The Midlife Crisis

                                                    Everyday is a brand new day,
                                                    everyday is a journey.
                                               


Sit down, sad soul, and count
The moments flying;
Come, tell the sweet amount
That's lost by -sighing!
How many smiles?
--a score?
Then laugh, and count no more;
For day is dying.

Lie down sad soul, and sleep,
And no more measure
The flight of time, nor weep
The loss of leisure;
But here by this lone stream,
Lie down with us, and dream
Of starry treasure.

--Bryan Waller Procter


"Brigette, have you gone through your midlife crisis?", I inquired of  my loyal crocheting lady at our last meeting. 

"No, but perhaps I'm going through it now in my fifties. Everything is bothering me. The people in traffic, the angry comments waiting in a line. I don't even want to be around people anymore."

Boy, she sounds just like me. I never had a midlife crisis in my forties. Didn't have time for it. I was dealing with cancer! Yet, does a midlife crisis occur at a specific age group? I don't think so. I believe we go through numerous changes about every ten years or so. It's normal. A lot can happen in a decade, so I'm not surprised by all these emotions I've been feeling.

Is that what's happening to me now? A midlife crisis?  I've always been a person who loves her feet rooted on the ground. I don't do impetuous things. I think and think until my head hurts. I will analyze something to death before acting. Sometimes I feel like while I'm waiting on God, He is waiting on me. For me to move forward, I literally have to be forced.

That's what has happened to me now. That young woman in the radiation locker room was the Holy Spirit. I truly believe that. I've been given many signals throughout my recovery and all I did was be miserable. I didn't take care of business and heed the warnings. That encounter was like a huge STOP sign shoved in front of me. You didn't want to take care of things then . . . slowly and carefully, now it will be more painful. You cannot move into your new purpose without taking care of the old.

Believe me, I don't want to. The older I get the less I want to deal with stuff. If there is a drama brewing in the family or in a friendship among others, I run the other way. I dislike discord. I dislike messes. I like everything in it's place. Right now, nothing seems to be in it's place. Even me. I need to rectify that and it's scary. Change is scary. 

Have a blessed day everyone.