{"id":4008,"date":"2016-06-18T23:57:40","date_gmt":"2016-06-18T18:27:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=4008"},"modified":"2016-06-18T23:57:40","modified_gmt":"2016-06-18T18:27:40","slug":"mid-life-crisis-age-fashion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=4008","title":{"rendered":"Why We Need to Ban the Term \u201cMid-Life Crisis\u201d From Our Lexicon"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I<\/span><\/p><\/div>

\n\n turned 50 recently. My world didn\u2019t come crashing down. I am still the same person, doing the same things, but with more confidence and a much lower tolerance for <\/span>bullshit<\/span><\/a>. But what has changed is people\u2019s perception of me. Every move I make, every jump I take, every marathon I participate in has now suddenly become super-inspiring for the younger lot. It\u2019s as if I am defying everyone\u2019s unanimous stereotype of how a person my age should behave.<\/span>\n\nAs I survey the countless thinkpieces written by young women for old women like me, I know that I should have junked hoop earrings the moment I turned 30. Fast-fashion brands are pass\u00e9 for <\/span>old-fashioned<\/span><\/a> folks like me, and what the hell am I still doing with those crop-tops and coloured tights? I can sense millennials grasp at my audacity. You see, if I refuse to abide by this cultural construct, I\u2019ll promptly be labelled as yet-another-hilarious casualty of the \u201cmid-life crisis\u201d.<\/span>\n\nIf I\u2019m being <\/span>honest<\/span><\/a>, I did keep waiting all through my 40s\u2019 to <\/span>have one<\/span>. Yet, it has continued to elude me like the lone mosquito that daringly buzzes in your periphery, but can\u2019t be satisfactorily squished between the palms. It\u2019s not as if I am a saint. Even I\u2019ve had my fair share of staying awake all night to search for the meaning of my life with a torch in my hand, like the young kids these days. The only difference is, these bouts of existentialism had nothing to do with my age.<\/span>\n\nThe term \u201cmid-life crisis\u201d was coined way back in 1965 by Elliot Jaques. It was a time when living beyond your 60s was as much an achievement as <\/span>gender equality<\/span><\/a>. So it was perfectly normal to reach your late 30s\u2019 and be hit by a realisation that you\u2019ve wasted away your entire life. But now, with people living well into their 80s\u2019 and 90s\u2019, you\u2019re never too sure if it is ever a right time to have a crisis.<\/span>\n\nThese days when I look around, I see a quantum change in the way younger men and women lead their lives. It makes me all the more confident that the mid-life <\/span>crisis<\/span><\/a> might just be a thing of the past now. Rather than putting their lives on hold, to prioritise their duties or accumulating assets, they\u2019re prizing experiences, through travelling or finding a new calling. No one waits and saves up for that dream vacation for the sunset of their lives anymore. They do it anyway. And even though, we could be veering toward a culture obsessed with material <\/span>happiness<\/span><\/a> rather than meaning, our periods of restlessness are driven more by unrealistic expectations from our lives rather than the greys in our hair. <\/span>\n\n

It\u2019s as if I am defying everyone\u2019s unanimous stereotype of how a person my age should behave.<\/p><\/blockquote> \n\nWhen you live as long as I have, you\u2019ll understand that \u201cmid-life crisis\u201d is just the fear of not being okay with your own self. And since when has someone\u2019s date of birth dictated the achievements they can call their own? So why can\u2019t I, a <\/span>50-year-old-woman<\/span><\/a>, decide to become a ballerina, learn a new language, or get a tattoo on her arse without someone sniggering in the background? <\/span>\n\nI suppose it\u2019s a thing that we have come around to accepting that it\u2019s not humanly possible to be happy all the time and that bouts of despair are just minor setbacks, not the end of it all. Because, what is inevitable is becoming the oldie you thought you\u2019d never become. Swiss psychoanalyst, Carl Jung called it \u201cthe shadow\u201d (the dark side) \u2013 the thing a person has <\/span>no wish<\/span><\/a> to become. All through our 20s\u2019 and 30s\u2019, we suppress our true mildly unhappy and unpleasant selves, because it is a hindrance to being acceptable to others. But there will come a time when you stop letting that affect you so much that you need to give a performance of happiness. <\/span>\n\nMy favourite person was this lady in Brisbane. She was well into her 70s although her wardrobe wasn\u2019t. She dressed in colourful leotards, her hair was a violent red, and as I\u2019d pass her every day on my way to the <\/span>fitness<\/span><\/a> centre, I couldn\u2019t help but stare at her. Always on her own, she would walk briskly on Queen street, soaking in the vibe, the happy chatter, yet would make no attempt to stop and engage or worry about what others were thinking of her. I\u2019m certain she missed the look of admiration in my eyes. But that didn\u2019t stop me from making her the heroine of the story I had woven about her life. In my version, she lived a life of <\/span>solitude<\/span><\/a> with her numerous cats, excited about her weekend plan for kayaking on the river that one of her students (she teaches Spanish online. Did I not mention?) had recommended. And the story\u2019s plot twist? She\u2019s still waiting to be hit by the dreaded mid-life crisis that everyone talks about. <\/span>\n\nI want to grow up to be her.<\/span>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After 50, fast-fashion brands are pass\u00e9 for old-fashioned folks like me, and what the hell am I still doing with those crop-tops and coloured tights? I can sense millennials grasp at my audacity. You see, if I refuse to abide by this cultural construct, I\u2019ll promptly \u00a0be labelled as yet-another-hilarious casualty of the \u201cmid-life crisis\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":214,"featured_media":4009,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[3260,4722,3515,18,4386,2803,7341,2323],"class_list":["post-4008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pov","tag-age","tag-career","tag-conflict","tag-family","tag-fashion","tag-life","tag-mid-life-crisis","tag-woman"],"yoast_head":"\nWhy We Need to Ban the Term \u201cMid-Life Crisis\u201d From Our Lexicon<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"After 50, fast-fashion brands are pass\u00e9 for old-fashioned folks like me, and what the hell am I still doing with those crop-tops and coloured tights? I can sense millennials grasp at my audacity. 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