Yesterday was a big day for me. It marked twenty years working for the federal government. When I was first hired at twenty three years old, I assured myself I would only work there for a year or two before moving on to greater opportunities. I had imagined that I would continue to pursue my budding art career while advancing in this new field as well. This job was to have been a stepping stone not the entire path. Well life doesn’t always work out the way we envision at twenty three.
So here I am, a forty three year old woman that has a good life but I am ready for a new chapter. The last twenty years have seen some major ups and downs in my life and the consistency of a government job enabled me to weather the storms. However this year has found me feeling a sense of restlessness, as it has marked some major milestones. My husband and I just celebrated our fifteenth wedding anniversary two weeks ago. It is especially momentous for us because I almost lost him when he had a heart attack a year and a half ago. He ended up having triple bypass surgery and afterward managed to push himself back to better health and back to work within five months. We have also been navigating aging parents and their subsequent health trials. We lost my mother in law a little over a year ago which has been a difficult adjustment. Health scares have led us to make big changes in diet and increased our levels of exercise with our home gym now rivaling any one I could be paying membership fees to.
In our society when we talk about mid life crises, we tend to look at them through the lens of the male version. That cliche we think of with the man leaving his wife for the twenty year old, the purchase of the expensive sports car, or maybe the hair plugs for the receding hair line. Whichever stereotype embodies the mid life crisis in your head, it is usually male oriented. But I think we overlook the fact that woman are experiencing these same issues with aging, we just have different ways of expressing them. I do not feel the urge to leave my husband and find a younger man, that sounds exhausting. My husband already has the car part covered, so check mark there and my hair line seems to be holding up just fine.
So what then does a female mid life crisis look like? Well for me, it is reaching twenty years at a job and finding that I feel unfulfilled. It is feeling deep down inside that I want something more out of life, something that will give my life meaning. I have felt like the last twenty years have been a little bit about just survival, and at times just barely keeping my head above water. It is feeling like now that we have reached a more leveled off space, where we have some breathing room from what felt like the giant hurdles of our younger days, I would like to find what could fulfill me and not what can just pay the bills.
And that leads us to this blog, which will explore the things that make me happy. And the things that fill a need inside of me. Or really just all the things because how do you know what it is you are missing if you don’t try it. So I have goals of which some I have already started like getting into shape and eating healthier. That goal started four months ago and is doing well with thirty pounds of weight loss already. My husband and I also do some traveling and love it. We have a trip coming up at the end of September to Europe. Traveling really broadens your horizons and gives you such an appreciation for other people and cultures. Although who am I kidding for me it’s all about the delicious food in other countries.
I am passionate about many topics like food and cooking, travel and art. We will definitely discuss these items in this blog and you can expect a very pro-woman vibe throughout. If any of this appeals to you, I hope you will join me on what I am calling my Mid Femme Crisis as I drag my husband, my two Great Danes and my macaw on a journey through my forties.