Barbara: Roland, you are now 46. That's the best age for an official midlife crisis. How is it in the middle of a crisis area?

Roland: Midlife Crisis? When does it start?

Barbara: With point 42.

Roland: Nobody told me that. Maybe that's why I do not have any. Maybe I am also the concept of this food crisis suspect. I profit now from the experiences of the past 20 years, that would have to be the same for everyone.

Barbara: Not everyone has such an exciting life as you. A clerk of the letters K to L in the Allianz motor insurance may see things differently. Because normally it is like that, that you are already in the same job for 15 to 20 years in your early 40s, that you are in the same relationship for about the same amount of time, the children are out of the woods and the house is half paid off. And then you think: Shit, everything I had on the clock is done? and still so much time until I die ...

Roland: But that's not the point. If your agent is happy with what he has been doing for 20 years, then he has little reason to change anything for the next 30 years.

Barbara: If that is so, you had a midlife crisis a few years ago. You have quit your great job in the top restaurant Ikarus in Hangar-7 in Salzburg, have married and become a father. A lot of change.

Menopause ante portas?

Roland: But not because I had not experienced enough, which is the reason for most men's crises. But too much. I was simply overworked, and I just had enough of non-binding women's stories. But how is it with you? Menopause ante portas?

Barbara: Excuse me! I felt I just got a baby! Everything is active and focused on life!

Roland: Sorry. I'm only asking. But someday, sorry for me, it's your turn too.

Barbara: I'm blind. I always think that everything that applies to others has no meaning for me. If there is any place forbidden to enter the lawn, I think: they do not mean me.

Roland: So you ignore that the limit to 40 is already behind you?

Barbara: When I was 40, I was often approached to this limit, so the motto: 39, wink, wink, is something else, right? I denied this for a long time and said that nothing would change. But that's not true.

Roland: Aha. What is different?

Barbara: On the one hand, my life has become much better.

Roland: And on the other hand?

Barbara: Did I start flirting with this number totally stupid. To overpower my forty years. What a crap. After all, I have enough life to give this number a real meaning.

Are not women more at risk than men for a mid-40s crisis?

Roland: As I said before, I'm not an expert in the field, so I'll ask: are not women more vulnerable than men for a mid-40s crisis?

Barbara: No, because we are dealing with these topics in the past. We prepare our 40s much better. Men start thinking only when they fall over acutely.

Roland: Okay, but one thing definitely changes with you in your mid 40s: you're getting kids warmed up.

Barbara: That's true. And that's a big deal, because as long as you are theoretically able or willing to have children, you count yourself among the group of young people. After that you are ... in the other group.

Roland: I belong to those too. To the others.

Barbara: Why?

Roland: I got sterilized.

Barbara: Really? Wow. How so?

Roland: For two reasons. First, my wife and I are happy with our one son, we do not want any more. And secondly: I wanted to prevent.

Barbara: What prevent?

Roland: A potential mid-60s crisis. I definitely do not want to be one of those guys who will put another child into the world to prove to themselves and the world what horny stallions they are still.

Barbara: It's cool. I've never heard of a man like that before.

Roland: Well, that's not what we're talking about. Well, I do. And how often have I been asked behind the hand of a guy if I am not afraid of losing my manhood.

Barbara: What do you answer then?

Roland: Always the same: If you have to think about it seriously, you've never been male.

Barbara: Bark! Great! Roland, you are a man of action. And you've got that one thing out of your mind, as well.

Compared to what women have to do to their body to prevent, such a vasectomy is really no big deal

Roland: Especially in bed. And let's be honest: Compared to what women have to do to their body to prevent, such a vasectomy is really no big deal.

Barbara: And a real proof of masculinity when I think about it. And that you are so fearless ...

Roland: Well, it was not completely fearless then.I was a bit scared that I lose my masculinity. So I am right home after the procedure and have been masturbating, although you are strongly warned against this area in the days after? let's say: to demand.

Barbara: And?

Roland: I got totally blue eggs.

Barbara: But why did not you listen to the doctors?

Roland: I thought: I'm South Tyrolean, I'm fine with that.

Barbara: I'm just beginning to realize that we women do not talk too much. About what is changing in you men. And here. So, when menopause sets in, you're the first to know.

Roland: Thank you. But do not worry about it. It does not matter anyway what's in five years or ten.

Barbara: Are you such a here and now guy?

Roland: Total. I've never thought about the future.

Barbara: Me neither. I would like to know when my free day is next week. I do not plan beyond that. I am not afraid of the future, because so far every unplanned step in my life has brought me forward. Therefore, I assume that it will be the same with all further steps.

Roland: Sounds like you're a happy person. Are there any more secrets on the way?

Barbara: Maybe that I've always lived the way my age has. At the age of 20, I have not thought about children. And now, at 43, I just do not hang around in any clubs. That's why I'm never in the wrong movie.

Roland: I feel the same way. I have been in clubs for 20 years. If I have to go in for work today and see people of my age doing it voluntarily, I think: you poor.

I know that because I developed the Christmas tree test

Barbara: Oh yes. In Berlin, I often pass queues in front of some in-stores, and I always think: I would pay a lot of money now, not to circumnavigate it. No, I feel at home in my life. I know that because I developed the Christmas tree test.

Roland: How is he doing?

Barbara: Every year, when I'm sitting under the Christmas tree, I feel like I'm still in real life. And in the past, I often sat somewhere thinking that this is no longer the life I want to live.

Roland: Interesting. I notice that when I go out to eat with men who eventually get uneasy and still want to go through some shops to experience something while I just want to go home. And no longer stare at any tits.

Barbara: Where, apropos Tits: I've already noticed with 40, that there's something else, there came and still offers. The target group is changing, and the sea does not split anymore when I'm running somewhere? but I am not invisible. And I find it enormously important to know that there is something else going on.

Roland: Why not? I think I was not so sexy 20 years ago now.

Barbara: I think I'm better today too.

Roland: Because the package is better. You are much more interesting than in the past, because you have had so many experiences.

Barbara: And they were important. Also for my relationships. If I'm to give advice to young people out there: Please do not get to know the love of your life before mid-30.

Roland: That's right. Only then did they both live and know how it works. And do you know what: If something else with me, I do not care.

Barbara: Why?

Roland: I recently had a conversation with my wife, a discussion about a love story in a book. It was about what one did when the other died. My wife then said: I have found with you the love of my life, I can imagine no one else in my life. And I'm completely the same. I would stay single. I've tried enough before and I know it can not get any better.

Barbara: That's a great feeling. And by no means everyone in life finds that.

Roland: Do you remember when we had this event together with 200 manager types? Testosterone-charged guys, you in the middle of it, and then you realize that we're really descended from monkeys. How do you women just hold such a thing?

Barbara: I'm rather Teflon-coated. If they behave like monkeys, I can laugh about it. Are there actually other things that you realize are: This is over, that will not happen again?

Roland: Except that, contrary to my original plan, I'm definitely not going to be an ice hockey pro: not that I know. With you?

Barbara: What I feel with a certain melancholy, without it makes me sad: life is not so open. I do not drive with a few people haphazardly on vacation, which was great in the past. And I'd like to be 17 again to do things for the first time. Not just sex. But for the first time vacation without parents. Driving for the first time. With a youthful untouchedness discover things that are taken for granted today. I think it's a shame to have the knowledge that I can not reproduce the previous one.

Roland: Is that the flip side of our experienced, happy life? That we are dull for the amazement of the youth?

Barbara: Looks that way.

No, again 17, no need, thanks.

Roland: Hm. But I do not think I want that either anymore. No, again 17, no need, thanks.

Barbara: Only if I am guaranteed that I will come out right now.

Roland: What about the other end of life? When are you going to retire?

Barbara: Interesting question. I still remember the generation of my grandparents. They retired at the age of 65 and that's when the waiting for death began. These sections? Childhood, work, pension, death? there is no more. Life, youth, adulthood, work, leisure? it all merges into me, as if life is a long colorful timeline.

Roland: I just think: If I do not have a mid-life crisis, I will not retire. I can not imagine that someday I will not do anything.

Barbara: I know what you mean. Just sitting at home and watching the nails grow, no, I can not. Before that happens, I'll open a small flower shop somewhere. And there I stand day by day, now with a gray hair putt on my head and really deep wrinkles on my face.

Roland: Exactly. There is no end to anything, because work and life are not separate for me. There is only one 24/7-Trettl, and he is always private and always at work.

© Barbara & Roland / Barbara Digital

3 Still Standing | KQED Truly CA (May 2024).