Torschlusspanik
We are moving back to Ireland, after 14 years away. Perhaps I might be permitted some Torschlusspanik?
In Edouard Roditi’s Dialogues, painter Oskar Kokoschka talks about this curious German word, defined by him as the “panic that breaks out before the closing of a door”
Given its usefully precise meaning, the word has been used in English on occasion: the OED records the following instances:
1963 P. Bracken I Hate to Housekeep Bk. ix. 92: The random housewife is often prone to Torschlusspanik, or fear of being locked in the park at night, after the gates are closed.
1977 Time 8 Aug. 21/3: She was haunted by Torschluss-panik (mid-life crisis).
1980 Times Lit. Suppl. 14 Mar. 287/2: Mme de Staël is perhaps history’s most outstanding case of Torschlusspanik: the panic at the shutting of the door.
and our lexicographer ventures beyond the painter to offer a more metaphorical definition:
Torschlusspanik [Ger., lit. ‘shut door (or gate) panic’] A sense of alarm or anxiety (said to be experienced particularly in middle age) caused by the suspicion that life’s opportunities are passing (or have passed) one by; spec. that manifested in an ageing woman who longs to (re)discover the (sexual) excitement of youth, and who fears being left ‘on the shelf’.
Either way, the door closes in two weeks…
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