Diary of a Writer in Midlife Crisis

Sometimes, being a writer for money puts you in front of things you might not otherwise see.

Case in point: Last week, I was putting the finishing touches on a story for Bucks County Woman magazine. It’s a how-to for brides looking to get fit for their weddings. I interviewed a lot of people for the story. However, none made as big of an impression on me as did my very last interview—it was with a chiropractor (let’s call her Dr. G) who, along with her brother, runs a two-month wellness program (read intense) out of their Bucks County office.

When we spoke, I was just looking for a few quotables for my article, since Dr. G was my last interview, the story was due the next day, and I was already well through a first draft of it.

Little did I know, however, the association would provide me with much more than prose for my piece. Not right away, of course, because instant gratification isn’t my strong suit (for example, William Morris hasn’t called yet and I’m still not a supermodel).

What did happen immediately, however, was, a visceral dislike of Dr. G and her principles, despite the fact that I had never met her or them face to face. After all, she was confident if not defiant in her approach. For one, she insisted that we women only need 1,200 to 1,500 calories a day. That we have no idea how much we’re eating and that’s why we’re overweight. And, for another, we only need one serving of starch (i.e., bread, pasta, potato) every 24 hours. For the rest of our lives. That’s it.

The nerve of her, I thought during and after our conversation. If everything she says is true, it directly violates everything I NEED to believe.

For example, I can’t live on 1,200 calories a day. That doesn’t even begin to account for pizza (especially eaten whole) or dessert. And telling me I can only have one starch a day is like telling me I can only scream at the dogs once every 24 hours. Apply lip gloss once. Rearrange the pictures in the living room once. It's just not possible.

Is she nuts? Did she shoot up this morning? Is she hallucinating?

As if that weren’t bad enough, in the second half of our conversation, she suggested we women engage in interval training—like, four momentary wind sprints or something equally unpleasant in the context of a moderately strenuous 30 minutes of exercise. Which made me think: ye gads woman. How do you ever expect to stay in business?

As she went on and on, all I could think was how much I hated her. How her voice was like fingernails on a chalkboard—like Sol stopping to say hello while my dogs cut their teeth on the park’s metal trashcans. How I felt bad for the brides who would take my advice and enroll in her turbo-program for help getting into their wedding dresses.

How she had to be a descendent of Satan, disguised in fuller hair and a white lab coat.

Do no harm, my ass. You can’t fool me, Doc G, with your AMA code and your fancy words. Try to get one over, Karen B, I know you made out with Ricky M in the 10th grade, when he was my boyfriend and you were my best friend. I know it now and I knew it then. Word.

I’ve been around the block, as my mother likes to say, and I know better than to believe just anything anybody tells me about health and fitness.

And I know—the way you know that you’ll probably wait until the last minute to write that story, buy that airline ticket, and get out those thank-you notes—that even though my gently fortified Jenny Craig menu is working slowly, it's working. Sort of.

That even though my dear Jenny Craig counselor Bette has taken to saying, “You haven’t gained that much this week,” those words are better than anything spoken by the devil.

That promoting the twisted have-only-one-potato-in-all-of-summer-2008 philosophies of Dr. G could very well crush readers' hopes of laying on the sofa eating junk food and getting away with it ever again.

And yet, while Dr. G's is a dangerous and punitive message, I still had to report it. That's my job. So I grabbed for my second Jenny Craig brownie of the day and did it.

But I didn’t have to feel good about it.
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And then, just days after, with Mercury in Retrograde and Karma getting time and a half, Dan and I got in a car accident.

It happened on my niece Sloane’s birthday (hi Sloane – happy birthday sweetie!). We were driving home from a cake-and-coffee celebration at my brother’s house when a large oak tree, heaving with ice from the day’s sleet, dropped in front of us from out of nowhere.

With no time to brake or avoid it, our Honda Element jumped the trunk at 40 miles an hour. And like an ingenue in the automotive Cirque de Soleil, landed on the other side in one piece.

Tada!

After a few moments of just sitting there, I opened my eyes (because you’d have closed yours too) and noticed steam coming out of the front radiator. Dan turned off the ignition, which was somehow still running, and shifted towards me. I, on the other hand, clung to my crash position—sitting upright, back stiff as a brick against the seat, one hand clutching the door the other clutching a lipstick, looking straight ahead, wearing the same petrified look I do every week when I get on the scale for my beloved Bette.

“Oh my God,” he says. “One second faster, and we’d have been toast. That tree would’ve come right through our windshield.” I am silent. “There's a bigger plan for us, babe.”

“Cake,” I whisper.

“Did you say rake?”

All I could think about was how I didn’t have a piece of Sloane’s birthday cake. I was trying to “be good.” And look where it got me. I could’ve gone out--ended it all--on a 230-calorie frozen dinner.

“Babe, are you okay? Do you have a head injury?”

I look at him and then out the window. Traffic is stopped in both directions and a woman in a nightgown and a parka is running our way. She seems upset. “I CALLED 911. ARE YOU OKAY? IS ANYBODY HURT?”

“Her cable lines must’ve come down,” Dan says.

I look at him. I love him. I want cake.

They say when you look death in the face, a white light appears and your whole life flashes by you. Me? I saw creamy white frosting, an entire year of Jenny Craig frozen meals, and a closet full of jeans that are too tight on me to wear out of the bathroom.

It was enough to get me to do the unthinkable: Call Dr. G.

That’s right. You read correctly. I called her office to sign up for her program. Because, while I initially responded to her like somebody who’d been stung by a bee and gone into anaphylaxis shock, I knew that, at the heart of it, she is right.

What she was saying about losing weight and getting fit, hardcore as it is, is right. On the money. Bullseye. In the dead center of true.

And perfect for helping someone like me: desperate.

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So I call to schedule my spot in the program and Dr. G's husband, a corporate America refugee, answers. And we get to chatting. Turns out, he's been through the program himself. Lost 45 pounds during and 40 pounds after. And since then, has become a personal trainer and salesperson who works with program participants.

I tell him how I'm at my wit's end. I need help.

So he tells me the story of how and why he decided to do the program. Apparently, he was coaching his kids, then in little league, when he remembered how his father coached him. And how, when he was 12, he died on the field from a heart attack.

It was a powerful and moving story. And so I thought about my own. Have I resorted to this boot-campy extreme because I thought of cake before my family when faced with my own mortality? Then I realized, no. It was deeper than that.

So, after some meditation, I finally tell him the reason why I'm doing it: "I just want to be hot.”

After all, when you’re in the vortex of a mid-life crisis, as I am, really, you just want to figure out how to get back to your youth – when you were, well, young and your metabolism was lot faster and nobody talked to you about menopause and you didn’t get applications in the mail for the AARP and you weren’t so obsessed with shrinking.

When possibility had no limits in terms of not only eating, but writing and dreaming.

When you were hot—or at least as hot as you were ever gonna be, whether you realized it back then or not.

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And so, like the car accident, once again, the universe gave me a sign—only this time, that aiming for hotness was the right motivation. Or perhaps, the best motivation. At least in this moment.

Yesterday, we celebrated Hanukah in lieu of Christmas at my parents' house (since we hadn't been able to get together until then). My mom made a big dinner and after, my snoopy sister-in-law-to-be-someday found an old picture of me that my parents had hidden on their bookshelves.

“Is this you?” she asks, passing around the photo, her disbelief palpable.

I look at the picture when it finally makes its way to where I'm sitting. It’s me alright, in my 20s, with long hair—the longest I ever remember it—wearing a halter top, black tights, and an open button-down jersey top that says "Margate" in big black letters.

I’m smiling. And why not? I’m a size 8. Tops. And HOT. Truly hot. Objectively hot. Even though, back then, I was convinced otherwise.

I make the mistake of putting the picture down, when my sis-to-be sends it back around, like a five-year-old on a Merry Go Round. Like it was a video she'd taken of George Bush being dropped into an active volcano.

“WOW,” Dan says, eyes popping out of his head. “Look at that hair.”

Look at it. “I’m so young there.” I want to die. Or at least vomit. Or at least eat the pie on the table with a spatula.

My father laughs. “Welcome to middle age!”

I shoot him a dirty look and am suddenly depressed. So much so, that not even the 12 green slotted spoons and plastic cutting board my brother and sis-to-be got me for the holiday could cheer me up.

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Fortunately, I am married to a man who sees beyond the physical. Not that I need outside validation but, okay, last night, yeah, I did.

As we drove home from my parents house in our rented PT Cruiser (since our Element is STILL in the shop), I recount to my husband how despondent I am over that picture.

"But why," he says, "you're still beautiful."

"Not like that! C'mon, admit it." I point to my pocketbook, where I put the picture so I remember to burn it in the morning, when I look for my cell phone and find it there.

"Honey, I fell in love with you," he says. "Not that girl in the picture. YOU."

But I AM the girl in the picture. We're all the girl in the picture. Or the guy. And I know that we all want to do our best. I do too. I don't expect to ever go out in public in a spandex halter ever again, but I do expect to be an older version of someone I'm proud of.

And so, bring it on Dr. G. I'm more than ready. Just watch me.

Until next time.