Anyone for a later-life crisis?

Everyone is familiar with the mid-life crisis, but I don’t think I’ve heard anyone talking about a crisis occurring in later life. Surely this must be fairly common among the newly retired? Retirement is such an enormous change in people’s lives, a period of great adjustment and re-imagining.  We are entitled to a crisis of our own and I’m making sure I have one.

The first symptom is a desire to move away. Although you might protest that the house is now too big with the children gone (too many rooms to heat, too much maintenance) and that the garden is too large and still littered with the remnants of family life (that trampoline really needs to go), I suspect that many people just want the chance to start afresh somewhere else. I look around my house and wonder how we managed to accumulate so much stuff and how much of it we really need or want. Moving to a new house is a radical way of having a massive clear-out. You’re hardly going to take those boxes containing bank statements dating back to 1987 with you, are you? A move forces you to take stock of all your possessions and then unload years of accumulated tat. You can then move on to a new life unencumbered. At least, that’s how you imagine it will be, but people in the throes of a later-life crisis don’t necessarily view things enitrely rationally.

Which goes hand in hand with the urge to cash in your pension and spend the money travelling. (No Lamborghinis for me.) I know that we should be carefully counting our pennies to ensure there’s enough for decades of care that may be needed in the future, but really? Dancing in the streets in Oaxaca, Mexico, celebrating the Day of the Dead, or summoning your remaining breath to blow out all 100 candles on the birthday cake so thoughtfully provided by your care home – which appeals more? The Galapagos Islands are calling and those blue-footed boobies are too charming to resist.  I know I should have reached the age of responsibility by now, but it just seems so dull. I’ve had years of being responsible and, frankly, I’m bored of it. Which brings me to the next item:

A red Vespa scooter. I can just imagine myself zooming around the streets of Rome driving one of those, just like Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday. Admittedly, she didn’t seem entirely in control and ended up being pursued by the police for reckless driving, but I think Gregory Peck riding pillion was just too distracting for her. Scooting around rainy England might not have quite the same air of la dolce vita, but optimism is a key feature of any later-life crisis. It’s part of the fun.