Ways of coping

I've tried all variety of methods of coping with my third-life crisis, which I think has been coming on for some time now. I've switched jobs a couple of times. I experiment endlessly with appearance believing, despite an overwhleming number of women's studies graduate degrees that a Louise Brooks' bob will turn me into an inscrutable French icon. I've sputtered at developing skills from languages to sewing clothes. I've made vague lists of the things to which I aspire. I've read books about the people who seem to have fabulous lives, and books about people who've had appalling lives (to make me grateful for my current life). I shop as if fabulous is sold at Nordstroms . . . occasionally to excess (bless my husband for his patience and earning potential). I cry. I envy friends, like my friend Modi who trained at Parsons and then in Paris and now sells her own clothing line in Portland. Or my friend Susie, who works for Nike in Shanghai. And I feel rotten the whole time, because of course my life is fabulous compared to 99.9% of all people who have ever lived. And then I start the cycle over again.

And recently, following the births of friends' children and my neices, I began to want to have a baby. I think that part of my interest in a child came from a sense that motherhood would essentially remove me from the pressure for fabulousness. Being a mother in itself would be fabulous and, conversely, everyone knows mothers can't be fabulous because they are busy being mothers (my own beautiful and fabulous mother excepted, of course). It's contradictory, I know, but either way I'd be safe and could stop worrying about it.

I would still like a baby. But health problems, and a lack of motivation to make myself into a science experiment or expose myself to the wrenching rollercoaster of adoption, make this unlikely. And so here I am, seeking fabulousness. The will is strong, but the leadership weak.

On another note, I am distressed about the significant number of blogs about third-life crises that have one, maybe two entries. And no meaningful advice. I hope that this is because it's a feeling that passes so quickly that one needs only the time span of a couple of posts before recovering completely, but I fear that 1) these people are dead, or more likely 2) that the pathology is so absorbing that they eventually can no longer bring themselves to type.