They say, It all begins with a phone call, and they were right. A family member had fallen and broken her hip. We were suddenly immersed in her care. When we werent at work, we were at the facility, in a hospital waiting room, on the phone with service providers, or in a care meeting. There was very little sleep, lots of worry, sporadic panic and overall overwhelmingness.

I am an action person. In times of uncertainty, I busy myself with overcomplicated tasks to keep myself distracted. One day when I was walking out of the health care facility, I arbitrarily decided the walker that the hospital provided was dangerous too tippy so I found the Cadillac of walkers on Amazon. I was about to buy it with one click when I saw a woman with the same walker by the door and asked her if she liked it.

She said, I like it so much, I have two. She didnt need the brand-new second one and offered to sell it to me for half price!

I told her Id be back in 30 minutes. I just needed to run home and get cash.

When I got there, Fourteen said, Oh good, youre home. My sports physical is in 10 minutes. Wed enrolled him in high school two days earlier, and he needed the sports physical that day to start conditioning for football. With a couple of phone calls and some fancy driving on I-4, we made it all happen.

Realizing Im entering the sandwich generation portion of my journey isnt the only flashing neon midlife crisis sign Ive seen lately. Weeks before the phone call, Id made a very unexpected decision to pursue a move onto the admin team at school. Ive been a kindergarten teacher for eight years and taught preschool before that. I was extremely comfortable in my role. In fact, every time I had an HR meeting, I told them wild horses couldnt drag me from my classroom. Here was my wild horse: The preschool director was leaving to pursue new opportunities.

Tom Peters, author of In Search of Excellence, said, If a window of opportunity appears, dont pull down the shade.

Before I knew it, I found myself texting our schools director: Id like to be considered for the preschool director position. I dont know whats more mid-life-y an impulsive career change or reading quotes about opportunity?

Amid all this chaos, we found ourselves relying on the Wendys drive-thru for way too many meals. Then Wendys replaced their human order-takers with an AI kiosk. Last night, when the robot asked me what kind of sauce Id like with one of my Biggie Bags, I said, Barbecue.

It told me barbecue sauce wasnt an option. So I said, Honey mustard.

It said, Barbecue sauce is not an option.

I asked what the options were.

It said, Sweet and sour, honey mustard, and barbecue.

I said, No sauce.

It asked me what Id like to drink.

Sprite.

It replied, Barbecue sauce is not an option.

As I shook my fist and screamed for it to get off my lawn, a human being came over the speaker and took my order. I was frustrated by technology another sign of midlife crisis.

And last, but certainly not the least difficult to process, was trying to passively enjoy an episode of Dateline one evening (wait, theres more) when I heard arguably the best song of 2001, Missy Elliots Get Ur Freak On. Assuming Id accidentally switched to a music channel, I looked up in sheer horror to see it was an Applebees commercial.

That, my friends, is when I decided its time to (1) embrace that music will never be as good as it was 20 years ago, (2) give myself time and grace to figure out how to navigate high schools and assisted living communities simultaneously, and (3) trade in all my jeans that are getting too tight (thanks, hormones!) for comfy Amazon two-piece sets with elastic waists.

Welcome to midlife. I think Im going to like it here.

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When midlife hits hard: Signs from work, family, artificial intelligence and Applebees - The Community Paper