Welcome To My Mid-Life Crisis

Since turning forty, I've been deeply internalizing the aging process, and my conclusion is this.

Mostly? It stinks.

But it's OK. I've found something that can turn back time's cruel hands. It's safer than plastic surgery, cheaper than a new sports car, and less family-devastating than an old flame; assuming one has an old flame. I married my old flame, so he's also my current flame, and by the way, he's hotter than ever, but even he can't turn back the clock.

But youtube can.

The best thing about youtube is its ability to hit me with a flashback.

I discovered this a year ago when I read somewhere that one could find music videos from the early days of MTV on youtube. MTV was born the year I started high school and I spent many happy, if not completely wholesome hours watching it over the next few years. Then because of the gradual changes in both rock music and my tastes in such, I drifted away from MTV.

Last year though, I went to youtube and with a couple of clicks, was transported back to the early 1980's. They were all there - Loverboy... Def Leppard....Rick Springfield..... people I hadn't thought about in years.


Vintage MTV, some of the clips were called. That's so weird. I don't feel old enough for my generation's music to be called vintage.

Then again it's been 20+ years.
That's so weird.


But youtube took me back even farther.
While meandering down an online rabbit trail last week, I was reunited with "The Electric Company" the children's television show from the '70s. I hadn't seen this show in 30+ years, but elements of it were so deeply embedded in my brain that for the longest time, even as an adult, I couldn't watch Morgan Freeman in a movie without mentally singing .... "Easy Reader, THAT'S my name....".

After I watched the following clip and was able to stop laughing, I used it to prove to my kids that Mommy did in fact, grow up in the coolest decade ever; even if, when viewed retrospectively, her most famous reading teacher looks more like someone children should RUN from than learn from.

Watch and be amused, or perhaps slightly disturbed.




Is that heavy? I mean is that HEAVY?!?

So my mid-life crisis is manifesting itself by calling me back to my childhood through youtube.

It could be worse.