On a man and his empty tech storage boxes
I don’t know if there is a cookie-cutter way to deal with a midlife crisis. If fucking your secretary, buying a boat, that godforsaken motorbike or some third thing is just a cultural joke, or if it’s actually how most men deal with unresolved dreams past 40. Zero introspection, all action.
Wondering if what I “have” is actually a midlife crisis (feels like something you come down with, honestly) or just unsettled issues that need dealing with, I am longing to do something else with all of this. My crisis shouldn’t go unspent. I want to create something glorious for myself. Write a book. Publish music. Start something entirely new and see it to the end. Anything.
Before all that though, I’ve got some cleaning up to do.
A few weeks ago, I went up to the storage room in my attic. What met me there was for the most part normal. Winter clothes. Cleaning materials. Unused pots waiting for plants. Empty storage boxes for all the tech in my life (why on earth we save these is beyond me. But be saved they must.) What also met me were all the dreams of what I could (or should have) become. There was the old Fender Rhodes piano I dreamt of restoring and setting up in my office space. There was the Playstation and games from my childhood, some of which I still haven’t played through. There was the carburetor for my 1970s Honda bike, an endless source for tinkering and a never-ending restoration project. There was my old bartending equipment. And also all my old Lego, that my future and yet to arrive son was supposed to play with.
Yes, this room, daily out of sight, is brimming with the mass of old dreams and ideas – a silent debt of guilt accrued over the years.
They arrive with good intentions, your dreams, with hope and a promise of something truly great. But if left for too long, they will turn on you. They are wild and fickle beasts, hard to catch, even harder to tie down. And unresolved dreams turn into something else entirely. Heavy, weighing like an anchor, dragging you under while you gasp for air, desperately fighting just to keep your everyday together as it is right now.
My storage room isn’t just full of things. It’s the notions of a person I didn’t become, and it’s finally time to let go of all of it. It’s not easy though, and the emotional connection is tangible. Letting it go, whether selling or giving it away, is much harder than I anticipated.
For most men, the midlife crisis seems to be about realizing old dreams. It’s about finally doing those things you were supposed to have done in your twenties but never got around to. But recognizing after the fact that you can’t sustain them twenty years down the road wears you down in a heavier, different manner. It adds to the disappointment and sadness.
I’ve decided to approach it differently. I’ve realized my dear old dreams belonged to me, but a different me, one I am no longer. I have to let them go, however hard it might be, and deal with this loss first. But with this, I give myself freedom. Freedom to dream new dreams, have new ideas, freedom to become whoever I am supposed to be from here on out.