Mid-Lifer

Mid-life crisis. You feel that your youth is gone. You feel like your dreams have been lost. You feel dissatisfied with life and its lack of purpose, meaning, joy. You feel this halfway through your life. Well, I feel it now, and life hasn't even begun.

I don't want to go to university with this shadow in my heart. It feels... heavy. I keep on asking what I'm still doing here, now. Wasn't life supposed to be wonderful after my exams? Wasn't life supposed to be brighter after those two horrid years? Wasn't cycling supposed to change all this?

Cycling... it's becoming more and more depressing. I've almost lost the will to wake up every morning before dawn just to head out there and train. My speed has dropped too. I'm just so tired of cycling alone. The club is ridiculous - no one really rides regularly. The relationships I've tried to build all flounder because the same bunch doesn't show up anymore. Sure, the praise of some members shocked by my progress was fun and all, but they're all so... old. No young people to talk to. So old, as old as... I am.

I've stopped Karate - I can't move the same way. The younger guys with fewer problems have taken the show. I'm still physically strong, just not fast enough. The agility is gone. I'm so tired of living through all this, finding something to do every day and coming up with nothing. I'm so tired of being alone, just so tired of all this. No hopes, no dreams, nothing to look forward to. There's just no beauty in life, no inspiration, nothing. I almost feel like going back to drinking.

I wonder why I'm still like this, then I realise it's because I can't meet like-minded youngsters. Intellectually, Im alone. In sports, my friends have different interests. My soul is drying up fast and my heart is withering. That's just it - I'm withering. And I haven't even blossomed.