How to handle those middle-age doldrums

"Been there, done that."

I know you've said it before. But does saying this mean you've become a weary traveler, slightly cynical about the world and its offerings?

I'm not talking about "mid-life crisis" here. I'm talking about something more insidious, something that creeps in, turning your joie de vivre into blah de ennui.

I'm talking: Middle-age doldrums.

I recently came across a study, reported in Psychology and Aging, that found learning a second language significantly decreases the decline of cognitive functioning as we age. If this isn't a good reason for me to learn Spanish, I don't know what is. Yet, I find myself thinking: "I don't really have enough time left to become proficient."

Dick is 56 and bored with his career in the legal profession. He has a brilliant idea for a family-style restaurant that will appeal to both adults and children. Furthermore, he claims that he is ready to turn the page and start the next chapter of his life.

So why isn't this man getting off his spreading duff to flip those pancakes and pour that merlot? You can almost hear the blood draining from his head when asked this question.

I remember this man well when he was a fiery-nostriled youth. Before marriage, kids and the law, this was a guy who rode a 10-speed hard across Europe, who paused for three years in Heidelberg just so he could learn German, who valiantly pounded the boards in Manhattan as a theater actor.

Is it age that has dulled Dick into inertia? Or is it fear? After all, looking down the road, the horizon doesn't seem endless.

Now meet Rendy and Jennifer, two other friends of mine who serve beautifully as role models for my anti-doldrum campaign. Having raised kids, established careers, done all of the sensible things expected of them, they both decided to "live out loud." This meant signing up for a workshop called "Singing Breakthrough." Neither one felt that they could sing, but like all of us, they yearned to let their inner-Aretha have at it.

Jennifer, 46, describes their experience: "We decided to do this singing thing because what really keeps you young is learning new things and taking positive risks. I believe that embarrassment is a sign that life is coursing through your blood. Besides, who doesn't want, in some secret part of themselves, to rock the world?"

Middle age is when broadness of the mind and narrowness of the waist change places, or so the old joke goes.

And like all jokes, there is some truth to be gleaned, especially for those of us who are from that sprawling Baby Boomer generation. Don't forget, we were a generation that was once passionate and expansive. We championed change, whether it be in our hairstyles or in embracing the rainbow of possibilities in our big, wonderful world. We watched as our parents got old, telling us to turn down "that damned noise" and objecting to the disturbingly subversive lyrics of radicals like Bob Dylan who proclaimed that the times, they were a-changing. And we vowed to never go there.

'Fess up. Are you refusing to let your kids play their rap music with its horrifyingly "inappropriate" lyrics at full volume around the house? Have you lost your "edge"? Have you gotten smugly satisfied and given up the fight?

Has change become a dirty, scary word?

Dr. Michael O.L. Seabaugh is a Cape Girardeau native who is a licensed clinical psychologist with over 20 years experience helping individuals and couples with their emotional and relationship issues. He has a private practice in Santa Barbara and Santa Monica, Calif. Contact him at mseabaugh@semissourian.com.