This morning I stumbled on this article by Paul Flannery titled “Extreme Athleticism Is the New Midlife Crisis” (https://medium.com/s/greatescape/extreme-athleticism-is-the-new-midlife-crisis-d87199a18bed). I love a good midlife crisis, and I agreed with most of what the article had to say. It was a shame that the title had a negative sound to it. Rather than a midlife “crisis”, extreme athleticism here is described as a way to protect us from the ravages of old age.
When I turned 46 I decided to play rugby for the first time. My kids had played for years, and at 46, although I wasn’t “in shape”, I wasn’t overweight, I felt pretty good, and had kept pretty active while raising my five teenaged sons. The first day I stepped on the field to play a pickup game of touch rugby, I thought I was going to have a heart attack. I discovered just how out of shape I was on a hot, 98 degree suffocatingly humid summer day in Memphis. But I had a blast and couldn’t wait to get back out on the field. More than that, I started looking for a team I could join.
That day six years ago I wasn’t thinking about my midlife crisis, trying to go back to the “glory days” of my youth (I was never an athlete), or trying to prove something. I wanted to have fun. And as my kids were growing up and becoming more independent, I suddenly had more time to explore hobbies that had interested me but didn’t have time to engage with because – kids.
This is something Paul misses in his article. At 46, or now at 52, I want to have fun. I want to take advantage of the season I’ve found myself in. For the first time in over 20 years of raising kids, I have leisure time. Yes, my body isn’t what it used to be, but I wake up every day with the realization that I’ll never be as young as I am today. I’m going to take advantage of what my body can do today. This goes for play, work, sex; tomorrow I’ll be older, and more than likely my performance won’t match what it is today. Carpe diem.
I won’t pretend that it isn’t fun to step on a rugby field with guys half my age and amaze, not because I’m a great player, but because I can still sprint, I can still tackle, I can still hold my own physically. I won’t pretend that there are days when I feel like I have something to prove because of my age, that I’m not in the midst of a midlife crisis (which, in proving the former, confirms the latter). And yes, everyday I lift, I run, I sprint to protect and prepare for the years to come.
But most of all, boys just want to have fun.