Life on Life's Terms

I just saw the Sex In the City movie and it reminded me of when I moved to New York. I was one of those girls who moved to New York City in my 20's and didn't know that I went there to fall in love. I was already in love with the City, my life as a groovy college graduate who knew her way around the beer-soaked floors of punk clubs, the locations of the after hours places, and (horrors) Studio 54 even. I had wild and shameless ambition. Film degree in hand, I knew I was as brilliant as my hero Woody Allen, as soulful as my other idol Werner Herzog, and young and gorgeous enough to snare a similarly interesting man. It's 25 years later and life didn't quite pan out that way...and that movie made me wistful for that youth that seemed to last for ever and seemingly disappeared overnight. I would be lying if I said my life was anything like any of those super successful & moneyed gals from SITC. I was a tosspot, scared to death at my low paying secretarial job of my overbearing Portugese boss who was running God knows what kind of racket. After work I raced down to the Irish bar after work on Madison Avenue, drinking & gabbing with the barmen & guys in suits, and occasionally sharing a cab back to Queens with one of the random suits and cavorting around into the wee hours on a work night in some sad attempt at what I thought was intimacy. My sexual adventures weren't all pretty & romantic like the SITC girls: I was usually in a blackout & tweaked out of my gourd when half-hearted attempts at passion began at around 4:00am; and luckily  one or both parties were so out of it nothing happened. Act two started when I slinked out at dawn in my ripped fishnets and shaking hands to find the street sign that told me how much cab fare I was going to have to come up with to get home - was I way uptown or in the village? I can remember one time when I had to take the subways, going home to Queens against the morning rush hour traffic. I hadn't been to sleep yet, I was wearing stiletto pumps, and had lost my hose, my dress was real short and I was sitting  on the N train, feeling the eyes of folks who'd probably just gotten off of their grueling night shift jobs, staring at me like I was a hooker, or some privileged brat who didn't have to work. I remember feeling very ashamed and tried to push my feet under the seat to hide my legs. Almost worse was the half mile walk back to my apt from the train stop, hobbling in my cheap pumps, shaking from too many chemicals in my underweight body, sticking out like a sore thumb in this dowdy Jewish neighborhood I lived in, probably looking very pale & German (I was almost 6 feet tall in my pumps). I couldn't wait to get to my bed in my basement apartment and "recover" from my "night out" which had been about two or 3 nights. This was my life for 1 1/2 years in NY. I had no direction, my jobs were getting worse, I had a crazy banker/mama's boy boyfriend, and I fantasized about going to Ireland or grad school, or back to Austin or anything to get out of a poverty/drinking rut in a residential neighborhood far from the City.

25 years later I have had some amazing adventures. I no longer drink or awaken staring at an unknown ceiling. I look remarkably good for my age. I have travelled a bit & get to do some awesome yoga & painting retreats, with a ski week thrown in for pure challenge. I hate heat & sun & still dream of moving to Ireland, but now I know it is possible...some of my biggest dreams have come true. I have taken some big risks. My life is becoming more unconventional each day. The greatest thing about getting older is you no longer stop yourself from doing the things you really want to do. Life is either a daring adventure or it is nothing!

Are You Somebody?

I've been reading Nuala O'Faolain again..if you haven't read her she is the voice for the intelligent middle-aged childless (I prefer "childfree" instead but respect other's inclinations about the condition)...and even when she is not writing about her own personal experience (exquisite, rapturous passages about loneliness and longing) as she is not in "Chicago May", her brilliant voice in support of all women, oppressed, empowered, or in between is clear and true. Because even if we are empowered to the point of having rich lives and free of dependency on a man, we carry the oppression of the ghosts of our female ancestors - some as recent as our own mothers. And these ghosts can make us doubt the path we have chosen (or did It chose us?) What a state to be in - I read her two memoirs back to back & reread so many of the passages that rang true in my own life: the ache of knowing there will be no child to nurture (even though one was never desired), the competency one needs when travelling alone, the surprising capacity for immature & inappropriate romantic relationships that are no more evolved than those we had when we were nineteen. The horror of obsession, when all other aspects of life seem manageable. Nuala is Irish, so she has perhaps more hostile layers to confront as an independent woman than say, me, who grew up in the States in the 60's and 70's, but her poetic and searing insights of her personal experience speak to our unique demographic, so I'm left thinking this blog may be left unneeded because of her. She's already written equisitely about our unique set of cirmstances.

But maybe there's more to discover/uncover about us. I am a bit younger, an American girl not weighted with old ideas of religion and a woman's "place." Also, though I am accomplished in several arenas of life, am not the gorgeous artist she is - so have to live with my awkward, patched-together, adventure mixed with idle-self-pity-periods self. The title of this post is the also the title of her first memoir - one that should be required reading for us middle aged chicks who are walking a road less travelled. A road with no signs but also no rules. A road that we are utterly free to build to any sort of life that we wish.

To Be Old is To Be New Again

Ah the luxury of an anonymous blog! I am middle aged, and stricken by how young and hip I still feel or think I am. When I was in my 20's I thought of someone my age as decrepit, asexual, crickly, on their way out. I feel bursting with romantic desires and unfulfilled passions - I have had many adventures encompassing the world travel, sexual and chemical experimentation realm, but nothing prepared me for the vast open space of middle age. Without all those neurotic habits to occupy my time I find I can recreate my life (again). The capacity for human renewal amazes me: I'm near 50 and feel like I'm just getting started in some areas. The title of this blog is fetching, no? It came upon me during the many hours I have spent pondering the unique demographic I'm in (single, childfree, still foxy, not young). I was searching for a forum for other women like me to bond in and share ideas. A lot of stuff geared for women my age is too yuppie and those glossy magazines like "More" feel like they are playing it too safe for me. I wanted something more punk rock because that is what I was 30 years ago when it began. I ride a motorcycle and had put on my helmet one day and before I got on the bike I came back into the house and forgot what I came in for and sat down to look at something my roommate was watching on TV. He said, "dude, why are you watching TV in your helmet!" And I thought about the visual of me sitting on a couch in a half shell watching PBS news hours with my skull print sox on and the words "menopause helmet" were uttered from my lips. I thought it was funny and needs no explaining. If your in my demographic and "More" is too coddling and "Bust" is too young, gimme something - tawk to me...