My Fellow "Mature" Individuals..got to ask you some questions.

Next week, I will celebrate my 58th birthday. I feel like I missed out on a bunch of things.

One of them includes the "Mid-Life Crisis". I guess this is more a guy thing than not, but I never felt the compulsion to buy an expensive, flashy high-performance car, or go for a younger woman(welp, I'm engaged to a 43-year-old). Was I supposed to squander my cash on that?

The other thing was "Life Beginning At 40". Is it supposed to? I feel that life just kinda..carried on.

Anyone else NOT experience these things?

This page is a permanent link to the reply below and its nested replies. See all post replies »

Journaling4Me · 56-60, F

I started to have signs of a midlife crisis when I was 33, because the first generation of kids we raised were teens, and for some reason, that set me off a little. I went to work outside the home and gained a little more independence than I had ever had. It was short-lived lived however. Our daughter had her first child at 16 years old, and she wasn't ready to be a mom, so I came home and became a mom again. By the time our daughter was 21 years old, she had 4 children that my Husband and I were raising, and she had one divorce pending. Our daughter and her first husband asked us to adopt all 4 kids, and we did. We were already raising them anyway. That put an end to my midlife crisis..As far as life beginning at 40...I never experienced that. 🤷‍♀

I feel like I have missed many of the usual milestones of getting older, and I find it hard to fit in with many my age because most folks our age have been done raising children for a long time. The baby from the second generation we raised just turned 21 years old, so we have been parents until now. I missed being really involved with my other grandchildren because I was still being a mother to 4 of our children/grandchildren. I have some feelings of the kids needing me less, and I don't really have a name for that. It isn't an empty nest because the kids still live with us.🤷‍♀

So, I can understand some of how you feel. I don't have any answers, though..