Mid-life crises, it seems, are the domain of the male species. They have them any time from their mid forties onwards and they usual involve the purchase of a new shinny sports car or a new shinny wife, not necessarily in that order. For some unknown reason we indulge this behavior with “oh it is just a mid-life crisis” and they get away with wearing clothes too young for them and having their hair dyed. As always there is no equality in the sexes.

Woman on the other hand aren’t suppose to have a mid-life crisis. This I suppose is because most are too busy coping with the children and the divorce due to their husband’s mid-life crisis. In fact if women have the front to have a mid-life crisis they are considered unstable and generally avoided by society as much as possible. Despite the fact that I could be completely ridiculed and reviled I am indulging myself in my own mid-life crisis at this very moment.

I find my inner voice, you know the one we all have that tries to tell you want you should and should not do (but you don’t always listen) and always sounds in your head much better and sexier (think Kathleen Turner) than your real voice (think Antha Turner), asking what has happened to my life and is this it! Because I have to tell you mine is not what I expected it to be, not by a long shot, and unfortunately at this juncture I can’t think of anything to change that. A very depressing thought I have to tell you seeing your future in front of you and knowing it will be just more of the same, going on for years and years with nothing to look forward to. Nothing like when I was young and thought the world was my oyster, that I was something special and would do something spectacular with my life (don’t we all think that?)

I was supposed to be the next Jane Austin, Marie Currie, Katherine Hepburn or even the first something special. Of course we can’t all be brilliant or famous or even both at the same time, so it is obvious that most of us are going to be disappointed but I really didn’t think I was going to be one of them – not really. I don’t thing it would have mattered so much if I had ended up rich, after all you don’t have to be special to win the lottery just lucky but sadly that hasn’t happened either. I am just an ordinary woman in her mid forties (who would much rather be in her mid thirties) with a husband, a job and two cats. No children I am afraid, to pour my ambitions into which is part of my life crisis, since I had always thought I would have children and now being mid forties, well OK 45 to be exact, means I won’t have any and feel that all I have to look forward to are extra pounds (I have already added 4 in the last month alone) and more wrinkles in a face that I am certain is going to look like the road map of England by the time I am fifty.

Yep my body is like a car. I was this smart trendy mini, zipping around town with all cylinders firing and now I am like a Pontiac that needs work. My headlights need re-aliening, my bumper is falling off and soon I am going to need a complete re-spray. My first grey hair was most upsetting particularly as it wasn’t on my head! Although I am getting those too now, thank god for dye is all I can say. Even my 20/20 vision is going and now I need glasses to read anything. Believe me I am up for the plastic surgeon, if I could afford it the first plastic surgery would be putting my boobs back where they used to be – I hate Newton.

Watching your body change as well as dealing with your life not being quite what you anticipated has definitely contributed to my mid life crisis, that and the menopause – Men so don’t know they are born. I don’t want to get old. It is that simple. Even in my thirties I still use to think “what will I be when I grow up” and now it is hitting me that I am grown up and still have that feeling that I am not doing what I should be. What is with that? Shouldn’t I know myself by now? I mean I am at least half way through my life and I am floundering.

So how did I get here that is the question? I mean I was lucky. I had a great childhood, looking back, of course I didn’t appreciate it at the time but then again who does. As a child you just want to get older and don’t realize that not having responsibilities is a great thing. That you are never going to get holidays like you get at school or college and that these really are a time of freedom. I had, and lucky for me still do, great parents that although strict (well certainly my Mum was and can still scare the shit out of me. I clean for days when she is coming to visit much to my husband’s amusement) were loving and supportive of me, still are for that matter (you will always be a kid in the eyes of your parents) in whatever I did, even when it was a complete screw up.

When I think of being eighteen and the most important decision I had to make was what I going to wear to the disco (yep they weren’t called nightclubs in those days) and which boy I fancied. I didn’t have to thing about bills, rent or food, career, wrinkles or my weight. Oh to get those carefree days back but with the wisdom of today would just be fantastic but of course we can’t do that.

For most of my life I have not regretted decisions I have made. I feel that regret is a waste of time as I can’t change the past and the future is what I should be concentrating on. Now for the first time in my life I am looking back and thinking what would my life be if I had taken the high road and not the low one. What would my life be if I had accepted one of the other men who proposed marriage to me? Would I be happier? Would I even be having a mid-life crisis?

I actually like to think that I am having multiply lives where every major decision I have made there is another me living the life I would have had if I had made the other decision. Oh yah I watch Star Trek. So I have a me who is rich, a me who is famous, one with children, one who is with her first boyfriend, one who is fat and one who is single. I even have a me who has won the lottery.

So maybe I should be grateful that I am the me who has a great husband,
friends and family and not the fat or single me. OK I have figured out why we think women don’t have a mid-life crisis. It is because they multitask and get on with their life as well as having their mid-life crisis, unlike men who as we all know can only do one thing at a time. So of course no one notices our and we all see theirs. Men don’t you just love them. So my mid-life crisis is over, along with the laundry, ironing and shopping for dinner. Enjoy yours in your lunch break.