Maybe This Is My Midlife Crisis

45 is creeping around the next corner.

In my head, I'm turning 35 again, and I honestly don't know where the last ten years went. I feel it in my lower back sometimes when I'm running, which feels like a pretty rude reminder that the years are, in fact, ticking by.

A couple of days ago, I gave my 15-year-old a piggyback ride just to prove I could.

Mostly to him.

But if I'm being honest, probably more to myself.

I wanted to prove that I'm still as young as I feel in my head.

A friend asked me last night if I was having a midlife crisis.

Maybe.

I did impulsively decide our family needed a second dog. I'm still not entirely sure why. That's actually how we ended up with Pepper too. One day I just called and said, basically, let's do this.

I've also started seriously thinking about fostering.

But that one doesn't feel like a midlife crisis. I've wanted to foster for most of my life. And somehow, for the first time, our family may actually be in a place where we can consider it. Ben is out of the military. Logan is older. Weslyn doesn't need quite as much of me as she used to.

Maybe we're finally at a place where that door could open.

So no. I don't think that's the crisis.

I think the actual midlife crisis might be that I have no idea what I want to do with my life.

Which sounds ridiculous when I say it out loud.

The owner of the school has actually given me some grace and space to figure that out. I think partly because I've spent the last several years helping bring her vision for the school to life.

And the funny thing is, that brought me a lot of joy.

It wasn't my dream.

I just never really cared that it wasn't.

I cared about the journey. I cared about building something. I cared about seeing an idea that existed in someone's head become something real.

I've had a lot of careers and a lot of versions of myself over the years. Moving across states and working around kids, military life, deployments and training meant some things were easier to leave behind than others.

Commercial real estate was probably my favorite.

Not because it was some lifelong calling, but because it fit me. It fit my personality and it fit the season of life I was in. I could travel. I could work. I could build relationships. And at the time, traveling for work didn't feel like a logistical nightmare involving three children's schedules.

I left it behind.

I don't regret it.

That's the strange thing.

I don't really regret much of what I've left behind.

I've spent most of my adult life since having kids raising kids. I've worked because I wanted to work. Even when work was chaotic, working brought me fulfillment.

And now I have been given some room to think about what comes next.

So I thought surely the answer would come.

Instead...

Nothing.

I've got nothing.

And somehow, being given the time to figure out what I want has made figuring out what I want even harder.

Maybe that's the part I didn't expect.

When you're busy, you don't have time to wonder if you're on the right path.

You just keep going.

You solve the problem in front of you. You get the kids where they need to be. You go to work. You move. You adjust. You build. You start over. You keep trucking.

Then one day someone gives you a little breathing room and says, What would actually fulfill you?

And you're like...

I have absolutely no idea.

I don't have some giant goal sitting out there waiting for me.

I don't have a business I desperately want to build.

I don't have a position I've dreamed about.

I don't have a five-year plan that makes me feel inspired.

I don't even really have some grand vision for the next 25 years.

And I suppose that sounds bad.

But maybe it isn't.

Maybe I don't need some enormous goal.

Maybe I just want to be with my kids as much as I can.

Maybe I want to foster if that ends up being the door that opens for our family.

Maybe I want to keep doing work that makes me feel useful and alive without needing it to become some giant career accomplishment.

Maybe I want to keep building things when something is worth building.

Maybe I want to see where this season takes me.

I don't know.

And that's hard for me to admit.

Because I've always been pretty good at figuring out what comes next.

Now I'm standing here at 44, staring at 45, wondering if I'm supposed to suddenly know what the rest of my life is supposed to look like.

Maybe that's the midlife crisis.

Not the second dog.

Not the piggyback ride.

Not fostering.

Maybe it's realizing that for the first time in a really long time, I'm not sure what's next.

And maybe that's not a crisis at all.

Maybe it's just a blank page.

I just haven't figured out what I'm writing on it yet.