A deep dive into midlife crisis: lessons learned

What I discovered about myself when I changed my life

(versão portuguesa)

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I remember where I was: in a shopping centre near my work. I was having coffee with a good friend, and the conversation took us to our dreams, to what we would do if we could do anything. And I remember the surge that came over me when I tried to answer: I wanted to stop, to stop what I was doing and take time to do nothing, or to do something else; I needed space to breathe. It felt like an alarm blaring STOP went off in my head. 

A few years before, if you would ask me if I liked my life, my answer would be yes. I would wake up, most of the time, to a bubbling energy. I would go to work with purpose, looking forward to the day ahead. Until I didn’t. There was a distinct moment when I noticed that there had been many days since I had felt that energy. I was waking up anguished, overwhelmed, not really wanting to leave the bed. 

Have you been there? I said five more minutes and burrowed my face in the pillow, dreading any possible move. But I got up anyway, because I had responsibilities and people that counted on me. I went through the motions and did what needed to be done, painfully aware of the never ending to-do list.

I felt drained from the stress at work and the weight of the responsibility, and I had a few serious health scares. When I looked ahead to the foreseeable course of my life, I didn’t like what I saw.

I pushed through those years, but I could feel a disquiet stirring things inside. I tried therapy and soul-searching retreats and courses. I started writing a book, and that made me happy, but my time and my mind were too cluttered to do it consistently.

So, when the alarm went off in that shopping centre, I didn’t shut it down, I let the sound turn so loud that I couldn’t ignore it any more. I started asking: why not? At first, it seemed impossible, and then it didn’t. I brainstormed, made plans, and the possibilities started to feel real. Looking back, I realise that I had been preparing for that moment for a while, even if I didn't know it at the time.

I decided to take a one-year unpaid leave from my job, to give myself time to decide what to do next, to reset my life, to start again. I was interrupting the path I had been on since I chose to study science in the tenth grade. I didn’t know what my life would be like at the end of that year, but for the first time in a long time, I was excited to find out.

Five years later, my life is very different, I am different. I finished my book and freelanced as a ghostwriter. I now write and work with plain language, and have this publication.  I dived deep in the world of words, and I’m still amazed how right it feels - it's like coming home. Last year, life shifted once more, with the stage IV cancer diagnosis, and writing became a tool to explore and learn from it.

I feel like I did right by my midlife crisis. It was such a learning experience that I had to try and write some of it down, because putting one word after the other allows me to gain perspective, to distil the things that I learned, that I am still learning, in this process. 

(But I still remember a time when changing was inconceivable, when I could not see ahead, when I was afraid to move. I started to recognise this moment, in myself, in other areas of my life, and in others. And if you are in this place right now, feeling overwhelmed and lost, maybe these words are for you.)

My perception of what can be changed 

In the tenth grade, I had to choose between studying humanities or science in school. I look back and feel compassion for that young girl, because she believed that choice was for life. That’s what she saw around her, in her parents' generation: you chose a job and a career, and that becomes your life. 

That girl didn’t know that you can have more than one passion, that you can love science and words, and you can find purpose in protecting the environment, and in writing and sharing words that may touch people. She didn’t know that there are other things that would inspire her through life, like photography, philosophy, and human nature. 

She didn’t know that she could build bridges between all those things and create new things, like a book where climate change is a big part of the world building and where the hero works to regenerate the land, or a publication where she will publish her photos along with her words, where philosophy and human nature are central themes.

She didn't know that you can follow one passion, and then another, and still be on the right path. Because there is no «right» path, only our personal path, drawn by connecting dots of experiences and people, and the purpose comes from the story we chose to tell.

I lost the illusion that I am irreplaceable 

I felt responsible for the work I was doing, for the projects I had started, for the people I worked with. I felt that so much was depending on me, that thinking of leaving felt like a betrayal, like running from my commitments. 

Now I smile when I think about it, how self-centred that feeling was. I could not imagine how work would be without me. Spoiler: things went on fine without me. 

And the most surprising thing was that the weight of responsibility faded away. When I was in the midst of it, it felt like it was never going to end. My to-do list lived in my insomnia. It was a part of me, and then it wasn’t. As I passed along the projects and dossiers, I felt it move away from me. 

Maybe this is what Buddhism calls the right vision. I was too deep in the forest to see the trees, and I had to take a step back to see more clearly. I just hope that when it happens again, I am able to recognise the symptoms.

If not this, who am I?

I was afraid of losing the college-career-persona I had been operating with for so many years. It gave me a purpose, a standing in life, a living, and it occupied a great part of who I was, of who I was known for.

Do you remember when, in the film Inside Out, the islands started collapsing? My work was a huge island, and I was afraid that, if it collapsed, there was very little left. I asked myself who would I be without it, what would I say when someone asked what I did.

During the leave, as the days went by, I realised I was still there. Not a piece of me, not a hollowed out version of me. All of me. The only thing that came from the collapse of the work island was room to build another island and time to explore it. 

In a few months, I edited my LinkedIn page and wrote Working with words - the title of the folder where I had all the writing-related projects. It felt like a public declaration, this is who I am now. When I contemplate my old life, I am pleased and grateful for it. I am happy I lived it, and happy for living it behind.

What if things don’t change?

I realised my biggest fear was that things wouldn’t change, that a year would go by and I would return to the old life or worse, defeated. Even today, this fear creeps up sometimes, even though my life looks nothing like before.

But then, as I was doing it, talking to my boss, planning, brainstorming new projects, I realised that fearing failure is an illusion, because we can only try. 

Success is that movement, the ability to start and go one step further. We grow by making the decision to go and by walking the path where we feel alive. Where that path takes us is never known, no matter how many plans we make. We can only move closer to what gives us bliss, one step at a time. And missteps are what helps us discover the path, discover ourselves. There is no failure.

(As I am finishing the text, other lessons come to my mind. If these resonate with you, let me know, maybe I’ll include them in another article.)