The poor bubba is feeling rather put out by life (can't say I blame him there). All of a sudden, he's quite concerned that the choices he's made in regards to profession, retirement planning and accumulation of stuff have not been very sound at all. Certainly, I'll never be able to convince him that devoting one's life to raising other people's children is one of the more noble ways to spend a lifetime. Certainly, I'll never be able to convince him that, indeed, there is still time to figure out the retirement game (if, in fact, there will still be a world in which we might retire, but that's another rant). Certainly, I'll never be able to convince him that sorting through the priceless junk we've let accumulate in the garage needn't be completed in one weekend.
Actually, it's not really so bad on my end. Ten years of togetherness has taught me many things. Most important being that I know not to take someone else's mid-life crisis personally. If this had came up earlier in our relationship, I'd probably be good and annoyed with the husband right about now. Instead, I split my time between dishing out the sympathy and instructing him to snap out of it long enough for dinner, please.
The other night, a friend had him listening to a self-help CD. From what I can gather, it's something of a new age version of the old "men are from Mars, women are from Venus" concept. In particular, it describes what's going on in a man's head when he reaches this glorious time of life as being "in the tunnel." It's a simple, user-friendly term symbolically describing what men experience. They get stuck in transition there for a while, somewhere between the breezy, wild light of the early years and the steady, calmer light that comes with proper aging. The tunnel-time of reflecting on a misspent youth and fretting over how much time there is yet to spend earth bound...well, it's a real bitch.
But, hell, nobody ever said you aren't allowed to still have FUN while you are stuck in the middle of the tunnel. Here's where I'm firmly putting my foot down and hold fast to my position on the outside of said tunnel. The husband would surely get trapped in there forever if I wasn't here demanding that he take time out to visit friends, go on a trip, take in a concert or two.
Damn, he sure is lucky to have me on his side.
But even when one partner is deep in the tunnel, it still takes two to tango. Luckily for me, the husband is a wise man who lets me to guide him through the darkness and still manages to rub my feet on a daily basis. This whole thing just makes love him even more than I ever thought possible.
And.
I'm looking forward to the day he emerges from this blasted tunnel.
