Mid-life WHAT!?

As I reach the mid-point of the third month of my 40th trip around the sun, I find myself constantly asking a series of questions that are best summarized by one: is this a mid-life crisis?

My health is.... okay; My mind is.... okay; My emotions are.... okay; but nothing like it was before. Happiness is harder to find while negativity is as plain as the nose on my face.

Seriously though, when did I become so broken? I used to be the one who was first to arrive and last to leave. I used to be the one people would look at and say, "I don't know how she does it". I used to be super woman. I used to be unstoppable. I used to be the one my doctor would look at and say "yep, still healthy. Keep doing what you're doing". And then one day, I blinked, and things suddenly fell apart.

Years 36 and 37 are when the writing first appeared on the wall, but I had so much going on it was easy to ignore. It was during this time that I was diagnosed with anxiety. Hello full time anxiety medication. I remember thinking to myself, "okay, well, this certainly explains a lot" and just quietly accepting my fate.

Year 38 arrived, and my blood pressure was slightly above normal and stayed there. Hello blood pressure medication. Again, I remember thinking to myself, "well this sucks, but happens to all I guess". High blood pressure runs on both sides of my family, so it was only a matter of time before it hit.

Year 39 is where things really started to ramp up with a diagnosis of ADHD. Dun! Dun! Dun! This one diagnosis proved to be one of the most earth-shattering things I've experienced. It caused a massive paradigm shift and suddenly everything in my life made sense. All of those little quirks that I thought were just my personality were ADHD. Severe procrastination? ADHD. Random deep dives into random things? ADHD. Random info dumps about said random things? ADHD. Vacillation between Monk like OCD and the Tasmanian Devil chaos/mess? ADHD. Being really good at a ton of different things but never being able to master one? ADHD. Almost every single good and bad quirk I have is due to ADHD. It is both a superpower and a never-ending curse. Oh, and let's not forget the most potent one of all: feeling all of the emotions and all of the things.... very...deeply and intensely.

This year, I have yet another diagnosis that I'm not 100% I'm on board with considering all of the above: depression. Hello depression medication that also helps my migraines. Two birds with one stone? At this point I'll take it.

Of course, mixed into all of this is natural stress caused by life. A job that violently ebbs and flows and is a mixed bag. Parents who are aging, don't recover from things as well as they used to, and need more help than they used to. A husband who also doesn't handle or recover from things as well has he used to. I do not begrudge anyone anything, it's a natural part of life and not anything they (or we) consciously decided to do. Then, before I knew it, my house is a mess; I'm a mess; my work is a mess; my health is a mess; and I'm wishing this country song called life would play backwards.

So once again - or still - I find myself asking a series of questions that are best summarized by one. When did I become so broken? When did I become so dysfunctional? Why does everything hurt? Where did that sweatshirt come from? Where did I put my glasses? Where are my keys? I'm hungry - when is the last time I ate? Did I go outside today?

In short, yes - this is probably that thing called mid-life crisis. I have a whole new respect for people who buy the sports car they can't afford. Or the motorcycle their mother and grandmother would scream at them for.

As a friend of mine says: father time always wins....