Trauma & the Midlife Crisis

This blind contour continuous line self-portrait sketch (boy, that’s a mouthful) reminds me of how un-me I feel during this season of trauma in the midlife.

I wasn’t sure if it was a real thing, the midlife crisis.

Did my parents have one? I’m not sure.

But I am here and I see it happening to my friends.

Are we bypassing the midlife crisis’s “need to feel something” because we are already feeling so much with our trauma and our own crises?

And, when our middle aged friends are planning summer surfing adventures in Nicaragua and buying two seater cars once their kids begin to drive and they must hand down the Camry, and we are hurling out any and all unnecessary bits and parts of our lives because we only have the margin for the absolute essentials, is our pain an invitation to bypass the inevitable empty feelings psychologists say they will feel when the excitement wears off, the trip is over, the depression settles in and they’re looking for the next feel?

Will we have dodged the whole midlife crisis thing? And will we ultimately come out on the other side, ahead of our friends, because of our suffering?

Just curious.