Middle-aged shenanigans

They don’t just involve a red convertible and a young date any more

Illus: for MP_sreejith r.kumar

Of all the things that I have experienced and would want to have — as Ms Spears said, ‘Hit me baby one more time’ — it wouldn’t be my youthful years. No sir, I am sure they’ll be wasted the second time around as well. Instead, I would opt for my early mid-life crisis to come back full circle, only this time, I want to be utterly cognisant of its arrival. I want to wait for it, smiling smugly, garland in hand, just like we wait at airports for our distant-but-dollar-rich NRI cousins.

If you are reading this at an outstretched arm’s length, still convinced that they shrink the newspaper font every year, and feeling sorry for me, then you sir, or ma’am, are living in denial.

It can get tough to see your friends hit their mid-life crisis and go through it, and there’s just no soft way to break it to them. Allow me then, to play the bad cop. Simply point them to this article and it might highlight some of the big signs that what they are experiencing isn’t life-changing or destiny, it’s just their mind refusing to listen to what the body (and the joints) are telling it.

1. Marathon: The most sure shot sign of hitting the top of the hill is when one resolves to run a marathon. It’s a tough one to tick off the list, but many think that if they can climb the age hill for 30+ something years, then surely they can run a 26-miler.

2. Road cycling: There are those who stay away from running; clearly a lot who is more cognisant of their physical build-up. Yet, at the same time, they seem blind to their physical (de)form once they have invested in a bike the price of a medium-sized sedan, and acquire some expensive, tight lycra to stretch over their blubbery frames. If you think Speedo-clad middle-aged men are a sore sight on the beach, then you are yet to see the ghastliness of a peloton of 45% fat-rich jiggly bodies ride over cobblestone!

3. Trekking: If you have mentioned the words ‘Base camp’ and ‘Everest’ at any party in the last few weeks, then you are about to hit your mid-life real hard. I don’t get the deal with treks — it’s a walk, except that it’s not in a mall, so you have to eat odd sorts cooked over open flames (maybe gather berries) and then you have to defecate in the open and cover it with sand, just like a dog. While a mid-life crisis call is meant to roll back the years, to me this seems like rolling back civilisation a few centuries.

4. Buying a Harley: If you can afford a Harley, you are clearly a veteran in your work field. In other words, you may be rich but you are also certainly old. The reason why these bikes ‘cruise' and not accelerate hard is because Harley-makers know their target clients’ hearts just won’t be able to handle all that zippy adrenalin.

5. Yoga: The only thing worse than acquiring a yoga membership is celebrating post-session with herbal tisanes. The reason we eat and drink weird stuff that’s peddled as superfood is a last-ditch effort to reverse the damage we did ourselves with all that binge-drinking and blow back in the day. Well, you can’t. Detox is nothing but the new business pivot for beauty parlours and spas. So stuff the kombucha and drink something solid in wake of the knowledge that you are middle-aged and it’s only going to get worse. Did someone say incontinence?

This column is for anyone who gives an existential toss.