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I attended the funeral a couple of months ago of a young man I'd met only last January. He was a young middle school teacher, only 25, and drowned in Mexico on his first wedding anniversary. He had only been in the city for three years, since being graduated from college.
Hundreds of people turned out for his funeral. There was an endless litany of people who had known him--students, parents, other teachers, principals. There were three principals who confessed to trying to steal him to their schools. There were teachers who testified, "I don't know how I'm going to get through my days without him around." One teacher who had gone through the loss of a child said, "I couldn't cry with my wife, but I could cry with Darryl."
In the short time I'd known him, I had seen the same thing--that this was someone good to know. He was a better friend to everyone than they could be to him. Knowing him made other men want to step up their own games as husbands and friends.
And he was only 25 years old. What had I been doing?
How tragic for him. And for everyone who knew him. I am so very sorry for your loss.
Sometimes life hands us a situation that touches us to our core and remains as a lesson forever. If his life influenced you and others to stay on "track", that man will live in your hearts forever.
Some people have stereotypical midlife crises. One of my uncles is a very high income earner and got tired of his wife of fifteen years (who was fifteen years younger than him) when he was about 55. He got a dog, and started seeing the dog's trainer (who is the same age as his former wife, but a knock out), and married her. Since 2011, he's been married to two different women, kicked the third wife out a few times, bought two homes, bought a Porsche (since sold at third wife's direction), took a $50k hit on a boat, generally drifting from crisis to crisis.
Your uncle is a sad, pathetic, self-centered loser. He will almost certainly die alone, penniless, and not missed. But maybe his negative example will be enough to keep you from making the same sorts of mistakes.
I had a real life crisis instead. At the age of 38 I had a ltr fall apart months before a wedding & about 4 1/2 years following of unemployment & underemployment (recession, I had never had a problem working or keeping jobs previously), father died, bounced around in 3 cities trying to light a fire until I was $25K in credit card debt - big money back then (had no cash to spend except for rent). When things finally started to turn around I just determined to hang in & work my way back to "normalcy".
I had no time for invented crisis, & how many women want to hook up with a broke 41yo living in a boarding house? That which doesn't kill you...
Nope but then again can 36 be considered middle aged? After all people are living longer. I even heard 50 is the new 40.
50 is the new 30 and that is not a good thing.
For example, in order to reach a goodly percentage of the same milestones my parents reached by the time they were thirty, I had to wait until 50 / my early 50s.
Gen X and following generations are not likely to reach the same levels of prosperity and life stability as their parents. I know individual cases are different, but by and large this is true. That stats don't lie.
If the definition of a crisis in life is when one reassesses one's life and decides to make major changes and take a big life path detour, my husband and I both had one together 5 years after being married. I was in my late 20's and he was in his early 30's.
We decided to 1) have a baby and 2) quit our jobs to go to graduate schools (in complete different work fields). I was 8 months pregnant when we towed a small trailer containing basic household goods (including a refurbished crib bought from a garage sale) behind our VW Rabbit over 500 miles to our new 'home' in the Michigan UP.
We switched from a comfortable DINK life in a nice new suburban home (3 BRs, LR, FR, 2-car garage, 2 fireplaces, 1A of land) to a small rental apartment. We also changed our 9-to-5 weekday work schedule to an almost 24/7 grad student/parent schedule. We passed the baby between classes. I took care of her more during the days when my husband fulfilled his teaching assistant duty and classes. He took care of her in the evening when I 'played' in the research labs. During the night, we took turns to take care of the baby.
Our parents thought we were out of our minds and did their best to discourage us but later they commented that they were glad to see our efforts came to fruition.
There was a recession when we went back to school so it took several years before our house was sold. It was not a huge burden because we had paid off the mortgage (we paid 50% down payment and the remaining in 3 years). However, the real estate tax and insurance took a bite out of our meager TA and RA income.
When we completed our Masters, my husband decided to go to work instead of getting a Ph.D in computer science. It would have taken me 2 more years to extend my Engineering Master's thesis to a Ph.D. but since he got a job in another state, I had to start a new Ph.D. program and relocated in MA. This time our moving expenses were paid by my husband's company. However, the economy had recovered and roaring so housing cost was astronomical. We had to settle for a small 1000 sq ft 2BRs, 1 car garage home next to busy street close to Rt. 128. We also had to assume a sizable mortgage. So even with my husband making a decent salary our standard of living was way below what we had before going back to school (we ate a lot of peanut butter sandwiches and taking our daughter to McDonald was a big treat!. BTW, I managed to grow a very productive vegetable garden to supplement our food bill).
Not until after I finished my schooling and got a nice paying job that we could 'resume' our standard of living. The differences were that we gained a delightful daughter, our grad degrees, new technical knowledge and some fun years of living as poor married grad students.
For example, in order to reach a goodly percentage of the same milestones my parents reached by the time they were thirty, I had to wait until 50 / my early 50s.
Gen X and following generations are not likely to reach the same levels of prosperity and life stability as their parents. I know individual cases are different, but by and large this is true. That stats don't lie.
Agreed. My grandparents were middle Silents. Granddad worked in a factory and grandmother was a cook for the county school system. Granddad was only a high school graduate, grandmother dropped out. By 30, they owned a home, had been married for nearly ten years, had two kids, and were in a stable position.
My parents had just had me and had bought a home at 30.
I'm thirty in April and don't yet own a home, am not married, don't have kids (nor do I plan to have them). It's just a different world these days.
I'm thirty in April and don't yet own a home, am not married, don't have kids (nor do I plan to have them). It's just a different world these days.
I know quite a few of young people in your age bracket who own a home and either have kids or planning to have kids.
I don't think your world is much different from our world. We are probably of the same generation as your parents.
We were diligent savers but it would have been difficult to own a home with one income. Homeownership affordability also varies greatly with location and one's desired standard of living.
So if you choose to be single instead of having a working spouse, you may have to save longer than a married working couple to buy a home, to buy a more modest home or to find jobs in areas with cheaper cost of living.
When my FIL came home from WWII, with a non-working wife, a young kid and another one to come, he bought a modest lot and built his own home. My husband recalled living in the basement while he dad finished the upstair. He was the new baby so it must have taken his father a while to build the house. He also recalled having a renter family living above the garage for few years. We visited the old home in Toronto few years ago. It was a very modest home. I was amazed that 2 families with a total of 5 kids lived there at one time.
I'm currently in the early stages of a midlife crisis, but contrary to the OP's desires, it's not a particularly entertaining story. There are no louche excesses or inflammatory episodes of debauchery; no affairs, drugs, irrational spending, capsized boats, drunken orgies or even buttoned-down engineers spilling coffee on their white dress-shirts and slapping each other with their slide-rules.
Instead my crisis is about coming to terms with being a mediocre scientist instead of any pretence of being an exceptional one, and thus possibly ending my research-career and switching to management.
It's realizing that I'm unable to maintain the house that I bought some 15 years ago, and that probably I ought to sell it at a substantial loss, cutting my cumulative losses.
It's realizing that I fear the stock market even though I have almost religious adherence to buy-and-hold, and that contrary to the accepted wisdom, the more money that one accumulates, the more one becomes helplessly terrified of losing it.
It's realizing that even though after perhaps prodigious work I might occasionally get a date or even a girlfriend, it will probably be impossible to remarry, and that despite sporadic successes with casual relationships, a true life-partner is out of reach.
It's realizing that my peak weight-lifting days are over, and that going forward, "success" means at best maintaining one's fitness-level.
It's realizing that even though the finances line-up, non-financial aspects will preclude my retiring early.
It's comprehending that contrary to what so many older people believe, LIFE IS SO VERY, VERY LONG. Even though I'm well into my third decade with my current employer, I have coworkers who were hired during the Eisenhower administration… the first Eisenhower administration.
Finally, it's realizing that my core aspirations and principles simply are not condign with the very bedrock on which modern Western society is built, and that there's nothing that I could do about it.
I know quite a few of young people in your age bracket who own a home and either have kids or planning to have kids.
I don't think your world is much different from our world. We are probably of the same generation as your parents.
We were diligent savers but it would have been difficult to own a home with one income. Homeownership affordability also varies greatly with location and one's desired standard of living.
So if you choose to be single instead of having a working spouse, you may have to save longer than a married working couple to buy a home, to buy a more modest home or to find jobs in areas with cheaper cost of living.
When my FIL came home from WWII, with a non-working wife, a young kid and another one to come, he bought a modest lot and built his own home. My husband recalled living in the basement while he dad finished the upstair. He was the new baby so it must have taken his father a while to build the house. He also recalled having a renter family living above the garage for few years. We visited the old home in Toronto few years ago. It was a very modest home. I was amazed that 2 families with a total of 5 kids lived there at one time.
No the world is actually different. Wage to cost ratios have declined now for about 35 - 40 years. The stats do not lie. Based on stats, Silent Gen had it great. Boomers started out great but late Boom were seeing "Xer" types of challenges. X was a real turning point. Millies have the feces end of the stick.
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