F. Scott Fitzgerald said,


"There are no second acts in American lives."


Most people think he was crazy.















Friday, January 28, 2011

I Am Not Myself

I had a discussion (some might call it a disagreement) with a friend yesterday. She and I don't really know each other very well, but our circles overlap. She is young
(29) and pretty (pageant queen) and talented (sing, dance....you name it, she can do it). When I questioned the validity of a "quarter-life crisis," she said that a quarter-life crisis was real.

Here's the difference between her quarter-life crisis and my mid-life one: hers is situational. She doesn't necessarily have any power over the situation, but situations change. Yes, she's slogging through $hit, and it stinks as $hit usually does. But eventually the $hit will dissipate and she will reach higher ground.

Mine is physical. I was a dance minor in college. (You ask yourself: Really? You don't LOOK like a dancer. This is your nice way of calling me overweight. I'll be the first person to admit I don't weigh 107 anymore.) Not only can I not dance, I can barely go up and down stairs. And even if I could perform a twelve-count without worrying that I might break a hip and they would put me out of my misery by taking me out back and firing a bullet into me, it would take me an hour to learn. Because my brain doesn't work, either. So the $hit that I'm slogging through just gets deeper.

$hit. We've all got it, irregardless of how old we are. The best we can hope to do is hold hands and make sure no one drowns.

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