Midlife Crisis I'm 44!

At 44, I thought I should give blogging a try as part of my midlife crisis. Some say it’s therapeutic. For me, I feel it will help improve my writing and reduce mistakes with autocorrection. I’ve been alive for 1,401,164,252 seconds (and counting), but the reasons behind blogging are still a mystery to me. The concept of putting my ideas into words always makes me question the whole process… but I digress.

Being born… this is the topic that brought me here today. I was born in Portugal as an only child, until my sister came along three years later. My parents were very young when they had me - think of Portugal in 1975 with two newlyweds and a child on the way. My mother quit her job to stay home with me while my father worked in construction or as a driver. My mother mentioned he even drove a funeral car for a while.

They were so young! Now that I have a 3-year-old at 44, it seems crazy to think about. I recently watched a homemade video of my parents when they were younger than I am now and they already had two kids! But again… I digress.

We were a family of three at the time and for biological reasons that I can’t explain, there are some things I don’t remember as a baby. They call it “infantile amnesia.” From family pictures, I can see that I was present and it seems like I had a happy childhood even though my parents struggled to make ends meet. We had a roof over our heads and there was always food on the table.

In the beginning, my parents and I lived with my paternal grandmother. I later learned that this arrangement was temporary and that my mother had a difficult time because she didn’t have a good relationship with her mother-in-law. Eventually, we moved to a different apartment, but we still had some financial dependence on my father’s family. I had an aunt who worked in France as an immigrant, like so many others who searched for a better life outside Portugal. The remnants of the dictatorship were still very present, and many Portuguese people left the country for a better life.

Growing up, I had this idea that everything was better out there - that I could have more things like toys, brand shoes, or cute clothes. I used to play with two brothers who were twins. Their father worked for an airline and always brought them nice things like tennis shoes, t-shirts, or different foods. To me, that was so awesome that I started developing this idea in my head that everything was so much better out there! I believe I started developing a very materialistic concept of things and felt like I couldn’t have any less than my friends.

So this was supposed to be my introduction to the world, but it turned into an episode of my childhood. I’m not sure where this will take me, but I’m just here for the ride anyway! Hopefully more stories will come along.

Bye for now!