midlife – Mental Break Town

Sometimes a movie can have a real impact on your life.

One movie like that for me is Boyhood, which follows a boy growing up in Texas from ages six to eighteen and, famously, was shot with all the same actors over the course of 11 years as they actually aged. 🤯

Towards the end of the movie, the mom has a bit of a midlife freakout when her son is heading off to college. She frets that all the important milestones of her life are over – two marriages, two kids, building a career. She worries about her next milestone.

You know what’s next? It’s my fucking funeral!

It reminds me of the chorus to Nirvana’s All Apolgies: “Married, buried!”

Anyways, the son says, “Aren’t you jumping ahead by like 40 years or something?”, to which the mom replies, over her tears:

I just thought there would be more.

That line has really stuck with the last few years. It made me realize I needed to be aiming for something interesting of my own after the kids leave, beyond just my career.

That creeping thought – is this all there is? – has motivated me to work on other things in my life like friendships, writing, music, and hopefully a few more surprises down the pipe. 😉

The Talking Heads used to annoy me. They seemed too self-consciously nerdy, as if to say, “Hey, look how weird and nerdy we are! Come on, our music is so weird and confusing!” And David Byrne’s dance moves were super annoying!

Years later, I have come to realize two things:

David Byrne’s dance moves were so annoying because those are my dance moves. 😱. I’ll show you if you don’t believe me.
The song Once In a Lifetime is absolutely brilliant. 🤯

This song is all about time flowing relentlessly under your feet as you try to figure out what the hell you’re doing in your life.

At least that’s my take, thank you very much.

The tight, precise beat underneath emphasizes the odd arrangement layered on top, with perfect midlife observations like this:

You may ask yourself, “What is that beautiful house?”
You may ask yourself, “Where does that highway go to?”
And you may ask yourself, “Am I right? Am I wrong?”
And you may say to yourself, “My God! What have I done?”

But time doesn’t care. It just flows on.

Letting the days go by, let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by, water flowing underground

I guess we all hit a 500-foot waterfall eventually. The only question is what happens between here and there. Do you learn to swim with the river and enjoy the journey, or do you let the water knock and bruise you on the rocks?

Good luck out there. 🏊🏻‍♂️✌️

Tag: midlife

“I just thought there would be more.”

An ode to the midlife 🎶