For the Elder Millenials, Gen X’rs, and Beyond
It often hits you like a blindside tackle in a game you didn’t realize you were still playing. One day you’re moving through the world convinced you still blend in with “the youth,” and the next a teenager holds the door open a little too long, smiles politely, and calls you “sir or ma’am,” and you realize time has been quietly advancing without consulting you. That’s the funny thing about getting older, it happens quietly. You realize it when everyone else already has. It’s a jarring, unceremonious "aha" moment that usually arrives in your late thirties or early forties. Suddenly, you’re looking at your nurse or maybe your dentist and desperately hoping they’re at least five years older than you, because the alternative, that this person in charge of your well-being wasn’t even alive when the twin towers fell is too much to stomach. You turn on the TV and realize every single NFL player is younger than you. You aren’t the "prospect" anymore; you’re the veteran, or worse, the spectator.
This transition is a total shift in how you inhabit the world and the language you use to describe it. You start hearing your parents' voices echoing in your own conversations. You find yourself leading sentences with phrases you used to roll your eyes at, like, "When we were kids..." or "Back when we partied in college..." This isn't just nostalgia; it’s a change in vernacular that signals a shift in status. You’ve moved from being the center of the action to being the one observing it. It’s a "smack in the face" because it forces you to acknowledge the death of your own invincibility. At our practice, we don't call this a mid-life crisis, we call it grief. You are mourning the loss of a specific set of perceptions: the naive belief that you’d be young foreverand that life was a never-ending upward spiral of "bigger and better."
The blunt truth is that you can’t get that version of yourself back, and honestly, you shouldn't want to. Trying to squeeze "youthful" joy out of the same old habits is a losing battle because the prerequisite for that joy was a certain level of innocence, and you’ve naturally evolved into someone with more experience and street smarts. But here is the payoff: with the loss of that naive optimism comes the arrival of actual wisdom. There is a profound, quiet power in finally knowing who you are and, more importantly, what you will no longer tolerate. You stop guessing and start deciding. You know what you want, you know what you won’t stand for, and you no longer waste energy trying to be everything to everyone.
Real growth happens when you stop looking in the rearview mirror and start engaging with the person you are today. Grieving your lost youth is necessary, but staying stuck in the "glory days" is a slow death. The goal isn't to be young; it's about finding that fulfilled side of you that has been hiding, or too scared, or (let’s be real) too tired to come out. Accept "Sir or Ma'am" as a polite form of address, acknowledge the grief, and then lean into the clarity that only comes with experience. If you're ready to figure out what actually moves the needle for you in this next chapter, we’re here to help you navigate that transition.
