My Midlife Crisis

Apparently, when people reach their mid 30s to mid 40s, they experience a mid life crisis. I knew a lot of men had a mid life crisis, because you hear about men in this age range having affairs and marrying barely legals as a way of recapturing their youth. However, I was not aware I, as a woman, would experience any sort of crisis, beyond the dreaded change of life (which, knock on wood, I'm not having to deal with).

Now I know that women, too, lose their minds as they approach mid life, and after the last week, I'm almost certain mine is lost forever.

I'm one of those people who tends to self-analyze (I can't afford a real therapist). A lot. So I am pretty sure I know what brought on my mid life crisis.

I've traced it back to last summer, when Jared, my oldest, joined the Marines. Jared is a senior in high school, and will graduate in June 2006. In July, he goes to Paris Island for boot camp, and then on to Virginia where he will be trained in Marine Intelligence. I'm totally proud of him, and I know the growing up he'll do in the Marines will be good for him.

But Jared's still my baby (in my eyes, not his. HE thinks he's a man). Jared and I went through everything together (even if he was often too young to know he was going through it). When he was a baby, we did a lot of traveling - just Jared and me. We were (are) extremely close, because for a long time, he was all I had, and I was all he had. We talked about everything, and it was this closeness that helped us both get through his father's suicide, as well as everything we lived through prior to that, and since.

And once he joined the Marines, I got hit with the reality that he was pretty much all grown up, and he was going to leave me and start his own life.

That's normal. All mom's experience this.

I waivered between extreme pride (he is my greatest accomplishment in life so far), and bouts of weeping and wailing.

Then in December, I got one of those DVD recorders, and the first thing I did was dig up all the old home movies on VHS and turn them into DVDs as Christmas presents for my mother. I had intended to pop in a VHS and blank DVD, hit record and leave the room to do something productive. The first video, however, featured my father (who passed away in May 1992), my ex husband (who passed away in May 2002), and Jared (who was only almost 3 months old at the time).

Long story short, I watched the entire video, experiencing every possible emotion, and crying through it all. I cried for my father and Andy - I miss them both. And I cried for the baby that I loved so much, and who was now a man.

And I. Was. Not. Ready. For. Him. To. Be. A. Man. Damnit.

I ended up watching every video as I recorded it onto DVD. Not only did I remember all the good times I had with my children when they were little, but I was reminded of all the things I wanted to do with my children, that I never got around to doing - all the times I put off going outside to build a snowman because I had work to do, or all the picnics we didn't have time to take, all the cookies I didn't bake, etc. And now, it was too late for me to do those things with Jared (and quickly getting there with the other two, who are 14 and 11).

I wanted to go back in time, and hold that sweet cherub-faced little baby, and relive the entire 18 years. And do everything right; be the perfect mom this time around.

You see, the one thing I learned over the last 18 years is that parents are not perfect, even though we want to be. But if I could do it all over again, I could fix some of the mistakes I made.

Jared walked in on me at one point, and saw me sobbing. Being the sweet kid that he is, he asked what was wrong. And I told him. And I apologized for all those snowmen we didn't build and all the cookies I didn't bake. And he hugged me and said, "Gee, Mom, don't cry about it. You did a lot of other things with us." (I'm guessing he was probably rolling his eyes, thinking I was crazy, too:))

Christmas was hard. I had to work so much during December, that I didn't get to do all the things I wanted to do for Jared's last Christmas at home (for clarification - his last Christmas as my baby).

Then after Christmas, I started this bizarre "sorting" thing. I was sorting everything. Trying to make order of the house - probably to feel like I was in control of something. I got to the clothes sorting. Years and years of kids clothes. I washed them, I folded them. I intended to set them aside for a garage sale. But I found myself putting the really pretty clothes, or the special clothes, in a pile for... my grandchildren.

What grandchildren? Jared didn't even have a girlfriend at the time. Now, he's the kind of young man who will almost certainly meet a girl, fall in love and decide to get married, without any thoughts of losing his freedom or any of that other stuff some men go through, because that's just the way he is. He wants a wife and family. So I know he'll probably be married within a couple years and have kids reasonably soon thereafter.

But I was not only stocking up clothes for my future grandchildren - I was getting downright excited about having them.

Did I mention I'm too young to be a grandmother? :)

That was all in January.

In February, I had a revelation. It wasn't really grandchildren I wanted, because my thoughts were all about setting up MY house for a baby. I wanted my own baby.

Definite WTF moment there. I was a single mother to 3 children, and it's a hard, stressful road to raise them from infancy or toddler-dom on your own. There's never enough money, never enough time.

I spent 12 years of my life with little kids at home, and most of that time, I worked from my home so I could be with them, do the homeroom mother thing, be there for them when they were sick, etc. By the time my youngest, Jacob, went to school full time (Fall 1999) for kindergarten, I was absolutely thrilled. I NEEDED those few hours a day to myself - for work, for my mental stability.

So here I am, 6 years later, wanting more kids?

Mind you, I do not want to physically give birth to any more children. Been there, done that, hated being pregnant, and especially disliked the whole natural birth, no drugs aspect of it. Loved my kids, wouldn't have changed having them, but can admit pregnancy, for me, was awful.

So I'm thinking adoption.

Let's rewind many, many years, to my own birth.

My parents got me when I was 6 days old. I came straight from the hospital.

Around the age of 2, I was convinced I was the baby Jesus. Even confided it to the neighbor lady. A 2 year old's understanding of the immaculate conception, combined with her grasp on adoption, was that she must be Jesus.

By 3, I realized I was not Jesus, because I got a brother, who came to my parents the same way I did. And he certainly was no Jesus.

By then, my understanding of adoption was a lot better. But still not quite full. In my mind, babies were born to people who could not afford them or who did not want them. These babies were taken to orphanages, and the lucky ones were adopted by people like my mom and dad. The unlucky ones were left without families in orphanages for the rest of their lives.

That is, of course, how it is basically - but I thought MOST babies were left to live in orphanages, and the lucky ones to get parents were few and far between.

So by 4 years old, I was determined to adopt some of those kids who weren't as lucky as me when I grew up. The older kids.

I never really stopped wanting to adopt, but life had a way of dealing me hands that made it impossible - a husband that didn't want to adopt an older child, being a single mom to 3 small children, a youngest child with a variety of mild or moderate developmental delays, etc.

But here I am now, experiencing a mid life crisis from hell; wanting a baby, dreaming about babies, seeing little chubby hands on television and bursting into tears. I'm getting positively ridiculous.

And I don't know whether to take myself seriously, or have myself committed.