As if the midlife crisis isn’t bad enough in itself, along comes the ‘Covid Midlife Crisis’ to trip one up. I have been filled with ennui in the last month precipitated by ‘things getting back to normal’. The normal never fully worked for me. It was way too hectic in a way that was dictated by momentum rather than anything substantive.
In other words, just getting from A to B, sometimes, took far too long for very little gain. When I arrived at whatever place/event, I would often wonder to myself why I had bothered in the first place.
The lockdown quietened my life and stilled my thoughts. I had the time and energy to become a lot more creative. Even my skin condition improved. My hair looks healthier. I have time for exercise. But, as things ‘start to become normal’ I am reappraising what I want in life. From the reading of an article titled, ‘Covid Midlife Crisis‘, I note that I am not alone.
The article has a rather misleading title because most of the people featured as subject studies are not midlifers. However, it is worth a read because there is much food for midlife thought.
The ‘Covid Midlife Crisis‘ is a ‘collective reconsideration’ of one’s life. It is an act of deconstruction, taking stock of of what you are doing and whether it is paying dividends for you. The women featured have made life changing decisions as a result. While I have not made such drastic changes myself, there isn’t a day when I don’t adopt a Walter Mitty mindset and see myself scaling real mountains as opposed to seeing life’s everyday irritations as mountains in my way.
As an example, my boiler broke down and my call out time for the gas man to arrive was between 12 to 5pm yesterday. I had an important presentation to deliver at 2pm and hoped the gas man would turn up before. He did, at 1.46pm. It felt like a mountain but, really, it wasn’t even a molehill. It is this sort of perspective and stress that I didn’t miss in lockdown.
My point is that as we ‘go back to normal’ I don’t want to go back to living the way I did pre-Covid. If the Pandemic has taught me anything it is that context is everything. I don’t rush from A to B but get more done within my home. This is not to say that I want to live within my home ONLY for the rest of my life. A hybrid way of living and thinking would be the ideal new normal for me. This hybrid way would not just involve the physicality of my surroundings but an internal re-designation of my values and goals too. I want ‘arrive’ to mean more than getting to Point B via a plane, train or automobile.
Has the ‘Covid Midlife Crisis’ made you rethink your life?
