It’s time for a reality check. It’s time for a tune up. It’s time for carpe mediae aetatis revisited, a flashback to the brazenly bad-Latin post in March 2017 in which I dignified that handsome battle cry banner above.
Think, “carpe diem”. Now think, “midlife”. Put it together, and the closest literal translation I’ve come up with is “carpe mediae aetatis”. I like this better…
Carpe midlife!
It has a nice ring to it, don’t you think? Carpe midlife. Carpe mediae aetatis. (Source: Carpe Mediae Aetatis)
Genius, right? Fortunately to date no Latin scholar has bothered to counter my clever coinage. However, a quick check with Google Translate offers this midlife mumbo jumbo: “Take the middle-aged”. Hhhmmm…
Carpe Mediae Aetatis Translated (Source: Google Translate)
So maybe not so genius. But stick with me a moment. Let’s rewind even further to April 2012.
At thirty nine I took inventory.
The workbench was sow backed
But the warehouse was bare…
(Source: Mission Reboot)
That final stanza in “Mission Reboot” (published in 40×41: Midlife Crisis Postponed) hints at the anguish I was wrestling with back in the prologue period to this project. The approach of my fortieth birthday triggered all sorts of reflection and anguish. It wasn’t a stretch to say I was bottoming out. The idea that I was experiencing what so often is dubbed “a midlife crisis” struck me as unnecessarily disempowering, pejorative, and escapist.
As I somersaulted toward my fortieth birthday, there was no question in my mind. I was entering (or already in?) a big transition. A soup-to-nuts transformation. I was anxious and prone to increasingly discouraging bouts of reflection. I was anxious. I didn’t feel as cognitively acute as I once had. I was overweight; my energy, physical strength, and endurance were diminishing; and my digestive system was reminding me painfully and far too frequently that something was out of whack. I wasn’t sleeping well. I wasn’t as optimistic as I’d habitually been. I was projecting my strains and aggravations onto my bride instead of realizing how often the problem lay within me, not her. These were the day-to-day reminders that I was overdue for maintenance. These were the warning signs that routines and techniques that had long served me no longer were.
But these mental and physical and psychological warnings were only the tip of the iceberg.
There was a scarier, chillier truth under the surface. I was grappling with the fact that in many ways I had not become the person I had wanted — and expected — to become. Too many of my aspirations had been suspended and back-burnered and sloughed off and overlooked so long that they had almost become forgotten. The more disturbed I became with the void between the man I’d anticipated becoming and the man I’d become, the more introspective and the more disappointed I became. I began to grapple with failure in a way that I never had previously. For as long as I can remember I’d rejected failure as lack of perseverance. I could do anything if I just tried hard enough, long enough. But time was winning. I was losing. I was failing. I had failed.
Even as I admitted to myself that I was struggling, I rejected the possibility that this was a midlife crisis. That’s a sham. That’s an excuse to behave irresponsibly, to plunge into escapist fantasies. Mine, a persistent midlife malaise, was different. I was different. I’d tame the bucking bronco and rodeo-ride it to victory. I would not be thrown off. I would not be thrown off. I would not be thrown off…
From Malaise to Metamorphosis
Carpe midlife. Carpe mediae aetatis.
Mantras. Battle cries. Reminders to upcycle my midlife malaise into midlife metamorphosis.
I was determined to reframe middle-aging as an opportunity. I wanted to leverage my discontent toward a healthier, more accomplished future.
Seemed doable. And it was. So many positive changes between then and now are rooted in this transformation. But it wasn’t always painless. And it isn’t always a success. In fact, one of the important changes I’ve made is to admit and accept and then move past failure. It’s actually not that hard! Sometimes it’s actually incredibly emancipating and motivating to acknowledge that I didn’t accomplish an objective. Instead of grinding away indefinitely trying to believe that some day, some day I’ll finally succeed, I can purge the failures and start again. Or move on. Priorities change. Wow do they change! And it’s an incredibly relief to accept that some goals are no longer important to me. Clinging to them just because I’m stubborn and unwilling to admit defeat is a surefire way to get stuck and to bog down. In recent years I’ve become increasingly comfortable with owning my failures. Nor forever. And not to flagellate myself. But to purge the pipeline. Often my vestigial aspirations can simply be flushed out. No longer important? No problem. Move on. Still important? Revisit and define a better strategy for success. Start anew and commit to success.
As I write this, I realize that turning these thoughts into words and sentences overstates my success. Rereading the last paragraph confirms this. I am not done. I am not failure-free. I am not a butterfly fluttering free from my caterpillar past. Nor may I ever be. There are inevitably setbacks, some more easily admitted and others still exceedingly difficult to fully admit. There are days and weeks when I feel confident and productive and healthy and joyful about the transformation I’m living. But there are also days and weeks when I grow discouraged, intervals — sometimes shorter, sometimes longer — when I realize that I am faltering. Midlife metamorphosis interruptus.
It is human, I tell myself.
Nothing is permanent, even positive changes.
I try to meditate on transience and to appreciate this impermanence. Life is not static. Work is never done. Ever moment we are changing, evolving, achieving, failing. I try to unshackle disappointments and let them scatter in the wind. I try to reevaluate my ambitions and refocus my strategies. I try to distill priority from priorities, critical objectives from dreams. I try to celebrate small victories and incremental progress. I try to remind myself that an almost 8-year long quest to reboot and revitalize and recommit to my most ambitious and enduring goals will offer valleys between summits. And I try to cultivate patience for navigating the interstices and gratitude for everyone who has helped (and is helping) me on my journey.
So, “take the middle-aged”? Whether or not I’m equipped to take anyone anywhere is up to the jury. But I do hope that by living my midlife inside out, by chronicling the adventure and trying to map the topography, I might inspire others to seize the opportunities of middle age. I hope that I might fortify others against the sting of failure and the seductive siren call of escapism. I hope that I might. I hope. I might.