YES VIRGINIA, THERE IS A MID-LIFE CRISIS

I am a regular reader of Mark’s Musing, Mark Kolke’s sometimes-navel-gazing that makes good reading – if you like a lot of introspection. I happen to enjoy it. Most men should because Mark reflects what goes on in the minds of many men whose years advance inexorably. We tend perhaps, as we age, to reflect more. The amount of time you spend gazing inwardly depends on your level of narcissism. Except that there has been a lot of great writing coming from this search for an inner self.

Enough philosophizing.

The “mid-life crisis” has been an object of both scorn and interest. My psychologist friends do not believe there is such a thing. Nothing is provable. There is biological change, but does that mean there is a “male menopause.” I think there is.

In 1972 I was on the news side at CBC. I was doing features. I decided to do one on men who made radical changes in their lives, often in their middle fifties – changes that included all or some of: changing your spouse, changing your job, abandoning your friends, starting a new career – all dramatic changes. I found dozens of men who fit the bill. Then I went looking for research. There seemed to be none. Then I happened on a book called “The Crisis of Middle Age,” written by a plump little woman from New York. (I am helplessly stuck – I can’t remember her name.) She too had been unable to find any body of research. She came to Toronto to be interviewed as part of my series. What resonated most was what she called “middle-escence.” Like adolescence, except it came as a life-changing episode much later in life. Unlike the intense hormonal changes of adolescence, she could not find anything as dramatic in later years. (We do know that aging happens with biological changes but I’m no scientist so I avoid the discussion.) The evidence is anecdotal. The proof is unscientific. The best demonstration of the crisis, and she quoted it, is represented by the dialogue in Act One of Neil Simon’s Plaza Suite. I read it. It came into sharper focus when during my short return to theatre, I performed (about 250 times) Plaza Suite. If you know the play, Act One is in a suite rented by a woman to surprise her husband on the occasion of their wedding anniversary. What emerges is a troubled man who admits that he is having an affair. I can’t remember the precise dialogue but it went something like: “I returned from the navy. I had everything I wanted. I had a wife and family. I was successful. His wife’s response: “So what’s wrong?” His answer: “I just wanted to do it all over again.”

Eureka! Simon described it perfectly. While the “crisis” may have some biological roots, is defined by restlessness and regret. The good life has happened and now the future lies in wait. You’re not ready. You still feel productive. You want to be productive. You don’t want to let it fade away. That, my friends, is the essence of the mid-life crisis. Restlessness, frustration, a sense of growing irrelevance.

Been there. Done that.