I am turning 45 this month. Fuck.

Mid-Life Crisis Checklist:

Subject matter of chats with girlfriends goes from things like freaking out because the period is late and getting felt up to discussions about menopause and mammograms. Check.

And, further, the "girl’s night out" girl-talk goes from complaints about not being able to go anywhere near the boyfriend without him getting a major boner to your girlfriends mentioning that they are going on anti-depressants because he cannot get it up. Check.

Question every decision you have made since the age of 20. Decide that you may have fucked up some stuff. Check.

Wistfully daydream about the boyfriend--circa 1980s--who ripped your heart out of your body and threw it against a brick wall before stomping it into a lifeless, bloody, pulpy puddle of agony and despair. God, he was SO hot. Check.

Realize that if you have grey hairs on your head you probably have them other places too but decide to remain in denial and do not look. Check.

Notice that your parents look OLD. Notice that your child/children look OLD. Check.

Realize that your kid(s) could survive just fine if you dropped dead tomorrow. Because you could. But you have brought them this far, they will be okay. Check.

Go to the store dressed like a chronically mentally ill homeless woman and don’t give a shit in spite of the horror you inflict on your child/children/spouse. Check.

Vehemently remind your child/children that you WERE VERY COOL once upon a time, dammit. Check.

Have too much to drink at your sister-in-law’s 40th birthday party and shamelessly flirt with your older brother’s best friend, Scott, whom you had a huge crush on in 1977. Make sure you do this in front of Scott's wife, by the way, who REALLY looks old. Feel no remorse about this because he acted like you didn't even exist in high school and now he is panting like a moose in heat and checking you out in your tight jeans. When he responds enthusiastically, suddenly realize that you are tired and no longer give a shit even though he looked really hot in a Speedo 29 years ago. Go pass out in your six-year-old niece’s four-poster pink & white princess bed and wake up the next day with a gauzy canopy panel stuck to your face from all the drooling. Check.

Realize that your parents have way-fewer years ahead of them than they do behind them. Feel very sad about this. Then realize that they have 10-times more crap and tchotchkes crammed into their house than you do in yours and have a panic attack thinking about what to do with all that stuff. Look in the Yellow Pages for estate sale brokers. Check.

Steal your kid’s Clearasil because on top of everything else, you are getting fucking zits again. Check.

While in the car-pool line at your child’s school, fantasize about burning the house down and running away to live in a big sunny apartment in New York City with the insurance money. By yourself. Okay, maybe with the 1980s boyfriend. If he grovels enough and agrees to give you backrubs on demand for life. Check.

Compulsively surf the Internet looking at “Before” and “After” boob-lift pictures on plastic surgery Web sites. Give your husband a dirty look when porn site pop-ups geared toward breast-fetishists keep shooting all over the screen whenever the kid is playing mine-sweeper. Check.

Become weepy when having x-rays done because the x-ray tech did not give you a lead apron to protect your reproductive organs nor did he even ask if there is a possibility that you may be pregnant because you realize that he has noticed that you look old and hag-like and obviously barren and are probably not getting laid. Give him a hateful glare when he tells you to “hold your breath, Ma’am.” Check.

While folding laundry, calculate the number of years until: (1) the kid(s) leave for college (2) the spouse is likely to drop dead from a massive coronary on the ninth hole, (3) the dog dies. Realize that freedom is much closer than you thought. You can almost taste it. Think that you are a horrible person who will burn in hell for all eternity for entertaining such thoughts. Check the plastic surgery Web site again. Boob lifts are expensive. Decide to purchase more life insurance for the spouse. Check.