The Midlife Maze – Navigating Life’s Uncertainties with Calm and Grace
It is said in psychology that a mid life crisis happens at a point where you start thinking of yourself from now until death instead
June 9, 2025
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The Good Old Days – How Nostalgia Can Blur Truth and Progress
Do you ever wonder how you got somewhere? Like you are driving and thinking and somehow unaware of your surroundings, yet you somehow still stop where you are supposed to stop, turn where you are supposed to turn, but you don’t even remember doing it?
That’s how I feel about our current political environment. How did we get here? What led us to these extremes while we were sitting on autopilot.
Do you remember when you first heard about covid 19? How we saw it on the news and thought it wouldn’t affect us. We travelled to Florida in February 2020, and we were stopped in a line onto the plane to ask if we had been to China. We said “no” and just went on with our trip and our life. This was someone else’s problem, not ours, this was worlds away from us. It didn’t take long to slowly creep and crawl in the news. People are dying in Italy, it’s come to the U.S., the first case is in Canada. Slowly, slowly these articles of news spread to us like the virus itself. Unknowingly while we sat on autopilot continuing on our daily journey of regular life. Then the symptoms started for some, the runny nose, the fever, the aches, some had they described as the worst flu ever. As the symptoms spread over their bodies, the news turned from being far away to being right beside us, in our neighbors and our friends. There was talk of the schools shutting down and before you could utter the words “no way” …. there was a letter stating the schools would be closed. Some people said we wouldn’t be able to work in the office anymore and businesses would need to close and again before we could utter the words “no way,” we received notice we were going to work from home. There would be no sports, no massages, no hair cuts, no shopping for unessential’s. Toilet paper was starting to fly off of the shelves, people fighting in Costco, complaining when someone took over their limit. It was like we were in a movie that somehow started playing with Hollywood actors and became a reality show. It’s like we woke up one morning and didn’t know how we got there, just like those day dreamy drives.
I feel the same way right now. What started as a joke in November of Trump calling Trudeau the governor of Canada, went to weekly news of it, then went to daily and right now hourly news. Again, I have this Deja vu feeling, when something just doesn’t feel real and again, we are about to be actors in a movie that we didn’t ask to be part of. Right now, we go along on our merry way of daily work, school, activities, appointments, and life but lurking under the surface is another virus. Viruses are so sneaky because before you even know that you have one, you are already able to spread it to someone else. You can have the best of intentions and literally have no clue that what you are carrying is deadly. Who started the virus? Does it matter once it is already going? A virus could start with one person, but you need a lot more people than one to spread it. When I’d like to blame someone, I want to find the malicious ones, the ones that gave the virus knowingly. I would like to believe that if you knew you had a deadly virus that you wouldn’t willingly give it to your neighbor.
I try to understand all walks of life, all perspectives and try to uncover what their motivations must be so I can put myself in their shoes. I get it. The promise of your 1970s childhood screams, I want to go back there. The good old days. Connected families visiting on Sundays in their Sunday Church best. Everything secret. There were no gay people, no trans people, no mentally ill people, no disobedient wives, there wasn’t even disabled people because they were locked away where we couldn’t see them. Everyone else hid their own shame in their mind. I’m trying not to argue the other side here yet, because I really, really want to understand. So, you want cheap groceries and safe streets for your children to bike ride, I totally get that. You are promised this utopia where we are safe, laughing in the backyard, having a BBQ while the kids drink water out of the garden hose. There are no regulations, no bike helmets, no seatbelts, you can drink alcohol and drive, there is no carbon tax, no issue to burn your plastic garbage in your back yard. Again, before I want to start and argue, this does sound great! Let’s get rid of the regulations you say, and we will have that utopian world all back.
From what I understand about viruses or stomach bugs, colds, etc. It is not the actual virus that makes you sick. The thing that makes you the sickest is your own body. Your body knows that the virus is an invader and could hurt you and your body is designed to flush it out at all costs. It makes your stomach throw up germs, turns your bowel movements to liquid to move it out faster, it turns up the heat in your body to boil the germ out, it makes you feel achy and exhausted so you have to sleep so your body can keep fighting for you. Without this immune response, some people may still live but some people would die.
The utopia promised is a world where there is no sickness, no imperfections, no viruses. As much as your body may not want to hurt you by it’s immune response, it doesn’t have a choice. It tries to save you, or it dies. If your body could do it a different way, maybe it would? Maybe when you started to become sick, it could create a cannabis like compound that would make you laugh for days while you got better. Maybe instead of making you sick, it could give you three times the energy like a quick energy drink. It doesn’t do any of these things though because making you sick is it’s only option. You see there is no other solution your body has to keep you safe.
Are seatbelts a nuisance, yep, so is this fever I got trying to save me from a virus. Bike helmets, a pain in the behind, yep same as this feeling of utter exhaustion. All regulations to keep you, your neighbour, the animals, the environment safe, are not fun at all, they are annoying but imagine living in a world without them?
Tommy would have lived if he had a bike helmet, Sandra would have lived if there wasn’t a drunk driver, Kasey would have lived if she wouldn’t have been left alone and burnt the house down, Marty would have lived if he didn’t drown without a life jacket, Sammy would have lived if his brother wouldn’t have shot him.
Recently I have been very interested in genealogy and tracing back my ancestors. I have a lot more to talk about on that but for this writing, I’m going to say this, I looked at my great grandmother’s children on my mothers side, I looked at them on my fathers side, I looked at my great great grandparent’s children. Do you know what stuck out to me above all? All of the children they lost. If they had 12 children, they still lived with the pain of having lost 4. One stillborn, one in infancy to disease, one as a toddler due to accident, one as a teenager due to disease or accident. I felt so much pain for those mothers when I read their history.
I wonder if I could go back in time and interview them, what they would say? Tommy was a useless kid anyways, good riddance??? I’m betting not, I’m betting that they would have done anything to save their babies. Just like you would do anything to save your baby.
A life saving vaccine, an antibiotic brought to you by science, a seatbelt, a bike helmet, rules, and regulations. Some rules and regulations may not apply to you, and they may be a major pain in the arse, but they saved Suzy next door. Antibiotics saved Jennie. Want to live in the past? The average life expectancy was 50 in 1900, many died in infancy, and as children, as well as a shorter life span.
The utopia dream is the virus, it takes you over without you even noticing, unknowingly you spread the dream but it was never real and it is what will kill you, our advanced world is the immune system and without it, well we are just sitting ducks, some of us ducks will get shot and some of us won’t. If we all worked together, we would be a happy long-living group of ducks. However, sometimes we follow leaders who don’t give a duck.
Chat soon,
Michelle
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