Is there really such a thing as "midlife crisis"? I will be 40 in seven months and until recently it didn't bother me, but now I am feeling very depressed. I look in the mirror and see "old" and I don't like it. I think about where I am in my life in relation to my age and it makes me dissatisfied. How can I get through these feelings?

--Terri

Yes, there is such a thing as a mid-life crisis, and it isn't a purely 20th-century American problem. The medieval poet Dante wrote, "In the middle of the road of my life I awoke in a dark wood where the true way was wholly lost." He must have known firsthand the experience of dissatisfaction and confusion -- and the potential for change -- in mid- life.

The stereotype of the contemporary mid-life crisis is of a man running from the realities of aging by buying a new sports car, working out obsessively, and/or having an affair or dumping the mother of his children for a new "trophy wife." But women can have mid-life crises, too.

Mid-life soul-searching and life changes aren't always dramatic. They may manifest gradually. The children grow up, become more independent and depart the home for college or careers. A birthday or other occasion -- a high school or college reunion, for instance -- approaches and we began to reassess our lives, our bodies, our accomplishments ... and quite often will discover we're not where we expected or now want to be. One day we look in the mirror and wonder why our parents -- or grandparents -- are staring back at us.

How we get through these feelings? One way is to examine them and see if they're telling us anything important about ourselves and our lives. If we feel we haven't accomplished what we wanted to, perhaps it's time to make some changes, to do the thing -- or things -- we're yearning for. (I do NOT mean having an affair or abandoning the family and running off to Tahiti.)

If much of your identity and self-worth has hinged on youth and beauty, it may be time to develop other, richer dimensions of your self. If seeing gray hair or wrinkles in the mirror brings up issues about aging, it may be time to face them and work through them. Talk to or read about older women who are vital, strong, and beautiful in ways more diverse than those featured in fashion magazines. Surround yourself with images of women your age and older whom you respect. Consider joining or forming a support group of women also navigating the mid-life transition. You may very well find that once you get past the rocky beginning, the mid-life journey is rewarding in ways of which you never dreamed.