Reinvention

Reinvent: create anew, to make over

Turning 50 (a few years back now) was as they say, a “defining moment”.  Apparently the phrase “defining moment” has become something of a buzz word these days so I’ll toss it in to show I’m hip to the latest psycho babble lingo.  But, I’ll be honest and say that it is better labeled a “traumatic moment” (mark my words next year everyone will be using this phrase, feel free to use it now to get ahead of all your friends), that should hardly qualify as anything to do with “momentariness” (yes that is a word). 

In my mind, more time had now passed than the time I had left ahead.  The balance had shifted, the scales tipped, the pendulum had swung… I was on the other side.. . the downhill side.  That was a very unsettling realization.  I found little comfort in the notion that I was not alone in this.  Please,  please let me be alone in my misery!  Why, oh why does misery love company?  Youthful idealism and pipe dreams of what I could become or what I could do in reality would never be.  You are who you are.

Now if that sounds like a pessimistic view of life, well… as I said you are who you are.  I am who I am.  Fortunately a bit of wisdom seeps into consciousness at middle-age like it or not, a bonus given us for making it this far I suppose.  On occasion, if we are lucky, a glint of clear thinking pops into awareness, a reminder that we can toss that bit of wisdom our own way once in awhile instead of pushing it on others.  Better write it down though before it slips away like that shrunken sliver of soap in the morning shower.  Don’t let it go the way of your bank card PIN, “ok… was the six after the seven zero or… the other way around?”.  Grab it, squeeze it,  follow it around… see where it goes. 

In a clear thinking moment the word “reinvention” popped into my head recently.  Robert Plant made me think of it,  yes Robert Plant, the guy who belted: “Communication breakdown, It’s always the same,  I’m having a nervous breakdown, Drive me insane!” .. yeah that guy.  He is on the other side too but even farther over than me.  Guys like him have it reversed however, they already did it all way back at the beginning when they were in their late teens and twenties.  Can you imagine? Me, I’m still looking for that edge, that hook to hang my hat on. 

Today the NY Times had an article about male mid-life crisis (how they keep reading my mind I’ll never know) with the very catchy title “Crisis? Maybe he is a Narcissistic Jerk”.  As you might guess the gist is that us mid-lifers are just a bunch of big babies who won’t grow-up.  We are ungrateful for what we have or have done, looking to find that last bit of excitement in all the wrong places.  Big baby, ungrateful, narcissistic… I finished the article thankful they weren’t talking about me since I failed to meet the “excitement in wrong places” criteria.  Whew… that was a close one!

Back to Mr Plant,  I’ll call him Bob (on the other side we are all on a first name basis).  Bob has just re-invented himself by releasing a lovely CD, I’ll call it an album, “Raising Sand”  with Alison Krauss, I’ll call her a folk singer but keep in mind she is also known for blue grass.  It is a total departure for his previous works and a marvelous shift in who he is as a singer.  From ditties like Your Long Journey to the Everly Brothers Gone Gone Gone  Bob has in a sense “re-invented himself” with this album with the folk singer.  Can’t you see him sitting there with Oprah talking (is that a tear I see in her eye?) about how the album with the folksinger was a beautiful “defining moment”,  joined shortly thereafter on the couch by Dr. So And-So touting his new book: “Re-inventing the American Male”.

I’m getting the jump on them…  Stay tuned.

Next week in the NY Times: “Crisis Averted, Narcissistic Jerks Re-inventing Themselves”

Note to self:  pick up the three shrunken slivers of soap off the shower floor in the morning and throw them away.