An admission

I used to think Mid LIfe Crisis was just an excuse; an excuse for men to leave their families behind for a young twenty something, still toned and beautiful.  For women it meant donning clothes a sixteen year old trying to get into a club might wear.  I never thought it was real; how wrong I was.  It's not the first time and no doubt it won't  be the last but it was a pretty big mistake - like leaving the chips on the stove big - the potential for disaster real.  I was just not prepared.

My life is good, everyone can tell you that, but it feels far different to what I imagined.  Is that why people try to return to their youth when, "What happened to my life?" becomes the only thought gaining attention?  Am I searching for the rewind button so I can back it up twenty years or thirty kilos and make some better decisions?  Maybe ... probably.  Would I play it as safe second time around?  I hope not.

I'm bored with safe. I'm bored with bored.  I lie in bed thinking up amazing lives for myself.  Get up and do something, I know I should, I really do, but I feel like a paralysed stroke victim without the excuse.  Besides, I really am starting to hate the word should. 

My mind is active, too active, but it doesn't seem capable of summoning my body to action.  Occcasionally I throw the quilt off but the cold usually helps change my mind.  In times like this my main motivator is always one of two things, guilt or an aching bladder.

It's not like this eveyday.  Some days I feel positive, sometimes even too positive.  Otherwise it is the needs of my family that get me up.  I have to find a way to break this. I can't rely on flooding halls to get me moving.  Unfortunately on all levels I know I can't rely on anything or anyone else, it's got to be all me.  What a petrifying thought.  I'm unstable enough at the best of times.

I may be intelligent and generally quite capable but am I able?  I need to find a way to live my life, to be, rather than to act, all good in theory, all necessary.  One problem, what life do I want to lead?  How do I find the answer to that?

Focus on the good parts comes to mind.  To everyone else it's all good parts and I know I should be grateful.  Mine is a life taken for granted.  I know if anyone was to take or even threaten to take any part of it away I would be devastated and probably just a little bit dangerous, at least I realise that, but at the moment it's not enough.  Maybe it's too good - like a movie with no conflict, syrupy sweet, unfulfilling.  Maybe I'm just a horrible bitch.  I am sure there are many people who would happily step into my carefree life.  To them I am sure I sound like a whingy, whiny sad excuse for a human being and do you know what, I agree, but knowing other people would love my life makes me feel worse not better.

All I want to do is get in my car and drive, no destination in mind, just drive until I find me.  I know that won't happen - the leaving or the finding.  I'm not that brave and I am not that disrespectful.  I set this life up and I will live it.  Live it - that's what I want to do. I want to live in it, not exist in it.

I'm lying in bed as I write this.  It's 5am, Adrian is in bed beside me, having just returned from driving Dan to work. I can't believe he is already snoring again.  Leia is curled up at my shin purring, Ozman is on my hip and Bowie is on the floor licking where only animals can lick.  Quite unusually, Dap is not asleep under the quilt.

Beside me is my overcrowded bedside table, books stacked waiting to fall.  There's books on writing, a book on the history or mathematics - a present from my Dad, Michener's book on Hawaii - I'd like to go there, my journal, and one book whose spine is not facing me but from memory I think it's a book on the mind and how it works. 

Somehow, strategically placed in the middle of this pile is a pair of stockings Alana bought for herself.  They will never fit her.  She thought they were one size fits all, a bizarre concept in itself, but they are not; they are nicely called 'for curvy ladies'.  The ones she bought are size 2 for women up to 125kg, she weighs around 40.  I have them now and fortunately they are too big for me although if my current diet continues maybe not for much longer.

There's also an empty coffee cup.  Adrian made that for me at 4.30am this morning before he drove Danny to work.  It's trying to hide behind the Pump bottle with two day old water in it which rests on an open writing pad.  Alana's underpants are there too.  They were flatteringly put in my drawer.  I pulled them out, realized there was not a hope they were mine, and then got them as far as their new home, my dust-covered bedside table.  Then there's the moisturiser and hair serum I never get around to using, some crystals, a phone and my bedside lamp.

By now you must think I have an eight-seat dining table beside my bed but alas it is only your typical bedside drawers designed to hold nothing more than a lamp, an alarm clock and maybe a glass of water.  I'd like to think I will do someting about the dust and the clutter today. Believe me when I say it is not the first time I have had that thought but maybe today will be different.

Dusting is like washing, and cooking, and cleaning; it doesn't matter how many times I do it, it's still going to need to be done again tomorrow.

I really will try to make an effort on my room today.  As much as I hate the monotony of cleaning I always feel better when it's done.  It's like sex, it feels great afterwards but finding the motivation to begin can be a struggle.  How different I used to be.  Two days was too long to wait for both sex and cleaning.  Sorry Sal, I will try to become that wife again.

Speaking of Sal, who everyone else knows as Adrian, I have just realised he has stopped snoring, so now seems like a good time for me to shut my eyes.  It's 6:18am.  Luke the third of my four cats has just come in to check on me.  For some reason he didn't jump up for a cuddle but that's okay.  He will probably come for a snuggle when I turn the light off.  I wonder if I should bother closing my eyes now.  The yawn tells me I should, but I have an alarm set for 7am.  My eyes have just begun to water; that's a sign even I can't miss.