User300415

[I]This is really just a chance for me to put down my thoughts in one place all for myself-albeit in a somewhat public diary.[/I]

Well – At the start of the year I never imagined that I would find myself deep into a mid-life crisis by the time we reached the Euros. I always thought that kind of thing only happened to uber-rich guys but never to ordinary Joe Soaps. And I had the education, experience and support network that would make such a thing impossible for me.

Did meeting her cause it? Or was our relationship the first symptom or manifestation of a whole life crisis that was already brewing under the surface? After long hours and nights of thought I can only conclude that failing her did catapult me into this state. But that’s really a side-issue. Yes, there is of course the grief of losing someone special, especially if you are not used to a relationship coming to an end. And the various stages of grief are pretty overwhelming in themselves.

Over all these years my life of punting had always been about the purely physical. I hadn’t gone looking for love that first dark evening in January. But having experienced the joy of that feeling for just the second time in my life I recognise now that I will never fall in love again. And that realisation leaves me totally bereft.

And those thoughts make me feel overly nostalgic about lost youth, especially when I realise that the young people I know aren’t actually young any more. I’ve never had kids and never wanted them. But I wish I was a Dad, today especially, even if only for the selfish reason that they would provide some meaning to my life and expose me again to the feeling of youth. And that's before you consider the wonderful up-side potential.

The most destructive aspect of the mid-life crisis is the huge depression with the excessive sleeping, loss of appetite and general malaise that it brings. I always loved my work but now find that both it and life simply feel empty and a bore. I’m no longer performing at work and that brings its own stresses. I’m making excuses to avoid meeting up with friends. I am not supporting my wife in a time when she really needs a true friend. And I’m drinking too much in an attempt to try and forget all of these feelings.

But there are up sides. In an attempt to keep the Black Dog at bay I have started to exercise more and I’ve lost 30 pounds – all without succumbing to the need to admire myself every time I pass a mirror (lol). And I find that I am turning tender and beginning to have empathy towards the feelings of others. But even this emotion needs to be kept in check just in case I project my desire to be protective onto some immigrant happily working away in a tough job who would consider misplaced “empathy” to be weird or even inappropriate. I should of course be more tender to those close to me – it should always start in the home.

I have in these times displayed the impetuousness of a mid-life crisis. I hadn’t visited escorts in three months but have been on a binge these past few weeks. I recognise that I am ambivalent to how much time and money this is all costing and that this is itself a path to destruction without any real sense of fulfilment.

I wonder if I can ever get back to normal.

So here I am in mid-June 2012. I’m standing on egg-shells, holding my breath, not really knowing in what direction to take the next step. And my first decision is to post to a blog?