When Things Fall Apart

One of the coolest things about getting older is that things that used to piss me off so much either don't anymore, or I can let them go easier. What I've realized is that my brain has to work so hard to remember things and learn stuff that used to come easy to me, that I am more unwilling to use valuable brain power to obsess over something I'm upset over that is usually none of my business anyway. When I think about when I was in my 20's my mind (& consequently, my life) were like that ball in a pinball machine, just tossed from one place to another without any sort of control over myself. I was highly responsible & competent in work, etc, but my emotional life was a war zone. I was so unaware that my thoughts ran my life that I was consumed with changing everything on the outside in an attempt to have some sort of sanity. I thought it was my job or my boyfriend or my family that was upsetting me, and it has taken me about 20 years of hard work to get to a point where I actually can pause after an "upset" and make a choice about how, or even if, I'll respond. This is miraculous. I don't have this ability in every area, but to have it at all is something I am deeply greatful for - and something I worked very hard for. I did not work for it out of pride or fear of looking bad or external approval - I worked for it because I as in so much fucking pain. And this time instead of treating that pain with my usual tools of self destruction (which had stopped working,) I turned, or was rather forced, onto a new path.

It all stared when I was 27 years old. The beginning of the End that is. I had just moved back from Nebraska, where I'd spent a wild & glorious 3 months living with my friend J____, making plans to earn some money, sell our posessions & cars & then move to Ireland, our big dream. Well, I got cold feet about it & moved back to Austin, & she went ahead with the plan & moved to Ireland. I immediately got hired at my first job at the University, and for the first time I had financial security, health insurance, paid holidays, and & cool audio-visual related job. But deep in my heart I knew I had taken the safe way out...& knowing that J___ had followed her dream while I sat in sheer boredom in a basement audtiorium on campus was starting to get knaw at me. I also was dating a man who was off for 10 weeks vacationing in Ireland & then Paris, and I was insanely jealous. I couldn't just quit my cushy state job! So my dear friend was off pursuing her dream & my boyfreind (who I was completely emotionally dependent on) was off having fun, and I started to fall apart. I started crying. I cried all night, I cried at work, I had to pull over in my car becasue I was crying so hard I couldn't see to drive. I was terrified of this because I'd never experienced it before. I was so unaware that my poor soul was needing to cry a river of tears for the years of damage & abuse I'd done to it, and I'd never experienced being comforted as a child so this vulnerability brought on by the tears made me think I was going to die. Sure I'd cried in histrionics over boys & while drunk or hungover but this was different...this was deep grief like sobbing (and I was terrified of these feelings as I'd had to stuff my feelings while I was growing up) which was cracking through my steel defensive wall I'd built since I was, well since forever I guess. The survival part of me knew I could never "fall apart" because then I might fall into a black hole of utter aloneness. So now my soul decided it was time to take down the wall and what happened was amazing. For days I cried, and everytime I would stop I would breathe a sigh of relief that this was the last time. But I would lay down at night & feel a hot ball of burning something in my gut that was more powerful than anything I could do to stop it start to move up towards my throat and it was forcing the sadness up again. My mind would freak out & scream at this powerful thing & try to force it down and the battle made me crazy until one time, one night I decided to surrender to this terrifying "thing" that was happening to me. I decided I would let it kill me, as this is what I believed giving over to this pain would do to me. I was lying in bed (I don't remember how many nights this went on) and these emotions that I was so afraid of were starting to grip me again (at the time, I didn't see them simply as emotions but as some alien unknown horror trying to take me over) and this time I just let go. I stopped fighting it & decided to surrender to whatever it was. I was certain that I would not live through this, but the fighting & controlling of it was not working. I let the wave wash over me & instead of just crying I was howling like a wild animal who'd just had her baby ripped away from her & murdered in front of her own eyes. I was deeply sobbing and not resisting this time and amazingly enough, something I had never experienced before happened: I felt supported. I felt a presence there with me that was holding me (not physically) and supporting me, and something else even more keenly: it loved me. I felt this in my bones. It was my first experience of feeling truly loved and cared for. And not only that, but I knew I was not alone. The presence started to recede after a few hours but I woke up in the morning a different person. I was transformed. I felt euphoric for the first time without chemicals. And now 22 years later I know that I can surrender, indeed must surrender to these waves that want to pass through me. In the next few postings I will transcribe the journey I made from that fearful time to slightly more centered one I am currently inhabiting.

Crossing the Line

I will be 49 years old this year. My mother always told me it was awful to get older as a woman but I've just been having an awesome time, and it appears to be getting awesomer as the months go by. I notice I look my age when I'm feeling off kilter mentally, but usually I'm either preparing for/looking forward to/ or doing something exciting so that I beam with a sort of glow that softens my chicken-y skinned neck and makes me look early forties rather than late maybe - and most the time I don't even think about this kind of crap but I'm starting to notice that I look old in a lot of photos & it's kind of startled me. I come from a genetically blessed family - very little gray hair, strong lean bodies until death, and youthful looking faces. I have always thought I'd feel sexy forever but in the last year or so I've noticed that a line has been crossed - one that I have sort of read about but ignored, thinking it is way too far off for me, but it is right here. Now. I am middle aged. But at the same time feeling more rascally & mischevious each day. I feel I am without a map to navigate my middle years because I am in an small demographic: single, childfree, nomadic lifestyle, utterly non-domestic. I am not going to be the respectable middle aged woman whose a bit plump & wears Eileen Fishher tasteful clothing. I don't want to do the full on scraggly hippy thing, so I think I am going to have to create my own look. I may have to cut my hair short - not because it's more flattering, but because it might be more edgy. If I keep the RPGs I will have to construct a look around them, and that will involve creativity as these glasses are unforgiving on a sagging face. I feel safe about my body as I feel certain I will stay under 130 pounds and an ok shape as long as I keep up my moderately physical lifestyle. I tried blonde hair last year. People said it looked nice, but I was always uncomfortable with it. It was so boring & just didn't feel like "me." I just wanted something different & let a hairdresser talk me into something that was too conventional looking. I even went & spent $200 more dollars making it more blonde, and it depressed me even more. I didn't notice if men looked at me more -I think they don't really look at 50 year old women that much, no matter what color their hair is. I also don't want to fall into the trap I see women my age doing: trying to look 30 forever...staying super skinny, botox, college girl clothing. It will eventually look like just what is is: buying into the incredibly deep & sick programming this country supports by making women over 40 invisible through advertising & media. We are no longer sex object so we are to be ignored. My only option is to be myself. This has always worked in past, but every once in a while I think I need an updating. I get lots of comments about how I could make myself more "feminine" or more "pretty" or how if I got rid of these giant glasses I always wear that people could see my eyes. I admit my fashion & dress stems from my punk rock days in college, and the fact that I have never spent more than 3 minutes on grooming before I leave the house (sometimes I even see a crumb of last nights dinner on my face after I get to work). I have never felt so good or empowered as when I was in black army boots & old jeans & a black t-shirt. I have always had dyed hair - I don't like natural hair - it just seems to boring. I guess I'll continue to dress the way I always have & not have a glowing transformation into cronehood. I still absolutely adore black clunky soled boots, and have always felt embarrased in girl footwear. I don't own a thong, and my swimwear is guys trunks. Some of my fashion choices are based in feminism, but mostly I like that comfortable swagger of loose jeans & boots, and the relaxed feel of not wearing tight clothes or having to feel like I have to show off my figure, which isn't great anymore. If I continue to have a cool lifestyle, I can probably get away with the slacker appearance I have always had. It feels like a shallow thing to be contemplating in such depth, but actually it feels quite like it could be a great feminist act: refusing to follow convention. I hope I can resist the plastic surgery that is so obvious to me on some of my 60 year old friends. I will probably always dress like a college student, and my hair is just always going to be unstyled. I stopped dying it red & now have it a sort of reddish brown color that looks very natural, which I never thought I'd like, but do acutally. I owe it to other women my age to take risks in fashion. I owe it to myself to fight against the media machine that says a middle aged woman has to hide in billowy clothing and clunky jewelry. I have my fashion heroes: Annie Liebovitz, Gloria Stienem, Patty Smith. Annie actually looks like she's just rolled out of bed most of the time.

I remember when I was in a yoga class where an attractive man entered. For the first time I was looked over as if I wasn't there. He spent the class looking at the younger girls in tight clothes. I always wear a baggy t-shirt & sweatpants to yoga so I'm not helping myself if I want attention. I'll always have my writing, my art, my love of my life, my memories. Such great memories. But every once in a while that girly part of me screams for attention...she wants to parade around like she's 19. What's funny is I like who I am so much more now - when I was 19 and gorgeous, I didn't give a rat's ass about it!

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...