Cure for Mondays

Thirteen years ago (or earlier – who remembers these things anyway?) I wrote in my column for The News Today about my encounter with the quarterlife crisis. I can remember being overly descriptive about the so-called crisis which now I think was just the direct effect of self-caused stress. When you’re young-er, going ballistic is as real as the everyday meal. But that also made defining the quarterlife crisis easier. You just put sleepless nights and loads of unfounded insecurities together – that makes a good definition of confusion.
 

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I’m turning 36 in a couple of days and this is what psychologists refer to as the pre-midlife drama (or crisis, or insanity). It’s good that they have a name for it and that they provide comprehensive explanation for this inevitable phase of life. But standing between pre-something and post-something can be a confusing spot, so you get caught trying to decide what kind of crisis you’re in so you can hit Google and find a plausible explanation for things that are happening to you. They may include a nagging feeling bordering on insecurity because everybody else’s lives seem to run on grand pavement, while yours remains on a less noticeable road. Strange, because if you really look at your life it is running on flawless pavement, but being the human that you are you can’t stop complaining. On many occasions you’ve been told by people that they wanted to have your life – yet still, the vexing between your ears go on. 

While having strawberry tea yesterday afternoon, I started wondering if it was possible for people to defy these pre-structured life crises. Three sips later, I voted yes. That was my zero hour.

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Lately, talks about the apocalypse have been upsetting my son. When you’re ten and have all these fantastic ideas about your future that looks something like getting married to a British woman, becoming an archeologist, and becoming a world-famous skateboarder, you’d be upset if there are people around you who actually believe all that may never happen because the world will end soon. So I told him the story of my aunties who hoarded all the food and candles they could get their hands on because the three days of darkness or the end of the world (whichever served the fancies of the superstitious person next to me) was going to come. The first time I heard it was in 1984. Then “the end of the world” never happened. Two kids and a 30-inch waistline later, people still swear the world is going to end. And soon.

I told Cole that had I believed the superstitious people around me then, I would have stood in one corner holding all those candles and letting my life slip away while waiting for the world to end grimly. To be honest, I don’t have a grasp of how this “three days of darkness” is going to look like. Would it be like the curtain closing after a play – slow and dramatic? Or like the finale of a rock show – still dramatic but with a loud bang?

Some people will continue to believe that the world will end (again, soon) and the question of how depends on which ground one is standing on. There are also people like me who say, bring it on. I want to know what the next me will look like.

Read the second part here.

CURE FOR MONDAYS IS A WOMEN'S BLOG, BEST HOMESCHOOL WEBSITE, FAMILY ISSUES BLOG, HOMESCHOOL PROBLEMS, SOCIALIZATION, INSPIRATION, MANILA MOMMY BLOGGER, SAHM, ASIAN HOMESCHOOLER, depression, mid-life crisis, quarter-life crisis, apocalypse, stress