Mid-Life Crisis

I went to a party last night, a "mid-life crisis" party I was told, but it turned out to be a birthday party for a fellow I've known for a long time.  He has done well, has two beautiful children and is still married to their mother.  He's a good looking kid with a subtle and wry sense of humor.  I've known his wife as long as he has, and she is successful and nice and funny, too.  I don't see them very much any more, so I was looking forward to the evening.

When I walked in the door, his wife was standing with another woman, one of "those" women that I used to put up with on a daily basis.

"Darling, do you know C.S.?  He's one of Connor's crazy friends."

I had to be qualified, I thought.  She said something about my hair because part of Connor's "crisis," I guess, is that he has grown it out a bit.

"Oh. . . I like your hair," Darling said.  "It's like my daughter's.  Easy to take care of."

The party got no better than this.  I found the fellow with whom I went to Sundance, one of Connor's relatives, and tried to avoid conversing with the crowd.  But we were sitting in a room full of couples, and I had to hear.  A condo in the mountains, a condo at the beach, skiing, fishing, playing golf at someplace/everyplace, a wicked bottle of Merlot, a microbrewery, the kids private schools and all the travails. . . delivered in those careful melodic tones through lips forming perfect perma-smiles.  The women were all pretty and well-dressed in that conservatively hip way, subtle, expensive jewelry dangling from ears and necks and wrists.  Later, in the men's group, the talk was of business.  These were not men who worked for others by and large, but who were developers or who owned contracting companies of one sort or another and who had names like Jimbo and Billy, local boys who had grown up in southern iconic families that had owned much of the businesses and land before everyone else came.

On my way out, I stood at the door talking to Connor and my friend and his brother about the wild times they used to have.  They were laughing about Dancin' Charlie, the mid-level coke dealer, and all his foibles.  We were laughing and suddenly Connor looked over his shoulder to the room behind us and gave the conversation the nix.  These were decent folk, church people with children in Hebrew school and Christian camps.  He didn't want to break the china.

Outside I remarked the horror show.

"I haven't been around that for a while," I said shaking my head.  "I'm not in shape to take it any more."

I was home relatively early and glad to be there.  I pulled up some scans and began to work.  I hit iTunes and Billy Holliday came up.  Slowly, the horror began to recede. . . the Fear.  I spent too many years among that crowd.  I think they are as glad as I that I'm gone.