From the hugely respected journalist Miranda Sawyer, a very modern look at the mid-life crisis – delving into the truth, and lies, of the experience and how to survive it, with thoughtfulness, insight and humour.`The mid-life crisis. We know the symptoms. We laugh about them. But should we? In a society obsessed with youth – with its culture, its looks, its values, its sexual habits – it is hard to admit that you’re middle-aged and uneasy about it. Scared, even.My mid-life crisis began when I was 44, as a sort of queasiness. I felt uncomfortable, as though I had the wrong coat on: too hot, too heavy. I felt, too, as though I was missing something. Not missing out. But missing: mourning the loss of something – a person? a place? – that was once there, but had gone, slipped through my fingers. Days would whizz past – weeks, months – and yet it seemed only yesterday that I was 29. Perhaps, at this point, I should have upped and left the family for a Portuguese waiter I met on holiday with the girls. But I didn’t want to leave my husband. I like my husband. And my kids.What I wanted, of course, was time. Because the one thing a mid-life crisis highlights is the fact that your end-life crisis is not far away. In fact, it’s rushing at me at breakneck speed, knocking me down with its force.’