Muddling Through Midlife (and Music)

Mid-life crises are strange beasts most of us seldom discuss. We silently reckon with the gulf between what we expected to be and who we are.

Losing our way takes so long to do, and realizing we’re lost takes even longer.

I really get the old cliché now: You can’t go home again. But "home" is really about our roots, ourselves. It's why mid-life crises are so hard.

We remember who we were, and long for the wistful idealism we once had, for when life was an unwritten book, and our dreams were just an inkling.

But… we can’t. We can’t get there from here, like REM sang.

We use music that way, to take us back — remind us what we were, how we became ourselves. Songs are tied to places, times, thoughts, to struggle and victory, loves lost and gained, and nights we’ll never forget.

Music has that power. But, in a way, music traps us there too. If our universes aren’t expanding, they’re contracting.

This week, I expanded someone’s universe. They’ve been trapped in the middle-aged rut of going through the motions to survive. I turned them on to an artist who widened my world last year — Stephen Wilson Jr. In his 40s, reconciling his life after his father’s death, and of becoming the man he longed to be. For anyone middle-aged, his lyrics hit home.

It’s hard, this middle chapter, and is compounded by struggling more than we should in a world where great wealth is concentrated in so few hands.

So, if we haven’t the life we dreamt of, if we’re struggling to find our way, maybe we need new music to take us there. Not that same stuff we’ve listened to since we went to parties with beer bongs and skinny-dipping.

In this economy, there are few experiences available affordably, but music is one.

That’s why my media consumption habits are changing, especially in music. It’s helping me evolve, and make sense of the years that got me here.

[woman sighing wearily]

My mid-life crisis took a wild turn in 2025. Menopause, for women, levels up our mid-life crisis because science knows so little on what comprises 10-15 years of every woman’s life.

I know now that I’ve been on this ride for several years, maybe a decade. I know now how far away from myself I got.

But it’s more complicated still, because my menopause diagnosis came with two more discoveries: severe ADHD and a side of autism.

It turns out that midlife estrogen depletion is linked to spiralling out with undiagnosed ADHD. This often presents as depression and other mental strife, when it’s actually ADHD burnout.

Ironically, solving it all requires tinkering with hormone-replacement therapy — what could possibly go wrong? — which, for me, did lead to actual depression earlier this year, which I’m emerging from now.

Menopause, both on a personal level and a scientific/medical research level, is compounded by us not knowing what we don’t know. (Some of the 1 + 1 stuff in menopause in mind-bendingly weird — like it can cause tooth decay because saliva production diminishes with our reduced ability to stay properly hydrated. What bullshit!)

You 'n Me Both, Brother

The point is, for both men and women, middle-age crises have characteristics unique to each of us. It makes it so much harder for us to navigate. At least when we were teens, we were stuck in the same shitty schools, facing the same scary questions about what to do next — school, careers, move away, stay home, etc. We understood each other’s dilemmas and options.

My mid-life challenges are so different than, say, my brother, just two years older than me. None of my close friends has died, while he’s lost three ride-or-dies. I’ve never had kids; he’s got two born nearly a generation apart. We both come from literally the same house, same schools, same upbringing, but how we reckon with who we are in the middle of our lives comes from wildly different perspectives.

Each of us goes through this, but we rarely ever talk about it.

Even when we’re reasonably satisfied with our lives, we all have regrets. Things we wished turned out another way. People we lost or hurt.

So, we try to remember who we once were. We want more of that person in who we are now, as jaded folks who’ve seen things. We want the fearlessness and hope and curiosity which defined our youth, the adventure and joy that made it all so fun.

Nostalgia Isn't Self-Care

Old songs take us right back there. But they also re-open wounds. Painful twangs of people we once danced and sang with who’ve fallen away, through life and death, over the years. Mistakes we made, roads we didn’t take, and bad ones we did. Growing up is messy and cruel, and sometimes we are, too. Memories are complicated.

Music new-to-us that we find — from whatever time it's from, new or old — flick a switch without tripping us up in so much loss and regret.

So many songs remind me of when I was audacious and oblivious. They make me feel I’m still punk as fuck. And maybe I am. But I’m more than that, too.

The world, like me, contains multitudes, and there is much yet to experience. I’m diving into classical and opera, jazz and old-school funk, blues, and all those things I didn’t get exposed to as a white, Catholic Canadian kid in ‘70s suburbia. World music awaits, as well.

Along with new music, I’m busting outta comfort zones. Meeting new people. Doing new things. Taking on new challenges. Big, small, I’ll consider it all. I’m just starting, but I like what’s happening so far.

I’m volunteering now and then, to pack healthy meals to keep people fed, hang with folks being the change they want to see in the world. It’s a good vibe, and flexible. Highly recommend.

I also recognize democracy ain’t free, so I’m committing to help re-elect city councillors making this a leftie 15-minute city I’m proud to call home. Whilst I do so, I’ll meet engaged, hopeful people who aren’t complacent about the world we’re making.

My latest big new thing? My first-ever improv comedy class! Turns out being silly and having fun is… fun?

Time is Constant

Doing improv is helping me confront one big struggle of midlife for us all: Getting hung up on all the things we’re not. Where we’re not in our career, places we never went, experiences yet to happen. The what-ifs we remember as the ever-ticking clock of life keeps ticking.

A year ago, I got re-connected with a box long-forgotten in a friend’s storage. Whilst unpacking, I found a list of “life goals” I’d written nearly 30 years prior. Pleasant surprise, too. It wasn’t a life of marriage, love, kids, careers.

Instead, it was all about writing, travel, and experiencing life. Many differ from those I’ve actually achieved, but not as much as I’d have thought. I didn’t hit the bull’s-eye, but I sure got the dart on the board. Bam. Did that.

The life I’ve had isn’t one most people would have wanted, and I had it harder than I ever imagined or hoped it’d be, but it’s adjacent to the lifestyle I dreamed of as a college student. That ain’t nothing.

Finding that list, in the spring of what became among my hardest years ever, was instructive. It resonated with me then, but, ooh, it rings louder now that I’ve absorbed it.

Walking the Walk

Overcoming adversity is empowering, but when you get past thing after thing after thing, it takes time to absorb the resilience. Years, sometimes.

You may be a survivor in your 20s, but you likely won’t feel like one until your 40s or your 50s.

For me, it’s here now. I feel it. Strong. Power. A smattering of ‘fuck you; make me.’ Resilient, growing self-assured. More to come, it seems.

Gaining hindsight of how long, how frequent, and how hard all the adversity was — that’s when we really start to understand what makes us. And it’s good, because we need that newfound strength for carrying on — there’s so far yet to go, so much more to enjoy, more to weather. After all, it’s a mid-life crisis, isn’t it?

My mid-life crisis is becoming a chapter of discovery where I'm blending my youthful idealist with the wise, resilient, still-ticking mid-life me. A new thing each month to celebrate my growing self-acceptance. Along the way, I expect big scares, little scares, all the scares.

As a somewhat-agoraphobic person with autism, that’s a long list of scary.

But hey. Everybody needs a hobby.

PS: I have clearly been ‘away’ from writing. Some of the above explains why. Menopause is a drag, kids. And finding out you’ve been neurodivergent your whole life without ever getting extra supports or learning how to work with it, oof… that’s a whole other ride and as much about discovering yourself all over again as it is mourning all the things it might have prevented you from accomplishing.

But… all of that, that’s for me, that’s my journey. I have had to be present in it by myself, for myself, and I was. With the storm of discovery starting to subside, the quiet means words start to find me. Such as this. Have a great week, friends.