I am 45. My husband, is 55. We’ve been together since I was 21 and he was a bit older at 30. And now, we’re here. Old. Empty nesters. High in our careers, our kids off at college, trying to sort this new lot of life out.

It’s kind of crazy-town. I think I am having a bit of a mid-life crisis. Life passes – fast. Young kids become wild teens.  You find the love of your life, get married, raise your own kids and wild teens – then POOF. You’re here.

In this purgatory for humans. This middle ground between chapters.

I am utterly stumped in life right now. I wish I could articulate what is going on in my head. I feel so…old.Yet at the same time, I still feel like I am me, that 20 year old that just fell in love with my husband – ready to embrace life and adventures as they come.

I must start by making it evidently clear, I am not complaining. We all have our shit, but my good certainly outweighs it, so when contemplating, I am always focused through the “life is good” lens.

So, I recognize our lives have been blessed. Beyond blessed.

My husband is the center of it all. He is – extraordinary.

He is kind, and generous, supportive and righteous. He loves me madly, and lives his life for our family, our children, and our relationship. Everything he does, he does with vigor and passion and joy. He is eternally gracious about his love for his family.

How can I ever explain him? I can’t. He is an angel – only people who know him get it. He is truly, remarkable. We don’t fight. We don’t yell, we don’t play games. We just love. You wouldn’t believe it but the only times I get irritated with him is when he is being too kind, too loving. Ridiculous, I know, but sometimes I am so selfish and caught up in my own irritability or small bullshit issues, that his kindness grates on me! Isn’t that the stupidest thing you’ve ever heard? He constantly reminds me how small my problems really are and that for true peace, we need to rise above the small stuff. If I were a Buddhist, I’d say this dude is on his last earthy life as he is truly, pure love.

And as magnificent as his love is for us, so is his drive for living a full, rich life. He embraced the Anthony Robbins mindset years ago, and has lived his life, chasing his dreams, and teaching our girls how to chase theirs, ever since. He says using it, he found me. He built his own small, successful creative agency. He raised, loved and continues to cherish and mentor our now adult (18 & 20) year old daughters. He is starting a business that he has been crafting for about 10 years now, to build confidence in kids, and fight the rising problem of bullying. He takes bubble baths and listens to marketing training materials. He drives and listens to audio books on bettering your business, and he journals early morning hours and late night hours racked with insomnia, on how he can craft, and better his end product to help more kids. His hope is to make money, yes. But his true desire is to help kids, to change their lives for the better. That is his calling, his drive.

I am as certain and solid in my love for my husband as the air I breath. He sustains me, his is my foundation, and with him by my side, I need nothing more.

Yet, I do. He fulfills me. Yet I have a hard time fulfilling myself. And what is that saying? No one can do (whatever the adverb is) for you, you have to do it yourself?

So, I watch him pursue his dreams, actively following his passion, his true calling -and I am so proud. But I am so jealous. I am desperate to find my own true calling in my life.

I have been lucky with my career. Yes I work hard, have a good work ethic, but I am not terribly brilliant or talented or creative. I am good enough, but I am also lucky enough to have the support of my husband (who happens to think I can do anything), some great contacts, and some early balls in my career that propelled me to negotiate high paying salaries with big titles along the way. I just left a VP at a marketing agency (see last blog on King Asshole to know how that went), making well over $200k a year, so feel pretty confident that I have “succeeded”.

So I am grateful, and self aware how good things are. But as I sit in this middle part of my life, watching my husband and I age, wrinkle and creak a little more every single day, I actually am having a bit of regression of confidence and faith in a few things; mainly, what am I am going to do with my life?

Before, I had plenty of time. I always had work, lots if it around every corner. I had plenty of talent and energy that I knew, could land me anywhere if I put my mind to it.

I also was lost in the time warp of raising children. I don’t think we can truly realize how fast it goes until the day they both walk out the door and leave. This weird jumble of sports and school and books and fights and sickness and healing and growing and make up and boys and and and….It just goes on forever? Doesn’t it?

Nope. They walk out that proverbial god damn door, and it’s over. They are gone.

And as morbid as this sounds, I feel that much closer to death. OK well maybe not death, but man, OLD AGE.

Our days seem numbered. My husband being ten years older really freaks me out…I feel like I am in a perpetual countdown to my last breath, and that I must -start – doing that thing I was put here to do! Have I not done that? If I had, wouldn’t I know?

Before (mid-life crisis), aside from raising my kids well, defining what I did as a career was about the role I had (status=ego), and the money I could make doing it. Growing in titles, growing in salary, meant growing in success therefore I was worthy. That was the career game.

And I played it well! I succeeded in a man’s world. I made awesome money. I kicked ass (and hope to think I still am).

But. That proverbial but….

What now?

Money is Uber-critical (two college tuitions, aging parents, mortgages and our own retirement someday). Yet now I think about what will be said at my gravesite upon my inevitable (pending/looming) death. “She was an awesome VP and sold Jagermeister so well…..”

No.

This is that purgatory middle ground I referred to. What difference will I have made? What good will I have done? I have loved, I have given (I am pretty active in the charity world). But it’s not just charity or serving homeless meals.

There is a song I love. It starts with “There’s a fork at the road in the front of me, at the cross roads of identity….”

I am standing there. I have no problem choosing my moral compass road. I will always choose the high ground and moral path. I am thankful that is not a hard decision for me.

I am though, trying to see clearly through the dust of my own confusion, self-depreciation and doubt what those roads even are. My self imposed labels of mom, wife, VP, homeless meal server….just titles to fill a role I played for a period of time. Even if repeatedly.

But what is my PATH? Who am I? My existential crisis is in wild overdrive.

I guess I now, my self imposed title will be seeker. I believe in God, but I haven’t been a faithful believer. Faith is your medicine when worry keeps you up at night. Faith is your compass when the dust makes it too hard to see. Faith is belief your life will be exactly as it’s meant to be, if you listen, and follow your heart (aka God). I guess my prayer is to tune in, and hear better. I know we’re all terminal. If I truly did live each day as if it were my last, fear, self doubt and second-guessing would be crowded out by LIVING. I have a feeling with the right intention of living faithfully, rather than just living, is the first step.