Middle Class Middle Aged....Midlife Crisis?

Given that I'm pushing 50, I thought it was time to get on with my midlife crisis.

What shall it be? A red sports car? Too expensive and high maintenance. A twenty something blonde girlfriend? Again, too, expensive and high maintenance. (The only twenty year old I'm interested in says "Bushmills Single Malt" on it...) A motorcycle? Naw, already had one of those for thirty years, now. How about running away and joining some religious group? This has potential. I mean, the Belgian monks live on some kick ass beers, bread, cheese and sausages. (What else is could one possibly ask for ?). Also, the thought of silence -as opposed to the eight hours a day of babbling retards I currently endure- certainly has it's charm. But there's that little celibacy clause that kind of overrules the positives of that scenario.

Guess I'll have to settle for a complete career makeover.

Ever see someone who's been at their trade for a long time? They move with a purposeful grace, minimal wasted motion and seem to make things happen with great ease. 

After about 30 years as a toolmaker, I have achieved that zen state of almost effortlesness. I've seen people watching me with the same mild awe with which I watch my brother-in-law the sheetrock finisher .

I work in a small shop - part of a larger company. The shop is clean and air conditioned in the summer. The work is not repetetive, allows creativity, and a fair degree of autonomy. The commute is cake, the hours are good, benefits decent. I've accumulated almost three weeks vacation time. It pays pretty well - allowing to me to live this middle class existence for almost 20 years now.

To paraphrase Garrett Morris, (as Chico Escuela): "Toolmaking been berry, berry good to me"

So why, now, do I want to chuck it all and start over?

Indeed.

I think it's a combination of boredom, changing values and a downward spiral in the atmosphere at work. After 30 years of doing what I do, I'm BORED with it. I have a different perspective on what's "important". What used to be a fun place to work is more and more becoming an opressive, Nazi death camp. Too many people have drunk the Kool Aid.

I ran across an interesting quote the other day that summed it up nicely: "Midlife is when you finally get to the top rung.........and find out that the ladder was against the wrong wall".

I know I'm not alone in this. I remember my dad spending many, many years in the insurance industry, then going through a tough stretch when he lost his job and had to take what he could get to keep the roof over our heads. Curiously, when he was working at Denny's he found he loved it. It didn't pay enough to live on, so he moved on. In the end, he found a job he really, really liked at a family planning clinic, but I was always struck by the fact that my number-crunching, paper-shuffling, pencil-pushing dad found himself as a short-order cook.

Way back when I first left high school, I knew I didn't want to wear a suit and tie and work in an office. I knew I wanted to "make stuff".  My initial choice was "carpenter". I went to vocational school and took "Building Trades I & II". (What I really wanted was to be a cabinetmaker, but they didn't offer that).  Unfortunately, in 1978, when I graduated, the housing market was competely in the toilet. Plan B was to make use of the Metal Shop classes I'd taken. Six different employers and thirty years later, here we are.

So what do I want to do?

I'm not sure. I just know it's time to do something different. A verse from one of my favorite John Mellencamp songs struck me the other day ( Don't worry - I should heal nicely):

"Jackson Jackson was a good kid

He had four years of college and a Bachelor's degree

Started workin' when he was 21
Got fed up and quit
When he was 43
He said, "My whole life
I've done what I'm supposed to do
Now I'd like to maybe do something for myself
And just as soon as I figure out what that is
You can bet your life I'm gonna give it hell."

Stay tuned as I take this ride! Might be fun, certainly will be interesting. (And who knows, I may get more than one blog entry a month out of it...)