Virginia Is For Families

There has been a lot written about the male midlife crisis.   And I feel that this is an area I can talk about with a certain amount of authority.  Because I have gone to that outpost of civilization. . .that ISLAND of Dr. Moronic.  And returned.   Yes, I have made it back and can now say with some degree of certainty that it’s not as big a deal as it seems at the time.

At the time it seems of course like life is going to be over very soon.  And you better fulfill all your latent fantasies before it’s too late.  Better buy that sports car.  Better bed that beautiful blonde who turned you down when you were nineteen and poor.   Yes, yes I know all about it.   I had a  blonde by the name of Leslie Saylor who was a resident of some poor town in northern Vermont.

But to be perfectly honest I did not have her.   I wanted her desperately but she was a year or two older and quite beautiful.  But quiet.  Too quiet. Why would such a beautiful girl be so quiet?  Well, an eighteen year old boy doesn’t ask himself that question.  He is too busy examining things that scream out to him “I am beautiful parts”.   Like Mr. Perdue who used to scream out that his chickens had beautiful thighs and legs and ( I blush to say this) breasts Leslie Saylor screamed out to me without saying a word.  And I listened.  But I did not hear the most important part. Because  I realize  now  that when God made her he must have been extremely tired by the time he finished with her physical being.  The brains are inserted at the end of the heavenly assembly line and God was resting by then. He was taking a break.  And Leslie was already warming herself up in a Vermont oven by the time he was ready to go back to work.

So she didn’t have a lot to say.  And when I went back to Boston she was no doubt easily persuaded to follow other avenues to adventure.  When I was 45 I knew all of this to be true and also knew that I needed to find someone who had perhaps been put together in a little less uneven fashion. And I needed a sports car and a few other things.  A hair transplant would have been nice.  Contact lenses were not much of a problem but Liposuction scared me.  I can’t stand to watch those television shows where they cut people.

If I did watch one of those shows I would be immediately transported to our grocery store meat counter.  And I would  imagine being  laid out in the refrigerated case on top of lots of ice and framed with  sliced salmon.  It would be, in other words, a nightmare.

All of this must be important because by the time you are 55 let’s face it you are almost DEAD. Well surprise!  I am 58 and I could care less about a sports car.   And if  Charlize Theron showed up tomorrow I really would be happy to see her but not in the same way as say ten years ago.  And I am not almost dead.  In fact I am much more “alive” than I was at any point from age 12 until now.

Back then you can imagine the sort of fantasy I might have had but TODAY  things  would go a   bit differently.

“Hello David”

Why, hello Charlize.  My but you look BEAUTIFUL this evening.

“Thank you , David.   And I can see you are feeling well tonight.    Are you really so happy to see me?”

Why yes, Charlize.  I am extremely happy to see you.   I have had an especially wonderful day today and actually found an exceptionally  great deal on a wood plane at the Home Depot.  I have it here in my pocket because I like to keep my hands free in case I start to feel dizzy and fall down.  It’s that darn medication I take.  Do you take medication Charlize?  Perhaps something for an overactive pituitary gland?

Do you like to play scrabble Charlize?  My wife and I love to play it.  We would love to have you over for dinner and a game or two this weekend if you are still in town.

And that’s my fantasy about Charlize.  It would be so great to have her over.  Because I do believe that God was feeling especially energetic and creative when she went through the heavenly assembly line.   Anybody who can argue that Fidel Castro is a cool guy has to have some smarts even if they are wrong, wrong and wrong.

For all the guys out there who are in the midst of this 40 something midlife crisis I have only one suggestion.  Imagine that you are going to live until you are 80 or 90 years old. Would you like those years to be happy?  Or are you imagining that they will be spent REMEMBERING  the sports car you bought or the young women you entertained for awhile?  Is the fact that you finally fulfilled your young man fantasies going to keep you in good stead for thirty or forty years?

I would suggest that the answer is “NO”. You will want in those years the same thing you want now.  You will want your present existence to be full of things that make you happy.  So let me suggest what those things will be.  A loyal and supportive wife would be at the top of the list.  Someone who is not a door mat nor the domineering type either.   Grandchildren!   Beautiful children whom you do not have to support.  When they cry they go home!  It’s wonderful.   Golf!   Fall evenings that fly by as you smell the apple pies cooking in the stove.

Your loyal dog.  Your house that is paid for and your old car that still runs because you change the oil every so often.

And the plane you have in your pocket as you head out to your workshop to smooth out a long strip of oak.  There is nothing like the smell of wood and varnish on a newly shaved piece of wood.  Run your hand over it. Make it bend to your command.  Subdue it.

And enjoy the life you have spent so many years creating.  Don’t throw it away because you are a crazy person.

Your children will be glad you did.  And so will you.

Update://  I really didn’t want these things when I was in my forties.  I don’t know why I wrote this.  Maybe it was an attempt to empathize or get into the mind of someone who did want them and went out and got them.  Or maybe i thought I needed them.  But I never really wanted them.  Contact lenses would have been easy to obtain for example.  But I didn’t get them.

The part about Ms. Saylor however is pretty much true.  But her name has been changed to protect the not so innocent.

Craig Ferguson on the male midlife crisis