Planning a Mid-Life Crisis, and other Modern Vanity

I'm about to turn thirty-eight, which is interesting, because there was a point in my life where I did not think 38 seemed like a real thing that could actually happen to me.  I masked this startling delusion of perpetual youth under an equally delusional fatalism.  Turning 38 is the latest addition to a long list of things that the 19 year-old me said were categorically impossible: getting married, being a pastor, having kids, listening to country music, drinking diet coke and generally caring about much of anything.

But here it is, my last day of being 37.  I am one day closer to being undeniably middle aged.  In fact, figuring  in that 80 years is probably optimistic for a guy who's had high blood pressure since he was 26 and diabetes since he was 35, I might as well get on with a decent mid life crisis.

The problem is that I'm Generation X, which means I've spent my entire working life in an economy where these darn things called bubbles keep bursting like my youthful idealism did when I was 19, so I can't afford a red sports car.  Beyond that, it turns out I actually like the wife and kids that I never expected to have when I was 19, so getting a divorce, abandoning my kids and trying to sail around the world or some other nonsense is pretty much out.  Besides all that, having a mid-life crisis is pretty much a Boomer thing to do, and as a Gen-Xer, I resent anything that has to do with Boomers, so maybe I'll just skip the mid life crisis, or just find another way to deal with the inevitable ennui that comes with growing up and growing old.

As it turns out the wife and kids I never thought I would have are in the kitchen making a blueberry pie, which is going to do terrible things to my blood sugar and certainly not help my drive to lose weight and live healthier.  Which brings me to perhaps the only nugget of wisdom that one can truly own at 38: Life is better with blueberry pie.

I figure that if I make 80, I'll probably write a blog or put something on whatever technologically incomprehensible format is available at the time that says I never expected to make it that far.  I'm pretty sure that, no matter how much has changed at that point, life will still be better with blueberry pie.