Middle age is encroaching. These days, it's not easy to tell the difference between ruin and renewal. There is a point of uncertainty where they feel exactly the same.
The doors around you all blow open and people go out of your life. Sometimes, they just walk out. Other times, other forces take them. Either way, you hope the departures leave room for new arrivals -- new people, new ideas, new challenges, new blessings or whatever.
But while you're hoping, there's this time of creeping uncertainty, a stretch of fear and loneliness. It's like being stranded. Maybe this time won't last for long; something or somebody will come along and re-energize you, get you off your ass and moving and thinking and feeling again.
Or maybe this time, nothing. Maybe that's it for you. Maybe this time, it's YOU who has to change, who must alter sacred beliefs that once served you well. Do you honestly know yourself at the moment, or are you sticking to old routines, or an old career, or an old car, that's just not YOU anymore?
Your children grow, their faces and bodies change. They speak to you differently, in deeper voices, and you really can't hug them as much as you'd like anymore. It's too weird and they won't understand, they can't know that when you put your arms around them for a gentle squeeze, you're trying to hold something in, hold it back, keep it from slipping away or at least feel the last fleeting traces as it fades out, as they grow away from you.
Their eyes worry. They don't understand.
And what about that person in your bed, or all the different people who come to your bed? Is this working out? Could you be happier? If you won't improve the situation now, and it won't necessarily improve itself, then what? Then when?
Hey, have you looked at yourself in the mirror lately?
You can still meet the appearance when you're out there, but in here, alone, time is catching up. You're sucking in your gut a lot more nowadays and the weight doesn't just fly off the way it used to. You have to work at it. Maybe it's time to buckle down and get serious about this body of yours before it slips into total disrepair.
Until such a time when you're exercising enough to have the energy to exercise enough, you're gonna need help. Maybe a cosmetic procedure, if it's not too costly. Maybe a whole new wardrobe, something bold and splashy. Or a new set of wheels, something fast and curvy and shiny.
Life changes, friend. If you can't roll with the punches, and make the bold adjustments when they're called for, you'll wither like a garden before the coming winter. Instead of taking action, you'll worry yourself even faster into old age, maybe even to an early grave. The real problem is you're working too hard, isn't it? And for what? For a bunch of people who have no idea, that's for what.
As if you didn't give up certain dreams to make everyone else's world a better place? Ha. You did! You made the sacrifices. You've lived almost half your life for other people. Do they appreciate it? Do they? If they did, would you be losing this much sleep?
Well. It's time to start living life for YOU, isn't it? Because God knows, you only get to live it once.
So step right up and check in. They've been expecting you here at this big ramshackle inn, and they have held your reservation all this time.
Welcome to your midlife crisis. Here's your room key.
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