Last year, having reached 40 years of age, I bought a convertible.
It was a great decision.
This may seem like a standard midlife crisis purchase, and maybe it was. In my defense, I bought the car more for the manual transmission than the ability to make the roof go away. Also, it is a 20-year-old Saab, which did not exactly break the bank, in part because the roof had become like the transmission: manual.
Still, nostalgia was part of it. A Saab had been my first car that was really fun to drive, and it was also what I had when I got married. Though that vehicle had a litany of mechanical problems from the get-go (as used cars with more than 100,000 miles on them often do), I loved it anyway — and my marriage survived teaching my bride what a clutch pedal is for. Still, the Saab Story, as we christened it, left our lives before long, replaced by a series of wife-friendly automatic transmissions.
Those vehicles got us where we needed to go, but I missed driving a manual transmission. And so, having reached a point in life where such things were feasible without being too irresponsible, I got one. It has been a blast. And yes, I had the roof fixed, and I now get why people love convertibles: Having the open sky above you and the wind in your hair during a country drive in nice weather really is a delight.
I have no illusions that I will impress anyone with it — the middle-aged guy with the convertible is often a figure of fun, and Saab was viewed as more quirky than cool even before the company went bust and became a fading bit of automotive trivia. But regardless of its cool factor (or lack thereof), this car makes traveling to my usual destinations — stores, church, worship team rehearsal, rec league soccer and so on — more fun.
The gap between cool and fun gets at what the midlife crisis is really about, which is, well, midlife. Cool, whatever it means, is mostly a young man’s game, and I doubt I’ll make the cut, though I may sometimes make the world a little more surreal — such as the time I used the car, which came to me with a tow hitch installed, to haul home an old outdoor playhouse someone at church gave us. No one expects to see a silver convertible towing a playhouse down the highway, though a middle-aged dad is the obvious culprit when it happens.
Anyway, my age is one at which much, perhaps most, of life is past, and what remains seems more set. It is an age at which mortality starts to seem more real, and so worries and regrets may then press harder. Some people respond by rushing out to remake their life, or to chase after what they always wanted but now fear they will never get.
But dissatisfaction tends to travel with us; the grass is not necessarily greener in another career, another marriage, another church, or another locale. Or even another car. And many youthful dreams and ambitions are out of reach no matter what. The hope of writing the great American novel might linger, but being a guitar hero is probably not happening, and athletic stardom is now impossible — the talent was probably never there, and even if it was, it is now 20-plus years and 20-plus pounds too late for it.
Yet joy may be renewed even as the daydreams and wilder aspirations fade, and aches and pains become more frequent. Those who love the game or the music can still play. It is possible to just enjoy playing rec league sports and music at church. Or, well, to enjoy driving around in an old stick-shift convertible. And the best part is when the pleasure of the activity is amplified by sharing it with those we love. This is why the adolescent fantasy of fast cars and fast women is foolish — the holes in the human heart cannot be filled by acquisition, acceleration, and orgasm.
This is a truth we should have learned by middle age, which is what makes the midlife crisis such a figure of derision. The belated attempt to seize the dreams of youth will not be as good as living with the fruits of love — friendship, an enduring marriage, and the blessing of children. And that context allows us to rightly and proportionately enjoy the goods we have, to be like the G.K. Chesterton character who tried “to covet his own goods instead of his neighbor’s.”
In my case, I’ve largely succeeded with the Saab, and I am trying to do the same elsewhere, for instance, by enjoying the guitars and basses I have (which are already better and more numerous than my skill deserves), rather than drooling over those in the endless online emporium. Being happy with what one has, or can reasonably get, defuses the worst of a potential midlife crisis.
Furthermore, attending to real life, and those in it, often illuminates the way to real improvement as well as real enjoyment. A man focused on his own house, rather than coveting his neighbor’s, is more likely to roll up his sleeves and fix things, whether a dripping faucet or a cluttered basement. A man thinking about what he actually likes, rather than old fantasies or what might impress others, is more likely to seek pleasures he really enjoys. And those who do not confuse fun with fulfillment are more likely to pursue love and respect where they can be found, in relationships of family, faith, and community.
Those are the real basis for the good life. A convertible, whether new and expensive or old and cheap, is at most a cherry on top.
It may still be fun, though. And for me, the few people impressed are those who matter most — my young daughters love riding in the old convertible, which they have christened Saab-E. And so I do sometimes drive around in a convertible full of cute blondes — just not in the way a younger man might fantasize about.
This way has more car seats. This way is better.
