Man-O-Pause

We’ve all played housie. It’s a number game. I’m intrigued by two numbers on the ticket – because of what the announcer without fail repeats when he comes to those numbers. He says Eyes down for your next number - Men get naughty at four O, forty he announces and I quietly tick the number on my ticket, I feel al tingly  inside!.  Your next number, half way home five zero, Fifty. Man! It gives me pause – man o pause. In the space of a decade I have gone from naughty to dotty!

I’m the type of guy who likes to get on with life rather than pause so I wondered if I am going thru a midlife crisis -  the numbers were just about right, but what about the rest?  Now, come to think of it, there were warning signs  –

·         My career had plateaued, not that I was on Mount Everest, or even Kanchenjunga it was more like Chamundi Betta.

·         The controlling hormone in me suddenly had started to act up. It allowed a few parts of my body to suddenly fail, while maintaining the rest of me in good condition – Hair grew where it is not supposed to and refused to where it once used to – the nose and the ears, and the head and my feet got tangled on the dance floor, without a drink!

·         I began to forget - If you are married you and over forty you’ll have noticed this problem - when you wake up you wonder who the hell is  sleeping next to you. 

·         I changed physically  -  I grew in the middle and shrank everywhere else.  I didn’t really struggle to stay in shape, because I felt comfortable with the thought that round is a shape.

·         My prism had a new design – it had become a monochromatic grey – Perhaps I couldn’t see clearly or it had become my defining colour.

·         One more symptom I noticed that perhaps was related to the Man O pause. When I was younger, let’s say in my teens I looked at older women as prospective life partners – both the one I fell in love with and the one I married, unluckily perhaps the same woman, were older. But by the time I paused to rewind, I had a problem with numbers – I began to prefer the smaller numbers to the bigger ones!  But that I guess can be normal - My research tells me that at 16, boys seek women who are roughly two years older than them. This age gap narrows to zero by the time we are 24 and thereafter we prefer younger women, with the age gap progressively increasing to only 12 years by our own old age.

·         But now I’m often more irritable and angry than before, especially when I have to get up and go for an early morning TM meet. Thank God today’s meet is in the evening – My wife is a counsellor, and when I’m irritable she says – it’s the sign of your midlife crisis – what you need to do is quickly cross it and go on to the other side -  I was not sure if she was referring to my age or some kind of immovable property not located on this planet!

My symptoms suggest to me I have a full blown midlife crisis. “A person often makes an impulsive decision uncharacteristically or changes their lifestyle dramatically,” says Sheila K. Collins, PhD, a psychotherapist and author of Stillpoint: The Dance of Self-Caring and Self-Healing.  Did I do that, I asked myself, and the answer is yes. Back in 2012, joining toastmasters was an uncharacteristic and impulsive decision that changed my lifestyle….totally. 

It’s time to pause, fast forward and play! And everyone is encouraging me do that, except my children – they want me to pause… which I’ve already done, rewind and play. I laugh it off but stay positive as my research shows that midlife unhappiness patterns, have a “U-shaped curve” with a very clear low period during midlife. So if I make it through this rough period, according to the study,  by the time I turn 70, I’ll experience the happiness and mental health of a 20-year old! Wow that’s something to live for – and Ill be looking for older women all over again!