Boom! Confessions From A Midlife Crisis

When they used to work the night shift they called it Midnight Confessions. "We're all about the same age, in our 40s," says Dianne Williams, a respiratory therapist, "and during our breaks all we'd talk about was our dreams and desires and what's happened to them. It's like Billy Crystal says (in "City Slickers"), `Is this the best it's going to get?' "

Williams is on the day shift now, but only the hours have changed. They still find each other at break time, usually out by the gazebo in front of Boca Raton (Fla.) Community Hospital where they all work. "A lot of us feel we've got to do more with our lives," Williams says. "From 20 to 40 went so fast. You remember how the hippies used to say, `Tune in, turn on, and drop out'? Well, that's how we feel now."

Williams' clique has only a few of the 77 million baby boomers born between 1946 and 1964 who are now entering the realm, or are already in the midst, of the inevitable midlife crises. (Note: Practically everybody is a baby boomer. Prince is a baby boomer.) We recently asked our boomer readers to tell us what they're feeling. Are they living in a period of contemplation, desperation and re-evaluation - or is the sporty convertible still enough?

Well, it does seem the stereotype of new wheels equals new life is still going strong. Cheryl Brower of Coral Springs, Fla., tells how her husband always drove a top-of-the-line Grand Marquis for his commute to Miami every day until he turned 43. "Then all of a sudden he comes home with this Jeep Wrangler, all chromed out. It didn't even last a year, though. The rough-riding Jeep got a little uncomfortable and hot creeping in traffic every day, and he went back to a Marquis. He won't admit it, but we still call that Jeep his `Menopause Vehicle.' "

Bill Porter of Fort Lauderdale went for the diversion - speed over substance - but it was something he'd always dreamed about. The 36-year-old, who's in the insurance business, woke up one day and said, "There's got to be something better than this." And then he went out and bought a Formula 50 racing boat. He doesn't roll around at night wondering about fulfillment. He thinks about prize money.

"Last year I made enough to meet expenses," he says. His life's in balance.

"I wish it were as easy as wanting a red Lamborghini or a pair of Rollerblades," an anonymous letter began. "I'm approaching 50; my hair is graying, my face is wrinkling, my body is sagging. I don't want to be married to my husband anymore. I think I'm about to have an affair. I keep saying this is a phase and all these crazy ideas will pass before I do anything about them, but so far rational self-talk has not helped."

There are so many questions: How do you know what will pass, what thoughts are real, what sacrifices are worth making? When do you begin to act?

"Depression sets in when you just think about changes and don't do anything," says Williams, the respiratory therapist.

Six months before she turned 40, Amy Demner of Coral Springs woke in the middle of the night screaming.

"Something is not right," she said to herself. Then she decided to act, to do something.

She had given up her career as a mental health counselor to manage her husband's art-glass studio. She was also an art student, so she enjoyed the work, but after 12 years she felt she needed to use her skills as a counselor again. She had to go back to school to renew her license, which disrupted the family financially and mentally, but she finally found herself able to combine all her talents in a private psychotherapy practice with a specialization in art therapy.

Her 11-year-old son said, "Mom, how come you're doing this?"

"I tried to explain to him how wonderful it is to use all your talents," Demner says. "We shouldn't waste it."

Life more complicated

None of the boomers who responded could recall their parents going through such crises. "Our parents would probably scoff at this, but I think things are more complicated now," Demner says. "Especially with the way the roles of men and women have changed."

"I never remember my mom like this," Williams laughs. "And with my father there just seemed to be a sense of duty he would never question. We still want to think about ourselves."

It does boil down to thinking about oneself. "And that's what I decided to stop," says Gary Friedman of Plantation, Fla. "I don't think it's any more than self-centeredness." After a recent divorce, Friedman, a successful audiologist, sat back and realized things are never going to be wildly exciting or terribly depressing, but there's someone who'll always be important and that is his 10-year-old son. He's passing on the crisis for a midlife revelation instead.

"I have plenty of friends with teenage kids so I know it may only be a few years before my son might not want anything to do with me," he says.

Friedman lived for a year with a woman who had her own children and made the painful decision to move out. "It was like a Brady Bunch thing and when I had my son for the weekends I just didn't want to share him with everyone else."

He spoke to his son about this, and he had the same feelings. Friedman moved into an apartment so he and his son can have as much time alone together as a child and parent of divorce can.

"I saw that movie `A Bronx Tale.' The real heroes are the guys who show up every day," he says. "It's real easy to be a big shot, showing a good example is the hard stuff."

The dream deferred

The hard stuff is what Mercedes Smith of Lauderhill has always been made of, but at 42 she's finding it's not enough. She was born in Cuba, but came to the United States as a child in 1962. She was raised on the American Dream. "To me, it was always you work and work and work and someday you'll have your own house, but now I have to admit that's not possible, " she says. "The baby boomers are the middle class, and it's a discouraging place to be."

Smith, a mother of two, is a McDonald's manager and her husband is a core driller for a construction company. She says there's just no way to stretch the money. "Now they want 20 percent down. It's impossible. Two years ago, I went back to Pennsylvania where I did most of my growing up and saw all our old friends. Everybody was about 40 and not one of us had a house; all renting townhouses, apartments, whatever. And we're not divorced or in the middle of starting over. We're all married with the same husband we married when we were 21. All have children."

After being turned down for several loans, Smith has decided to back off. "It only makes you crazy," she says. "We have to just accept it now. I have a right to be disgusted, but I have to stop thinking about it."

How do you stop thinking about your dreams?

You can't. That's the answer that churns so many stomachs.

Dreams are your future and you've got to have a future. "Forty really is a midpoint," says Demner, the mental health counselor. "Feelings are all over the place, but people have to realize there is time and they're not stuck."

Optimism has to kick in at some point.

"The crisis one feels is just a depressed attitude," says Donna Zammuto of Pompano Beach. "I feel, at 41, boomers grew up in the best times. Besides, we're the majority and the majority rules."

A challenge outside the home

Judy Colman, 40, of Coral Springs, Fla., supported her husband through medical school and then had the luxury to make a home and be there to enjoy it. But now her kids are teens and her challenge is to gain confidence outside the home.

"It's a challenge - updating my education, trying to land a real job - but I'm trying to look at it as an adventure," she says.

Dianne Williams is trying to reach out beyond her co-workers at the hospital. She recently put a classified ad in the paper for "restless boomers." She wants to start a newsletter to network on passions, visions, sorrows and humor.

"Talking about being depressed and your need for fulfillment helps, of course, and when confiding in others you laugh at yourselves. But after all the laughs you're still not doing anything," she says. "I want to do something."