Traditionally, if perhaps erroneously, our idea of a midlife crisis has long involved an older man leaving behind his home and family life for a red sports car, a too-young girlfriend, and perhaps some kind of hair dye, if not a hairpiece. This midlife crisis means trading away the parts of one’s life for something newer and younger. The only thing this archetypal man can’t trade in, of course, are the years he’s already lived.

In reality, that kind of implosion fantasy doesn’t resonate with many people. No one wants to be the guy who can’t see his own desperation, flailing against his own mortality. If a guy is indeed that guy, he wouldn’t allow himself to realize it. And it especially doesn’t ring true to millennials, now entering their 40s, the time when issues of having lived half your life traditionally start to arise. This is a generation that often can’t afford the home or family life to throw away, never mind the new sports car; one that grew up hyperconscious about mental health and the benefits of therapy, encouraged self-expression and open discussion about relationships, and found value in experiences.

Millennial lives don’t look like boomer or even Gen X lives, and neither do their midlife crises.

While in years past the midlife crisis might have been fueled by a dawning reaction to one’s own mortality, for new 40-somethings, it’s more like a progress report. For one thing, the stability that previous generations found stifling can be hard to find. Many are looking for an opportunity — a fitness journey, a new career, a personal awakening that might involve tattoos — instead of something necessitating an intervention.

What remains, however, is that creeping reality that we only have one life to live. It can’t help but feel a little like dying.

Fully understanding the midlife crisis means deconstructing the ideas about what it looks like. Which is to say: The rug-wearing, skirt-chasing, Lamborghini jerk we all know and fear was always largely a myth.

“The thing about those stereotypes is that they’re not actually very common. People don’t actually abandon their spouses and buy red sports cars because of a midlife crisis,” says Hollen Reischer, a professor at the University at Buffalo who studies how people find meaning in their life experiences.

Though Reischer assures me that there are no historic statistics that show a spike in red sports car purchases with a direct relationship to divorce rates, she explains that the urban legend is important for a different reason. Midlife crisis stereotypes like that guy or, as Reischer points out, the fear-mongering myth of the menopausal woman condemned to a life waving off hot flashes in front of her fridge allow us to project and obliquely explore our fears of getting older. Those include fears about how we’re perceived and what we might lose along with our youth: beauty, value, potential, health.

We know how we don’t want to age, but aren’t totally sure how we do.

To some degree, that’s the problem Sam, 42, is facing. In the last four years, Sam — who Vox is referring to by a pseudonym so she can speak frankly about her experience — has come out as bisexual, changed careers, and gotten a bunch of tattoos.

But the changes in her life weren’t always welcome. During the pandemic lockdowns, her marriage ended, and she was laid off from her job, prompting these larger shifts.

Sam describes changes in her life — a new relationship with a woman, a more secure job that doesn’t make her feel........

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