40th birthday + funeral=midlife crisis in a bottle

[tinuviellen]

With apologies for coming at you so often with morbid stuff; I shouldn't have had those two cups of tea before bed, and now you guys are paying the price for my inability to snooze

Comments

[soniag]

Beautiful post, Ellen.

[valancy_s]

Your description of people I don't know crying at the funeral for someone I didn't know made me tear up. Either you're a good writer, or we're sisters... I think both :)

I've been thinking about how our simultaneous birthday crises are coming for slightly different reasons - you're dissatisfied with your professional life, me with my personal life - but the "why haven't I done something big and helpful... and what could that have been, anyway?" questions is just what I struggle with, too.

*hugs*

[tinuviellen]

Well, it really all comes down to the same thing, doesn't it? Wanting to make a difference, not knowing what that is. And gosh, hon, you've done so much more with your 20s than I did. I'm really proud of you, and more than a little jealous. I think the striving counts, too. It has to, right? And the rest comes to you when it comes to you.

But the What - that always gets me. I care about too many things to feel like I have a real vocation. I wish I did. I've always envied our mother that, her certainty.

(And teenage boys crying? Kryptonite.)