Diary of a Writer in Midlife Crisis

In just a few short weeks, I’m going to turn 45. And while that may not be “old” to some people, it’s the oldest I’ll ever be. And as a result, I feel, well, old.

You know, my niece-is-going-to-college-next-year-my-husband-is-old-enough-for-a-colonoscopy-I-need-a-mammogram-and-a-fresh-set-of-tweezers-a-month old.

It doesn’t help that, at this age, married life is stressful and complex. Not that I’m complaining. I love being married—the commitment of a life together. And the joy of having the right partner. It really is awesome.

It’s just all the flotsam that comes with a joined life that can be exhausting—stepchildren and lawyers. A mutual bathroom. Realizing a collective set of dreams.

The expectation that, now married, you’re grown up enough to, say, host Thanksgiving dinner and, beyond that, be the bigger person—whether it’s your fault or not.

Add to that, the sometimes desperate writing for dollars, rising fuel costs, dieting for naught, dry skin issues, a revolving door of house guests (albeit beloved), the holidays, two shelter dogs, and the constant need to pack 10 pounds of potatoes into a five-pound sack and what do you get: Old. Aching bones. Torn muscles.

Mall brain.

I don’t like it for the obvious reasons. But also because feeling old distracts me from negotiating all I want to do in this second act of life. Like finish a book proposal and then a book and then find my way to the New York Times bestseller list. And stay there.

Or just keep up with the massive growth of new chin hairs and mind-bending versions of Microsoft Office (yep, Vista, I'm talkin' to you).

And yet, since I’m not one to sit around and let the ravages of time eat away at my flesh like a vicious strain of e-coli, the other day I decided to soothe myself with a haircut. And, while at the salon, book a massage and a facial for the day of my birthday.

What the heck. I know one facial ain’t gonna erase the parentheses starting to form just under my nostrils, but denial truly is the most beautiful gift one can give to oneself.

And, hey, I deserve it.

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After Cheyenne rids me of two solid inches of frizz, I approach the 22-year-old 125-pound receptionist with hair like French tassles and skin like a fresh bottle of Windex to book my other treatments. I tell her I want a Swedish massage and a triple-duty facial. To which, she says, “Time to get that glow back, huh?”

What is this an interrogation?

“Please. I’m not that optimistic,” I say, rummaging through my pocketbook for my credit card. “I’m just trying to stay off the slinky going down.” And it’s true, I’m starting to think that what I’ve already got is possibly the best I can hope for.

She and the other anatomically-correct receptionist who's now joined her behind the desk smile politely. Still, I know what they’re thinking. Thank God I’m not as old as she is. So I allow myself the quiet consolation of knowing that someday they, too, will be old like me, exhaustion and dry skin sneaking up on them like a pair of anorexic joggers.

I know, that’s kind of mean spirited. But I can’t help it. I’m too tired to be contrite about my jealousy.

Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I’m happy about it. I’m not. Who wants to be so exhausted anyway? To have to drop on the couch with a steaming cup of Swiss Hazelnut once Oprah comes on at 4 o’clock every day? To wake up without ever feeling fully rested, despite three consecutive cups of French Roast (brought to her, I might add, by her saintly husband and inhaled like a triple-play of fine whiskey)?

As if general poopedness isn't bad enough, I’m losing my vigor for the one thing I could always count on—vanity. Yet, as the years pass, I'm growing lax about moisturizing, painting my toenails, plucking my eyebrows, everything.

In fact, I’m starting to question what it all means anyway?

Why just the other day, I was watching Oprah, who did an entire show on what not to wear. It was the do’s and don’ts of, among other things, bras, blue jeans, and shoes. At every age, no less.

As I watched, I couldn't help but wonder, “When I’m lying on my deathbed, looking back at my life, will I really feel bad about wearing too much blush? Too few low-rise boot cuts?”

Which then brought me to the question of what I would be thinking about, which is probably, sadly, food. And wishing I’d had more of it. Which, of course, makes me hungry. (Leading to, naturally, too many pretzels and the dreaded carbohydrate coma. Not good.)

As if my longing for carbs, my chipped nails, and consistently dry T-zone aren’t enough, I’m cranky. Once a week I accuse my husband of not putting his dishes in the sink, not telling me I’m a hottie, or asking me to stop dieting because I’m simply looking too thin.

Men just don’t get it. The way to keep us aging females happy is to buy us flowers—as many as you can find and for every occasion, even Columbus Day—and LIE.

Especially to those of us who are sluggish and on the precipice of 45.

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That said, my crankiness is not confined to the family. Why, just the other day, I was out walking the dogs, when an older gentleman approached us with what looked like a puppy Golden Retriever. Before he got too close, I did what I always do when I see other dogs coming and want to avoid a Michael Vick: I pull my eager and sometimes-temperamental dogs off to the side of the trail and make them sit until the other dogs and their owners pass us.

Unfortunately, this man, let’s call him Sol , decides that instead of passing, he’ll stop right in front of us to chat about his new puppy. All while my dogs re-enact the Pearl Harbor scene in Saving Private Ryan.

“Hey, yeah, my dog’s a puppy,” Sol says, oblivious to my dogs going ballistic. “Only six months. Cute, huh?”

“WHAT?” I shout to be heard over the barking, groping their leashes like a rescue swimmer attached to a rope and a helicopter. “SHUT UP YOU TWO. HEAL!@”

Is Sol blind? Can he not see the foam starting to form on Winnie’s mouth?

While his puppy calmly sniffs his shoe, he says something else, but I can't hear him. So, instead, I curse him to Hades. And promise God I’ll never eat a whole pizza again if he drop kicks Sol to the other side of the park—and quickly.

After a few more minutes, my dogs are in two-part bad harmony, barking and shrieking like they’re being skinned alive. I’m doing all I can to hold them back, knowing that it won't be long before my wrist snaps off my forearm like a twig.

While I still have some use of my hands, I string Elvis up by his prong collar to try to get him quiet. Instead he squeals like a pair of faulty brakes on an 18 wheeler. Fortunately, Winnie stops barking, but only long enough to snarl, bare her incisors, and generate a noise that would’ve made an effective soundtrack to The Exorcist.

I don't know how much longer I'm going to be able to hold on to them. And yet, there Sol stands. Oblivious. Like somebody who has no idea he's walked onto the stage in the middle of the play--with toilet paper on his shoe, no less.

I, on the other hand, now highly agitated like my dogs, am worried about the legal ramifications of unleashing a spontaneous running of the canines. And going from cranky to angry. Until finally, while I still have some feeling in my thumbs and forefingers, say this:

“MOTHER OF GOD ARE YOU BLIND HOW LONG DO YOU EXPECT ME TO KEEP THESE WRETCHED BEASTS FROM TURNING YOU INTO CHOPPED SIRLOIN??”

Sol looks at me as if I’ve just told him his dog is really a cow. And with a “Harumph” I can actually hear, he marches off, shaking his head, and muttering to himself.

I stand there, waiting for my animals to reground themselves in good behavior and the feeling to return to my hands. Sure, I feel bad about yelling and good riddens goodnight Sol simultaneously.

Which brings me to another byproduct of aging. Confusion.

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At this point, it’s not only emotions I’m grappling with, but the disheartenment I feel in response to my being doomed to this size 12 body until they drop me in the dirt. If I’m LUCKY, that is, a slowing peri-menopausal metabolism notwithstanding.

What I would give for just one two-pound weight loss in a week at Jenny Craig just so I can say, before I die, that I’ve had the experience. I’d also like an Egg Nog latte with no after-effects, but I now know that both are about as likely as my husband’s ex-wife calling to say how much she likes me.

It ain’t happenin.

See, because while some people have human stalkers, I am being stalked by my own flesh. It simply won’t go away.

Never was that clearer than the other night, when after two solid months of dieting, I lay belly up on the bed, trying to button the jeans I’ve had for a year. The task had me sweating, belting out an acid-rock rendition of four-letter expletives that required my husband and stepdaughter to evacuate the building.

Albeit temporarily.
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After finally resorting to a pair of black pants with stretch, Dan, C and I leave to meet my best friend Lorrie and her family for a night of burgers (salad for me, of course, sans dressing, cheese, olives, chick peas, avocado, and anything with flavor) and bowling. Once there, the situation gets immediately worse.

See Lorrie just lost 26 easy pounds (that she didn’t need to lose, by the way) on Weight Watchers. Easy in the sense that she went on a diet and, lo and behold, her body shrunk.

Imagine that.

“Hey,” she says, pulling me to the side once we arrive. “Check this out.” She pushes her coat aside to reveal the tag on a new pair of jeans. They’re a size two.

A SIZE TWO. I look at her, as if she just unveiled a penis.

“I know, can you believe it? I saved the tag,” she says, “because I wanted to show it to the one person who’d understand.”

Oh, I understand all right. I understand that I could starve myself from now until the winner of the 2008 presidential election is sworn into office, and still never be a size two.

I could go off into the wild, like Alexander Supertramp, and die on the vine. And, then, when they find me months later and wrap a tape measure around my decomposing body, I’d still be solid size 10. Okay, maybe an eight. But a size two? No way.

No friggin way.

So I say, “That’s great, Lor. Must be nice.” What a crappy friend I am, so sarcastic and bitter. And really, I hate myself for it.

Yet, I want to cry. From why-not-me-what-about-me-why-is-it-easy-for-everybody-else frustration that really has nothing to do with Lorrie.

I want to drop to the floor, right there in front of the teenyboppers in their painted-on denim who are the Saturday night mall crowd at Dave and Buster’s, and swim a hysterical freestyle on the dirty carpet.

“I know, it’s frustrating, Jill. I’m sorry,” Lorrie says, her goodness making my badness even uglier. To make matters worse, she puts her arm around me in comfort. Around cranky, hungry, tired, lay-down-and-die-I-no-longer-get-vanity, dry me.

Even though, I really don’t deserve it.

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Now I know what you’re thinking. The same thing I thought the entire way through reading “Angela’s Ashes” by Frank McCourt. Please, good God, let something GOOD happen to this man. And in his book nothing does.

But in my blog, well, all is not lost. See I did manage to buckle up that night and bowl a solid 63. Enjoy myself. Get some of my fighting spirit back. And learn an important lesson through the allegorical experience of sport.

After my mini meltdown, Lorrie encouraged me to take my frustration out on the lanes and throw the ball as if it were nine pounds of fat from behind my thighs going into a big dark hole. Never to find its way back again.

And so I did, which manifested into a series of gutter balls. To which Lorrie’s husband Frank said, “Do you want us to put up the bumpers?” He points to his kids (11 and 14 respectively) and Dan. “We’re all using them. It’s okay, really.”

What a bunch of wussies.

I look at Lorrie, who shakes her head “no” and gives me a you-can-do-anything smile. And she's right.

“No thank you Frank. I think I can manage without the bumpers. After all, I’m almost 45 now.”

It was then I decided that if all I could muster up, for now, were gutter balls, well then, so be it. They’d be the best gutter balls this side of state lines.

Instead of trying to fight them, I’d embrace them. Use them to practice my swing. Find grounding in consistency. Remind myself that there's always room for improvement and that's a good thing.

That gutter balls, like the birthdays and exhaustion and being crabby and lacking moisture and suffering from the clawing feeling of time, don’t define me.

I get to do that.
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Here's how: Today, I found my way into the Gap looking for a little something to take the edge off. I picked up a few scarves and a cream-colored cable knit sweater and took them into the dressing room.

Cable knit isn’t always so flattering when you have robust biceps (she says, diplomatically), but I went for it anyway. And as I stood there, in front of the mirror, pulling the thick woolen material over the chubby arms I inherited from my favorite grandmother, I looked in my own eyes and said this:

Jill, this is it. Never mind losing weight, gaining weight, getting taller, shorter, thinner, dumber, or smarter. This is it. This is you. And it’s good. It’s all good. Time to embrace it. There’s no time left to be so selective and precise. It’s half gone. This life. Getting shorter. So just shove it all into your grab bag and run. Step into 45 with a renewed sense of vigor and joy. And love yourself. Already. It's time.

And by the way, you look great in that sweater.

Until next time.