CAN HEIRONYMUS MERKIN EVER FORGET MERCY HUMPPE AND FIND TRUE HAPPINESS?

As I pondered the past with yesterday's post about color television, I continued to travel a bit back to my youth. Remembering certain years and the paths I took. Life is certainly serendipitous. I watched the Heironymus Merkin flick in 1969. I didn't get it then. Left the theater without a clue as to what the true motivation was for the character.

This morning, I reflect on this silly farce and finally understand that Heironymus was suffering from a mid-life crisis. Middle age is a punch right between the eyes, when you suddenly realize that this older person in the mirror is yourself. So much is left to do and the sands of your lifetime are running out. Growing older, and feeling emotions that are so odd; a time of reflection. Some of my friends going through this same growth stage are not faring too well. They either are in denial, or they seek destructive solutions. Their marriages are often safe, but dull; more friends than lovers. A few, like myself, have left old, scar-filled relationships behind and emerged from the shedding transformed like a cicada from its brittle brown hull.

Fortunately for me, through this new awakening, I have found an inner strength; one that propels me along to the end of this journey. A mid-life crisis may open a world of amazing opportunities if you are seeking changes for the better. Be aware, this trip is not for the faint of heart. I suppose a few of us come and go from this middle life effortlessly with just a week's worth of angst. Then, some like myself, make tough choices. We take a look around at our emotional "home" and see that weeds are in the garden, and the gate has rusted shut. As Thoreau put it: "I went to the woods to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not when I came to die, discover that I had not lived". I discovered I didn't want to live out my years as an emotional cripple paralyzed with regrets.

My personal changes have been difficult. Thankfully, my children have stood by me, and supported me. Without the rain in my past, I would not have found my present rainbow. You must be open to every moment. You never know what it will bring. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it. Learning that I am a more resilient person than I realized. Nietzsche, the German philosopher, said: "One's own self is well hidden from one's own self: of all mines of treasure, one's own is the last to be mined." Mining that inner treasure is hard work.

Nowadays, I am looking forward to a new kind of life, one of laughter and play. I have a strong and loving friend - no, soulmate, by my side. Kman has taught me that there are men who nurture, who love without an ulterior agenda. He brings me joy on a daily basis. I am constantly amazed at his generosity of spirit, his kindness. This has been a tremendous personal growth year for me. I have arrived at my "happy place". There are still days when my newfound peace is disturbed by often trivial-seeming roadblocks. I take it a day at a time.

I leave you with a quote from Donna Henes from On Finding Myself Middle Aged:

"Finally completely self-realized, I was ready and able, and for the first time in my life, I was actually, consciously, conscientiously willing to reign; to accept the responsibility for my own care and feeding and the truth and complete consequences of my own dreams, decisions, and actions. I was a maturing monarch prepared to regulate all of the inner and outer realms of my own domain. By the time I reached 53 or so, I knew myself to be the uncontested mistress of my own fate. Miraculously, it seemed, I had succeeded in turning my mid life crisis into my diamond-encrusted crowning achievement. Surely I was a Queen, and not a Crone. I was the Queen of My Self."

Long live the Queen!