Misconceptions about Midlife

Experts have suggested that the idea of midlife crisis being common is nothing but a myth. I am shopping in a mall down town, and here enters an old man dressed in baggy jeans and shaking his head to the rhythm of music jamming through his earphones. Later in the night, I go for a drink at a pub in my neighbourhood, and two elderly women who look fifty something, are dancing to crank with their friends in their late twenties. I start wondering again, why some men are comfortable with the official dress in their twenties or thirties, but start dressing in youthful attire as they approach their fifties; or why aged ladies invade their daughters’ wardrobes for mini skirts yet they could be dressed in more decent clothing. The quick answer usually is that they are experiencing a ‘Midlife crisis’ but a friend whispers to me that it is their only way or fitting in the younger generation that have a fun life. Some matures unfortunately develop inferiority complex when they are years older because of being misunderstood as facing midlife crisis. Yet that could just be their character and lifestyle. Dominique Mbaga, in his mid-fifties, a former truck driver and foreign exchange trader at the Rwanda-Uganda boarder of Katuna, says that his love for music reduced because he became shy of dancing publicly as he grew older. “Some people think that old men try to appear younger, yet they are just trying to live good lives and have fun like the rest of the people,” he says. “My hobby was dancing and drinking in our tiny hangouts—there were no discotheques in the olden days. I miss this fun nowadays, because I fear meeting my boys in clubs.” Mbaga reminds me of an incident where a man in his early fifties was working out in a gym in one of Kigali’s suburbs. He had a simple fracture on his leg. Two younger athletes around him were not shy to question his driver why he drove the old man to the gym. The injured boss looked disappointed fbecause he felt discriminated from the rest, yet he had joined the session on a doctor’s advice. I presume, the athletes thought that the old man wished to grow younger, by taking on sports. This opened my eyes and I understood that maybe, the man shopping in baggy jeans and the two women on the dance floor might have been trying to socialise with the rest, and have fun. I got rid of the fallacy that they were simply battling with midlife crisis. Emma.mprince@gmail.com