Mid-Life Crisis?

During a 47 minute hammerfest that included 4 minutes of Tabata Intervals on a stationary bike, I started thinking - deeply thinking (which I often do during these times of suffering). I thought; here I sit in a gym full of middle-aged to elderly women and men and I realized that I'm now one of them! When did I transition and cross over into being a middle-aged guy trying to hang on to good health? What happened to the twenty-something kid that used to play college basketball and not have a care in the world? I don't remember my mind ever transitioning into middle-agedom, but my body certainly has! In fact, I still think of myself as being in my late twenty's - probably to a fault.

That got me thinking even more. Here I sit on a stationary bike at 9:00 am on a Tuesday - sweating, jobless, sleeping on a friend's couch, children in another state, wondering and praying about what's around the corner. I realized that this is not what I had planned for my life at 43 years old! This was not the blueprint I had laid out to follow. My focus had gone from being a professional in an industry that I loved and grew up with, to figuring out how to survive and re-invent myself - at age 43! This was not the plan I had sketched out! Then it dawned on me! I'm not alone in this! Maybe this is the epitome of what people refer to as a mid-life crisis. Maybe that's the very definition! Could it be that millions of men have these goals and plans in the backs of their mind and it inevitably never quite comes to fruition the way they planned it? That's certainly me. Perhaps I've found the key to what a midlife crisis is! Self realization that life throws you pitches that you just can't hit. Maybe once we've realized this and accepted it for what it is, we can move on and truly fall into what it is that we are. Not necessarily a re-invention at middle life, but a divine intervention in succumbing to what we are truly meant to be!

Psalm 138