Category: The Midlife Monster

Whatever Twitches, Twitches

I found my own cable on a beach that led into the jungle and into the ocean.
I found my own cable on a beach…one end leading into the jungle and one end leading into the ocean. Scary how life imitates art.

A couple minutes ago I watched the credits roll on the final episode of LOST. I spent the past four weeks cruising through the series. It’s not that I missed the show during its original run. I watched it when it was on the air weekly. I was one of those LOST geeks, looking for “Easter eggs” and spending hours each week mentally dissecting the episodes. As an introvert who spends entirely too much time inside her own head working out mental details, that show was a perfect outlet for me at a time in my life when I was lost. It was easier to watch and find meaning in it than it was to make sense of the chaos, confusion, and struggles in my own life. LOST was an escape. During the years that show aired, there were plenty of times when I longed to be on a tropical island with Sawyer, although I might have envisioned one without smoke monsters and polar bears.

I remember as the show was in its final season, my friends and I discussed at great length how the writers were going to wrap it all up. There were so many details. They had tortured us mercilessly with unanswered questions each week. Would they be able to put all the puzzle pieces in place? After each episode in the final season, we would catalog explanations we’d received and bicker about whether they felt adequate and well placed. When the show ended and the final credits rolled, some LOST devotees were satisfied and others were, well….lost. I fell firmly into the first category. I was honestly happy that the writers left some pieces unexplained because that meant that I could watch the show over and over again and find my own meaning. There’s no fun if you’re given all the answers.

As I set out to view the series in its entirety this time, from the first episode of the first season all the way through the show’s finale, I suspected the show would make any more sense to me now than it did at the time. I would benefit from knowing the ending because that knowledge would change how I viewed the events leading up to it. I had my own theory about the characters and the story line, and I was going to test it out in my non-stop mind. I whipped my way through season after season desperately seeking whether the writers had hinted at the ending the whole time. Watching the show again was like having a conversation with a good friend you haven’t seen in years. It was as if no time had passed. And I discovered that the Season Three finale, Through the Looking Glass, was no less painful the second time around. I had a nice ugly cry over it again. I am not sure that wound will ever heal.

The closer I got to the end of the show this time around, though, the more I found myself letting go of the set up. I didn’t seem to care as much if my hypothesis was correct. By the point in Season 5 when Daniel Farraday says, “Whatever happened, happened,” I had let go of my obsessive need to figure the show out. Daniel was right. Truth is that it doesn’t really matter how it all happened. You can neatly fold back the layers like skin on a junior-high-biology-class frog, but it makes no difference. At the end of the day, all that matters is that it happened. Daniel’s insight reminded me of a quote from the Bunny Buddhism book:

One need not know why the nose twitches but simply know that it twitches.

You can spend your entire life looking for explanations as to why things have happened a certain way in your life. Why, perhaps, you ended up with the spouse you did or the career you have. How you ended up living somewhere you said you never would or how things have worked out nothing like you anticipated. Life is full of questions that are either unanswerable or answerable only with a huge degree of uncertainty about the validity of the answer. Mentally dissecting what is is merely a colossal waste of fleeting time. If we get bogged down with the details of our past, we can’t move forward in the present. It doesn’t matter how we get there but that we make the journey and make it worthwhile.

I don’t need to know all the answers to LOST to enjoy it. I don’t need to have it tied neatly in a bow. Likewise, I don’t need to have all the answers to be happy in my life. Whatever happened, happened. Whatever twitches, twitches. With each passing year it becomes more apparent to me that the why and how of life are not nearly as important as the that.

 

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Zen and the Art of Bunniness

In the Galapagos, Luke and a Nazca booby enter into each other's inherent bunniness.
In the Galapagos, Luke and a Nazca booby take a moment to appreciate each others’ unique and meaningful existence.

Like many people these days, I practice yoga. My journey began a little over four years ago and, even in the times that I don’t practice regularly, I find it is always with me. Yoga is a hard thing to explain to those who haven’t yet experienced it. Before I practiced, people who knew me well would tell me that I needed it. I resented that statement, but mostly I resembled it. I moved from one thing to the next without stopping to be present in my own life. I didn’t know how to sit in stillness or look around in awareness. A hamster on a perpetual wheel, I rarely paused to notice or enjoy anything. I was too busy looking ahead to see the little moments slipping by in my peripheral vision.

In vinyasa yoga, you flow through the different postures syncing one breath to one movement in a moving meditation. You breathe in to settle into one pose and breathe out to transition into another, consciously aware of each inhalation and exhalation. So when I found this quote in my Bunny Buddhism book, I knew exactly what it was for. It is a mantra for meditation.

Breathing in, I know I am a bunny. Breathing out, I know a bunny is all I have to be.

In my late thirties, I was somewhat depressed. Not in that can’t-get-out-of-bed-and-need-Zoloft way, but in the way that I was unhappy without being awake enough to realize it. I had young children who had boundless energy and myriad personal struggles and I didn’t have a clue how to help them settle and grow. I was continually exhausted, surviving on caffeine and mindless, reality television. I was stalled out. When my early forties hit, midlife began urging me to shake off my slump and make something out of my life. This was both a good thing (because I began to wake up and seek out life-affirming events, which made me buck up a little) and a bad thing (because in seeking out new experiences I managed to remain too busy to truly enjoy anything).

That was when yoga found me. I began to understand that I didn’t have to become anything to prove anything. Through yoga, I began accepting that there are things that I am good at and things that I will never be good at. It doesn’t matter. It’s part of the uniqueness that is me, and it is enough. That thought continues to blow my mind. I am enough. Period. If I finish the book I’ve been writing in my head for years, great. If not, that’s fine too. I’m exactly where I need to be, being the person I am becoming. At the end of my life, a full and well-rounded curriculum vitae will say everything about what I accomplished but nothing about who I was because we are not the sum total of what we do. Good thing too because on most days what I do is laundry.

Breathing in. I know I am a bunny. Breathing out. I know a bunny is all I have to be.

Can you let go of what you think you need to do to be important and accept that you already are?

 

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The Power of No

Random crop circles in our yard...just for fun
Random crop circles in our yard…just for fun

Some people are born speaking the word “no.” It rolls off their toddler tongues before you can finish your sentence. These are the children who know what they want and plan to get it without negotiations. I was not that child. While I in no way possess a people-pleasing personality, I was raised to be accommodating when at all possible. When I go out of my way for others it’s not because I am deeply thoughtful but because I’ve been taught it’s the right thing to do. As a result of upbringing, I often add just one more item to my already long to-do list because someone asks nicely. Consequently, my life is a non-stop blur of frenetic activity. Whirling dervish? Guilty as charged.

Last night I sat down and took a sobering look at our family calendar for the next 9 days. On March 20th at an unreasonably early hour we will be boarding a plane…destination Kauai. Between now and that moment when we’re checked in at the gate awaiting our boarding call, I have about a gazillion things to do. Yes. It is a first world problem, but it’s my first world problem and so it matters to me just the same. As I went over the calendar and my to-do list on my iPhone last night, hubby caught me shaking my head.

“What’s wrong?” he inquired.

“So much to do between now and the 20th.”

“It will all be fine,” he reassured.

“Oh…I know it will.” I don’t doubt my ability to accomplish things, just my excitement about doing them.

“Aren’t you excited about the trip?” he asked.

“Not really, no. I will be excited when we’re sitting at the gate and not a minute before. I’m still trying to figure out how I’m going to fit in a well check for Joe and a trip to the vet for Ruby. The next week is packed.”

“You always stress and it always gets done,” he said.

“It always gets done because I always stress and push myself through every last detail,” I retorted.

Today, staring down the barrel of an ungodly busy weekend, I started packing for the boys and I. I dug through last summer’s clothes, which have been stored for their long, Colorado winter’s nap, and put together Hawaii-friendly outfits. I located sunscreen, snorkeling gear, and rash guards. I dragged suitcases up from the basement and began assessing what might fit where. Then, in the midst of this busy-ness, I got an email that added another layer to my stress. It was a request for yet another social visit in our already overbooked weekend. Between hair cuts for all of us, two birthday parties, a social event at the boys’ school, brunch at my mom’s, dinner with our Wine Gang (which we are hosting), and a couple book reports the boys need to have completed before we leave (not to mention packing and preparing our house for the puppy caretaker), I cringed at the idea of attempting to fit in even one more quick thing.

Being unaccustomed to disappointing people, though, I scoured our plans looking for wiggle room for the requested, short get together either Saturday or Sunday afternoon. I weighed the costs of not honoring this request against the stress it would add to an already overbooked weekend. Then, I did something I rarely do. I went against my usual habit. I said no even though it’s very likely that the persons whom I turned down will be hurt by my refusal. But even those of us who strive to be amicable and accommodating have a breaking point.

If there’s one good thing that is coming right along with the sags, bags, spots, and wrinkles of middle age, it’s gumption. I’m no longer under the impression that I have to do things to please people. I understand that there are some people who will never be pleased, no matter what kind of back bend I contort myself into for their benefit.  I’m learning that sometimes it’s not just okay to say no. It’s downright necessary. While I do feel a bit bad for shutting out this latest request, I know it was the right thing to do. This weekend will still be crazy busy, but at least it might prove I’m not insane.

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Find Your Bliss Any Way You Can

Guess which set belongs to the lone female in this family.
At least I will be easy to spot.

“If you want to reach a state of bliss, then go beyond your ego and the internal dialogue. Make a decision to relinquish the need to control, the need to be approved, and the need to judge.”      – Deepak Chopra

Yesterday, in the peaceful falling snow of an early evening in January, the UPS delivery truck stopped in front of our house. As it pulled away, it left behind a box filled with things not meant for the snow at all. The large box contained snorkel gear for our entire family. I laugh at the absurdity of our family purchasing snorkel gear when we live in the middle of an already landlocked state, 1o00 miles away from the nearest beach which is a nearly 17-hour drive away in Malibu, California. We selected the gear while we were in snowy Steamboat Springs a week and a half ago. In spite of the wintery landscape there, we were absorbed with the notion that in two months we will be in Hawaii. So, in between cross-country skiing and trekking through a castle made entirely of ice, in front of a glowing fireplace we perused travel books and made mental notes of beaches we wanted to stand on. And, we ordered snorkel gear.

This morning, after an icy drive to deliver the boys at school, I took the next step in preparing for our upcoming spring break trip. I stopped to try on swimsuits. Buoyed by weeks of relentless work in yoga class, I felt fairly confident about my chances swimsuit shopping. I have a little less than two months left to finish whipping myself into vacation shape, and a swimsuit is exactly the motivation I need to keep my eye on the prize. I know it will be a bit odd to have it secured into place on the door of our stainless steel refrigerator in the middle of winter, but you do what you have to. For me, it’s yoga, fruit, and the fear of the suit.

And, as I stood in the fitting room today staring at my half-naked figure in the mirror, for the first time I faced the truth. My body is what it is, and what it is is a vessel that carried two children. It is strong and healthy. With nearly 45 years behind it and with a steady exercise routine, it endures more and is more flexible and balanced than it has ever been. It does things now that it couldn’t do a decade or two ago, like push ups. My body is powerful and capable. What it is not, however, is 20 years old. No matter how hard I work or how well I eat, I will never look the way I used to. Evolving over time, enduring childbirth and abdominal surgeries, my body has morphed to become something entirely different. It’s not bad. It’s simply not the same.

On the way home, I battled the negative self-talk that was bullying me into believing that I’m too old for the bikini I had just purchased. I told myself that as old as I am, I will never be this young again. And, if I am going to Hawaii for the first time and want to swim and snorkel in a two-piece suit, well…the rest of the world can suck it. I want to find bliss, and I will never find it if I’m judging myself or worrying about what others judge in me. I have only so much control over how the aging process will affect my body. Despite my best efforts, things will pucker and wrinkle and head in a southern direction. It’s inevitable. But, if cleaning grains of sand out of my navel makes me feel alive and happy, then that is what I must do. With each passing year I’m closer to peace and self-acceptance than I have yet been in my life. Maybe it’s blissfully naive of me to assume it’s not positively gauche for a woman of my mature age to appear in public in a bikini. At this point, though, I’ll take my bliss any way I can get it.

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Summa Cum Laude

“Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.”  ~Henry Ford

Me and Rosie the Tarantula...making nice

Ever since I hit 40, I’ve been on a quest to try new things. I originally attributed this quest to a desire to do as much as I can with my life while I still can do it. Midlife scares the bejeezus out of me daily because I know that from here it’s merely a blink of an eye to the day when I’m 70, assuming of course that I’m graced with that many years. The more I’ve reflected on the more open attitude I’ve taken about life since turning 40, the more I consider how many new things I’ve tried than I would have even considered 10 years ago, the clearer it has become that my desire to do these new things is not rooted in a thirst for adventure but rather in a pilgrimage for knowledge.

Ever since I was young, learning has been important to me. I knew in grade school that I wanted to get an advanced degree after four years of college. I’ve never considered any class a waste of time. I enjoy studying new a wide variety of things. At CU, I studied astronomy, Latin, Chicana studies, and the history of the English language. I’ve seriously considered pursuing a law degree for the sake of learning and not for the sake of practicing it. Outside college, I’ve taken cooking classes, burlesque classes, wine classes, and rock climbing classes. I’ve tried my hand at cake decorating, snowboarding, swing dancing, and ropes courses.

Even outside of classes, things I’ve done have been an education. Last year when I let Rosie (the tarantula) walk on my hand at the Butterfly Pavilion, for example, I learned that maybe I’m not as afraid of spiders as I thought I was. Rosie was actually quite nice in that she tickled me as she walked across my hand and she didn’t bite me. She didn’t even visit me in my dreams, nice spider she is. I learn something new every single time I step onto my yoga mat, which is probably why after two years I still look forward to practicing. A little over a year ago when I did the Polar Plunge in Boulder, I learned that two minutes of discomfort can yield days of euphoria. And, when my boys have a question, I’m quick to the jump on the internet or go to the library and find us all an answer. It’s a little known fact that there’s a reason why my sisters joke that I’m their Cliff Clavin.

I’ve been thinking as I approach 44 that the only way a person can remain young as their body ages is by trying new things and remaining open to novel experiences. I get depressed if I’m not regularly discovering and then reveling in something new about life, my friends and family, myself, or the world. This morning Joe told me that hammerhead sharks swim in schools during the day. Good to know, I thought. Knowledge can sometimes come from unlikely sources, so it’s best to pay attention. The happiest people I know are the ones who are insatiably curious and open to life. When I leave this world, at whatever age I depart, my plan is to graduate from my class summa cum laude.

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Fast Car

My friends and their old school cars circa 1986.

“Just take your fast car and keep on driving.” ~ Tracy Chapman

In the first quarter of the Bronco playoff game with the New England Patriots, I couldn’t take it anymore. Overwhelmed by a stuffy head, I drove out in search of Sudafed. When I am feeling my worst on a Saturday night, there’s nothing I appreciate more than a seven mile drive to a 24-hour pharmacy to purchase decongestant. (Thanks, meth lab operators for providing me with that convenience.) Anyway, I handed the pharmacist my driver’s license, signed my life away, took my contraband box, and pulled out on the road toward home. That’s when it pulled up alongside me on this moonless night, sleek as a shadow. My midlife crisis car. A black Chevy Camaro.

I own a very pragmatic and cushy Lexus SUV, perfect for endless hours of driving the boys around and trekking through snowy Colorado winters. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not complaining. I love my car. It has never failed me. Still, I often think I could trade it for a black Chevy Camaro.

When I was in high school, my mom was going through her own midlife crisis. She bought a 1986 red Chevy Camaro. I got to drive her car occasionally to and from work and sometimes to a movie with friends. That’s when my love affair with the Camaro began. Admittedly, the 1986 iteration of that vehicle was not its most attractive, but when I turned the key in the ignition that beast purred for me. It was fast and fun to drive. That car bridged a gap between my mom and I during some difficult times. It was our baby. Unfortunately, some jerk stole it for joyride purposes one day. When it was found, it was so badly damaged that the insurance company declared it a loss. I remember going to the impound lot to help my mom clean it out. We both cried. My mom went back to a dull sedan, and my fun was over.

Later that year I developed a crush on an older man (okay…he was only four years older) who drove a late 70’s model black Camaro, and my love affair with that car was rekindled. So what if that particular cute, blonde guy never wanted to date me? He drove me around in his car occasionally, and that was something. I still remember sitting in the passenger seat and cruising down Broadway with the t-tops off on a gorgeous summer day. Pure joy.

Tonight as I sat at that street light, glancing longingly at that shiny black car in the next lane, it hit me. This May I will be the same age my mom was when she got her Camaro. Certainly that must be a sign, right? Sometimes history repeats itself. Would it be insane for me to trade my reliable SUV for a gleaming muscle car? The Camaro gets better gas mileage than my SUV, costs less, and the 323-horsepower would make the trip to the boys’ school infinitely faster. Sure there’s still the snow and ice of a Denver winter to deal with, but we do have those 300 days of sunshine too so it should balance out. My husband got his midlife crisis car last year, a cadet blue Toyota FJ Cruiser, so that should factor into my ability to choose a new car. Besides, I think I would look pretty cool driving it.

I don’t know if I’ll ever get my midlife crisis Camaro. Perhaps it’s one of those dreams I’ll never realize. But, sometimes, when one pulls up next to me at a stoplight, I secretly imagine myself in it. I imagine that car would make me feel 18 again. It might be worth the trade.

 

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