A Shadow Hanging over Them

When I was in my late teens and got wind of a dad who had bailed out to seek erotic rejuvenation on virginal shores, I used to raise my eyebrows and dryly diagnose a case of “mid-life crisis.” Not that I have any deeper insights into the torn souls of mid-forty males now that I have reached that critical age myself, where lives notoriously implode, bank accounts disappear, and paperwork is processed assiduously. In fact, I seem to be more puzzled now than in my sagacious teens whenever I hear of someone who walks out on a life they so laboriously created. Clearly, spouses, mortgages and kids can be a real mill stone around the neck, but then, who ordered the pie? How can one suddenly proclaim that it is all too much after diligently adding to it day after day, week after week and year after year? Or rather, how can one suspect for years that they are not the family type, while at the same time fathering offspring, buying second and third cars, and industrial barbecues? Is it that they just thought they wanted it all? Is it maybe that they lack the critical prefrontal cortex activity that would quickly confirm the disastrous effect monkeyish behavior usually produces...? Or is it some sort of awakening, along the lines of “I’m not the man I used to be....” I would agree with that.