motorbike which came accessorised with a young female, who happens to model for questionable magazines.

Then suddenly you don’t see him for weeks, then you get a message out of the blue that he has dislocated his hip and couldn’t walk, leaving you pondering if it was the motorbike or the accessory.

Just as you shockingly absorb his transition, you notice your married friends decide this is the time to divorce, as both have realised that after 25 years of marriage they don’t know each other. They look at you (who has a history of disastrous relationships) for advice on how to solve it.

Then your best friend tells you she’s fallen in love with a guy 10 years her junior, who is from a completely different cultural background, and she’s getting married. Discount on lobola because of age, you wonder.

Then like a lightning bolt, it hits you. A glance in the mirror makes you grumble – you can’t afford botox.The fact that you are over 40 still astounds you, and the urge to do some extreme sport and really show that death angel you are still defying him, knocks you.

The madness enters your head until that great voice of reason, the daughter, voices her opinion “Mom! You’re supposed to be making sandwiches; that’s what mothers do!” invoking a feeling of rebellion inside that is strangely

but faintly familiar.

Then eureka! You strike gold; it’s a re-run of the teenage years. Your friends might have a lot less hair, fashion sense, gravity left on their bodies, and wrinkles instead of pimples, but there’s that same rebel-without-a-clue feeling.

So, in conclusion to my observation, whether you’re getting hormones, or losing them, it’s going to be a roller-coaster transition.

Local specialist counsellor Magda Rall stated the boundaries that define illnesses today were systematically widening; old conditions are expanded and new ones created. She said common complaints of a few years ago have now become a medical or psychological condition that required medication.

Rall also states that midlife might occur anywhere from the age of 37 to the 50s; the onset and ending are rather vague in terms of any boundaries. She said what in fact does happen throughout our lives were the different phases of transition that we entered and these were all normal.

During each phase we learn and grow, we gain and we lose. As we enter our 50s we may experience a loss in certain areas like available energy and health issues, but we may also gain during this period. Our gain is normally on a multitude of aspects like the emotional, spiritual, diverse experiences and accompanied memories.

Should we choose to bypass the midlife crisis, we can invest in ourselves in the form of hobbies, outside interests, embark on a study project, or become involved in community projects for the benefit of others.

Alternatively, should we have a sense of entitlement that allows us to be caught up in a midlife crisis we might justifiably feel these unwanted and undefined emotions are interfering with important areas in our lives.

The downside in such a situation is that we are relieved from certain responsibilities because we are going through a midlife crisis! Rall states that it seems to be very much a choice and not so much a predicament.

A contributory factor to the scare of midlife crises in women can perhaps be traced to the advertisements of pharmaceutical companies that declare the misery that lies beyond menopause such as Alzheimer’s, heart attacks, colon cancer, cataracts, teeth loss, bone fractures, and more.

The concepts of menopause and midlife crisis are intertwined in the mind; they go together like a horse and carriage.