Burst Point

B and I go back to college days and I would could her among my closest friends. Midlife crisis has come to our lives at different times and ironically, it has not helped us to support each other any better. When it was my turn a few years ago, I did what I always do in times of stress and trouble - I made several radical changes to my already complicated life almost to see at what point I would burst. It is only by providence that I managed to get out of all that mess mostly intact. That was my way, or if one believes there is no such thing as free will, then it was what was destined for me. In the case of B, she made hard choices much earlier in life - a few years after graduating from college, that set the tone for how the rest of her life would shape up to be. 

Unlike most young people who march fearlessly in the direction of their dreams and don't let minor obstacles bother them until age and disappointment take their toll, B was an old soul who saw things differently. Most dreams were culled as soon as they came to be - B did not want to pursue anything that she was not fully confident about. In your early twenties, such things tend to be few and far between. But that is how she chose and today she is experiencing an existential crisis. All at once, she has regressed to the time before dream-slaying began. The things that could have been had they moved by an hour or an inch, the things that should have never been also for those reasons. There is no time for a do-over anymore. B has chosen to keep to herself and try and make sense of whatever she is feeling. She is unwilling or unable to share. This is her way to doing everything she can to see when she will burst.