I’ve been waiting for my true mid-life crisis to begin for the better part of a decade.
Now, at the age of 48, I think it’s finally reared its ugly head.
On the bright side, this presages a death at the age of 96, which is a pretty good run. (95 year old me violently disagrees. Look for his comment below in 2072.)
It’s a also bit frustrating.
My Bowling History
I bowled in my hometown league from second grade through high school on Saturday afternoons. In college, I bowled in the extracurricular league on Thursday nights.
I was never too serious about competitions. My high school didn’t have a bowling program at that point, nor did my college. So I didn’t get the benefit of serious coaching or youth competition.
I bowled for fun, and I was pretty decent at it. I got my average up over 170, basically, with occasional reaches over 200.
Signs at the alley would point to scratch leagues and tournaments, but I never took them seriously. That was for those other serious people who knew what they were doing. I pieced together a bowling style from trying little things I learned watching ABC Wide World of Sports on Saturday afternoons growing up, or later on ESPN on Sundays.
I didn’t bowl in a league after college, though I did go to the alley for an hour on the occasional Sunday morning for practice/fun. The $14/hour charge was a good deal.
I joined a league again with a friend from work a few years later, and bowled there for four or five years. The league broke up, however, when the rumors of the alley’s closure got too loud. Its participants scattered out to three or four other alleys. The rest of my team lived closest to the alleys furthest away from me. That, combined with the fact that I was about to have my first child, meant that I decided to take some time off from bowling to see where life went. (And, yes, the alley did close mid-way through the next season. It became Yet Another Gym that, itself, has since closed.)
15 Years Later…
Last year, I dove into the world of bowling on the internet. I discovered a treasure trove of podcasts and YouTube channels.
I found out that the world of bowling had turned upside down in my absence. The generation of bowlers I learned from now made up the senior tour (PBA50). Two handed bowling went from a curiousity that a couple of people did occasionally when last I watched the PBA tour regularly, to something that has taken over the sport. League bowlers have an “arsenal” now and 800 series and 300 games are commonplace.
As with so many other sports, power started winning over shot making. Everything got more expensive. Equipment started to take over the game.
Someone on Reddit recently whined that it took him a whole 8 months from the time he started bowling until his first 300 game. (I bowled a 277 once and still have the dot matrix-printed score sheet to prove it.)
Is this the world we live in now?
However…
I’m hooked. I missed so much, but I want to bowl again. I want to pick up where I left off, dust off the cobwebs, learn from all the incredible resources that are available to me now, and be competitive. I want to be so good that I could bowl a scratch tournament, even.
I spent a few hours this past spring piecing together some practice time to see if I could figure out a two-handed style. It’s rough, but I’m sure I could figure it out with some serious practice.
My bowling shoes still work and don’t need replacing. My current ball is probably 20 years old and doesn’t fit my thumb after a game of swelling. I need a new one, for sure, but I’m not sure whether it would be drilled with or without a thumb hole.
But… I’m 48. I just lost 15 years, some of which (my entire 30s) should have been my prime bowling years. Can I catch up on lost time quickly? Even if I could, I’m so old now that I couldn’t qualify for a PBA card until I’m old enough to be on the PBA50 tour. I’d have maybe a decade of competitive time left to me before age catches up and things start to fall apart. Trust me, that process started at 40 already.
(I use the PBA as a convenient point of reference. I know you can compete on other levels. Though a PBA card would be cool…)
I’d like to restart today, but time and money are two things in short supply. Weaving bowling back into my life would not be easy, and trying to get enough practice in to get better would be difficult.
Did I blow it completely? Am I only realizing it now, when I’m too old to start? What was I thinking for the past 15 years?
And what is the meaning of life?
As a mid-life crisis, bowling is still cheaper than buying a convertible, but not by much after you add up all the bowling balls you need to drill and you pay for the time on the lanes.
What is it that old people do that I should be doing instead? Gardening? Bocce? Early morning mall walks? Drive a Buick?
And no, not Pickleball.
I miss bowling and I’m mad at myself for missing bowling for 15 years. I never should have left, and now it feels like I lost too much time.
I’m going to be a mess on my 50th birthday, aren’t I?
