Crisis... What Crisis?

January 2

The new year has started out much like the last month of the one that just flashed by... it's grey and rainy outside. I honestly can't recall when the sun made a significant appearance in East Lansing. Zach said he recalls having seen it a week or two ago.

Since my return from Paris, I have procrastinated like I never have before in my life... I feel as if I'm floating in some kind of vacuum. Hah! Now there's an idea... perhaps I'm actually in some cosmic vacuum cleaner — on my way to some very undesirable destination!

I had a discussion with a friend recently about a comment she'd made one night just before I'd left for Paris. We were at a meeting and I was gushing about my upcoming adventure when she blurted out, "Well, I think it's just a mid-life crisis!"

It bothered me to hear that at the time — especially because she is one of my dearest friends — but I didn't say anything to her about it until last week.

I told her about the comment and how it bothered me, then I explained to her that the trip was very much arranged on a whim... at the suggestion of a flickr friend, and not designed to coincide with my 50th birthday, something which (truth be told) didn't occur to me until after I'd made the flight reservations. I think that the most annoying aspect of her comment was that she so easily put me into some kind of box despite knowing me as well as she knows me. I told her that, if anything, I'm having a life crisis — that it has nothing to do with mid-life.

But then, is it really a crisis at all?

The other day, I talked about this with another friend and she suggested that life is one long crisis. I tend to agree with that. We wake up each day with something new to deal with — earth-shattering or otherwise — and we have to manage our way through.