the jolt
Some men have a mid-life crisis. No one wants to admit it, or have themselves labeled by it. Some men have continual progress happening, and a mid-life crisis never enters the mind. Sometimes a jolt happens. I had a two-and-a-half-week window where life got shaken up, unexpectedly, abruptly, no time leading up to the situation. I have been blessed to have continual progress, morsels of legacy, impact, and enough reaction from the world to not have to think about a mid-life crisis.
I thought I was safe.
The jolt brought two things simultaneously into perspective: the importance I placed on family and loved ones, and the pull to live life through experiences, overcoming personal fears and doubt. Although they seem like they could be layered, compounded, and one feeding the other, that's not how I see them.
One is a personal journey, fueled by the desire to have experiences in life, to be open to a crazy moment, a new person, a new relationship, the things you look back on and say "I lived". Hopefully finding a partner along the way to take that to the next level, slightly new direction, but with that intent at the core.
Then there's this other familial side, where being the patriarch is becoming my burden, a welcome one, to hold the family together, to provide them opportunity and reason to gather, to remember, to feel naturally connected through ancestry. That requires stability, unwavering leadership, and strength.
Those two aspects of life coming blindingly into sudden focus was a jolt to my life. They don't easily overlap. You can't lean into one while also leaning into another unless you modify one to accept the other. Sure, all the usual things also happen in that jolt. You question everything, doubt your efforts in life—did you do enough? The usual questions come up, you create the best responses you can muster in the moment, you organize, take action, settle affairs, prop up solutions… all just in case.
Then you evaluate, now I evaluate.