The Midlife Crisis

She turned over and tried to make the most of her eyes in the darkness.. Not that she expected to see anything.. It would have been better if she was awake because she wanted to. Worse? Well when you are in pain, anything else is better isn’t it? Pain, like success, is always a relative term, she thought. You compare it with what you already have. Or what others have.. And you know your happiness is short-lived as something is bound to intersect and disrupt your life…

He was busy working by the light beside the table.. God knows since when.. She had been awaken by the pain and had lost track of time.. He was busy but then he has always been so off late. His ascent of the corporate ladder had dwindled out of their lives the very thing she had cherished the most… His time… They had everything a couple could ask for… a decent house, two beautiful kids and the likes that constitute a satiating life….

But was it? In the nascent years of their marriage, she remembered how he used to be inseparable from her.. They were that mad couple in love that others would talk about..That she would talk about now.. But things had changed.. And so had he… The eyes were distant.. She could feel the coldness between them which had nothing to do with the air-conditioning in the house.. The eyes that used to smile on seeing her, were no longer there.. They were taken, she presumed, by someone else… Some damsel he might be having an affair with… A common thing now, she thought..  She had heard of them… the flings and the affairs which accounted for a major chunk of divorces piling up the judicial houses… Pain is truly relative, she thought. And you can’t gauge it unless you are a part of it.

She was unsure what was worse. The pain that had awoken her or the cognizance that one day her thirteen year old Cindrella story would meet a dead end.. They subsumed one another.. After all, differentiating or accounting for doesn’t make the experience any better.. Her emotions found vent in tears but she didn’t bother stopping them.. He wouldn’t bother or maybe it didn’t matter to him anymore.. She had to savor what was left of their life and prepare herself for the axe …

And suddenly she was blinded by a light.. Her vision was blurred and she couldn’t make sense of what was happening. A dream? Quite unlikely since she was visited by nightmares too often.. A warm hand on her shoulder pulled her back into the realms of reality.. The tears were wiped away and she opened her eyes to the same warm brown ones she had missed for so long.

Holding out a concoction he said, “I know this isn’t your favorite chocolate chip milkshake and neither will it reduce your pain.. but this is the best I could whip up at this hour”. She looked from the milkshake to the eyes and realization dawned.. So immersed she had been in her myriad of emotions that she had failed to notice him leaving the room.. He had somehow sensed that she was in pain and wanted to do something to assuage it..

The blocks had suddenly fallen back in place… their journey had restarted.. She realized how wrong she had been of him. He may have been busy but her place in his life was unquestionable… She pushed aside the milkshake and threw herself into his arms… She knew nothing else could make her feel better.. For all she knew, eternity could come and go and she would never have realized it pass..

She would have confessed the actual source of her tears.. She felt no shame in admitting her fears but it wasn’t necessary. He would have understood and it wouldn’t make a difference. What did make a difference at that point was that she could feel the same warmth emanating from him that she was so used to in the past.. It didn’t matter that there were others giving up on their marriage..  All that mattered was that she would not leave any stone unturned to save hers.. And she knew he would do the same….

The Midlife Crisis here is not about the pain or on-the-verge marriages or the suspicions…. They all stem from it though and are fuelled by life’s grueling burdens.. It is about certain things, acts or moments that make the so called rat race worth running for.. Albeit small, they make life a smooth ride on potholes… It rekindles the will to live and with that gone, our lives would be as mechanical as the pods NASA sends out to space every couple of years.. Life is about the moments that take our breath away… Living without them is like breathing.. You do it because you have to…

Find what you want from life and have someone to share it with because life is like a joke… You enjoy it more when you have someone with whom you can laugh your head off..

Life is collage of such moments.. Find and live them together..

Coz life is too long to be lived alone……….