The Awakening

There’s this event that happens in some people’s lives that’s called a mid-life crisis. Some men go out and buy fast cars, get younger wives, or hair implants. For them, a midlife crisis is usually associated with a desire for novelty, a sudden restlessness, an ego trip.

For some women, a midlife crisis is more like an awakening from a deep exhausted sleep caused by life’s stresses - motherhood, careers, a million possible female ailments, compromised wishes in order to keep the peace. Midlife crises in women usually happens around the time kids leave home or for some women who don’t have kids it’s triggered by the realization that they will never have kids. Biology doesn’t help either. Those extra chin hairs, the extra weight gain. The mental calculation when you realize that the new girl at your job was born the year you graduated from college.

Claire met Hal in her mid 20s. She was just starting her career, a size 8, long flowing healthy hair. She was quiet. Hal was a rowdy, heavyset dominating man with a large beard. He was her first boyfriend and they fell head over heels for each other. She had her own apartment and before she knew it, he had moved in and they were a couple. By the time they had their first child, a little girl named Leana, Claire was wearing a size 12. She had progressed in her career, cut her hair into a bob, and settled into wearing sweatpants and Hal's t-shirts when she ran errands around town. Claire made friends at her job, mostly males, but she had very few close female friends. But the guys loved confiding in Claire, telling her stories which she told Hal. Hal did not like her male coworkers. He thought she spent too much time with them. He also didn’t have any friends of his own and he was jealous. Claire pulled away from them. Made excuses for missed work events. Hal was a penny pincher, always saving for later and although they were making good money at their jobs, they spent very little. 

Claire hardly saw her family who lived in another state. Hal didn’t like her going away on vacations without him and he didn’t like to travel. She hadn’t seen her brothers in two years.

Claire loved interior design but you couldn’t tell. Their home was bland, the walls bare, their furniture - the bare essentials - table, chairs, beds. She tried to spruce it up a bit but Hal protested. This is money they could invest, he said. You should stop being jealous of what you see on tv and on social media. You spend too much money.

After a while Claire stopped protesting. 

By the time their baby boy Terrence was born, Claire had devoted most of her time outside of work to motherhood. She alternated between Leana’s ballet classes, Terrence’s doctor’s visits for yet another ear infection, and Hal’s incessant excitement about one get rich scheme after the other. One month he was studying to be an independent life insurance salesman, an obvious pyramid scheme but Claire could not get him to see that. The next month he would convince her that envelope budgeting was the best money saver.

It never ended. But she went along.

Terrence was a difficult baby. She never said anything to anyone but that kid was a pain in her ass. He cried all night and fussed all day. Claire battled post-patum depression and had to be medicated. Looking back she realized that that was probably when she really lost herself. The point at which she fell into that deep sleep of adulthood that many of us go through. The time ticked on and Claire just went along with it. Tick tock tick tock. 

Let’s go back to the concept of a midlife crisis in women. Some women never have a mid-life crisis. It’s not that they don't experience that dreary sleep of adulthood. It’s not that they’re not tired. They do and they are. But just like some people are able to wake up without the help of an alarm clock, some women slowly wake up in their late 30s and 40s as the kids are getting older and no longer need them. They are aware of the passage of time. They wake up long before life’s alarm clock blares and watch time advance. They watch the aging process do its thing. They take up gardening, join a coop, get an occasional hairdo. 

But for some women like our friend Claire, they fall so deep into that sleep of adulthood, that they are jarred awake by life’s alarm clock. It feels like teleportation. It’s disorienting. Unsettling.

She can’t really say exactly when it happened but one gloomy April morning Claire got out of bed feeling so very tired. Hal had been snoring all night, again. A loud rumbling goooo gooooo sound that caused his distended belly fueled by beer and lack of exercise to rise and fall. Then he would stop breathing and after a few seconds he would gasp and then the loud snoring would continue. Gooo goooo. When it first started happening, she begged him to go to the doctor to get tested for sleep apnea but he refused to go.

These doctors just want my money, he told her. People have been existing for centuries without sleep doctors. It's all made up. I’m fine. 

So Claire dragged herself to the bathroom that that gloomy April morning. She was so exhausted. Just as she reached the bathroom sink, Hal stopped breathing and as usual, she waited for his gasp. She realized that she was holding her own breath as she waited. She stared at him lying there in yesterday’s t-shirt in their old scratched up four poster bed with the sagging mattress. She hated that bed. Hal inherited from his grandmother when she died. It’s large humongous thing and Hal looked like a yellow Teletubby as he snored on it. She hated that bed.

She picked up her phone and browsed the bedroom set that she had saved in the Rooms to Go app. A slim mid century design with matching dresser and side tables. So beautiful. She looked at the matching duvet and curtains that she had been drooling over on Amazon. The lovely boho pattern of teals and oranges. The throw pillows. The flowers in the delicate vase in the dresser. So beautiful.

She made enough money. Why couldn’t she get it?

Then she looked back at Hal as he lay there snoring and realized that somehow in the last 22 years she had compromised. Time and time again. She resented him. She despised him. She despised the ugly four poster bed. She despised his lack of proper hygiene. But most importantly she despised herself for being asleep for so long. She despised the person she had become. The feeling came from deep down in her soul. She turned to the mirror and yanked off her night dress and looked at herself. Really looked at herself. As usual, her hair was pulled back into a loose ponytail fastened with one of Leana’s old hair ties. She stared at her c-section scar, the scars on her belly where she had an ovarian cyst removed, her sagging breasts, one slightly lower than the other, her greying pubic hair, the perpetual thin layer of sweat that always seemed to cover her forehead lately, the grey hairs at her temples. Where did the time go and how had she not noticed?

Leans was 20 years old now and was away at college in CA. Terrence, still a pain in her ass spent most of his time hidden in his bedroom playing video games. Like his dad, he hardly noticed when Claire came in the house or when she left.

Claire where had the time gone? Who was that woman staring back at you?

Again, she looked at Hal lying in the ugly bed.

Fuck it, she said. 

She picked up her phone and stared again at the beautiful bedroom set and bought it. Yes she bought it. She bought the suggested full length mirror, too. And the oriental rug. She bought the matching duvet and curtains and some throw pillows.

She scheduled a haircut at a real hairdresser for after work. She logged into her work email and sent an RSVP to the group who organized the weekly happy hour. Yes she will be attending this week and no she will not have a +1. She sent a text to her mom.

Hey mom! I’m coming home for Thanksgiving. I’ll let you know the details when I make the reservations. She imagined the joy on her moms face when she reads the text.

She rummaged through her dresser until she found her old jewelry box and slid two gold hoops into her ear lobes. She pulled her hair out of the ponytail and combed it so that it framed her face. She stared at herself in the mirror again. She was glowing with excitement. There she was. Awake.