Me and My 50s

The Weight of the Rings

I have a bad habit of taking off my rings when I put on hand lotion. I hate the feeling of the rings getting in the way of the self-soothing massage I enjoy as the lotion absorbs, not to mention that the lotion gets caught in the rings and makes them sticky, reducing their shine. I guess it’s not the habit that’s bad, since it gives me soft hands and clean rings, but the fact that I don’t have a “system,” as my husband John suggests, for always putting the rings in a place where I will remember to put them right back on. Hmmm… I need a system. Like the systems he has for so many valued or everyday items he doesn’t lose. Those intentional acts that help him avoid the potential for having to beat himself up for days or longer. Here’s the thing – opposites attract. Enough said.

Countless times in my life I find my soft hands with empty fingers, and after my heart skips a beat, I go on my search. I find them on the bathroom sink, kitchen counter, bedside table, maybe even in the little dish on my dresser, their actual intended home when not on my fingers. When I am out, going about my day, I try to remember to put them temporarily in the pocket of my jacket or pants, or in a small zipper pocket of my purse. The last option is usually the best choice for safe keeping. Ha! I may not have a system but sometimes my tactics make sense. Once (actually maybe twice) at my last big-office workplace, I noticed my empty fingers as I typed away at my computer. I walked quickly back to the Ladies room. Yup – right there on the countertop next to the communal hand lotion. Phew. I was happy to get them back before a companywide “lost and found” email needed to be sent out showing my carelessness.

None of my jewelry is immune to my innocent inattentiveness. I’ve been doing this forever, so this one I can’t blame on age. My husband bought me a beautiful gold bangle with small diamonds after our daughter was born (he’s not even a very traditional guy, so a “new mom” gift was unexpected, but he is a very thoughtful gift giver, lucky for me). As beautiful as it was, brushed gold with just the right amount of sparkle to not be too fancy, it was rigid and annoying to wear because it would get in the way, knock things, or make it hard to type. I’m sad to admit that I have no memory of when I last saw that sweet gift. He still brings it up sometimes, 21 years later. I’m most sad that I let him down. “Maybe we’ll find it when we move,” I say. But I think to myself it is more likely on someone else’s arm, randomly found by a lucky recipient after it was getting in my way.

On a recent afternoon, September 30 to be exact, John and I were in our car on the Upper West Side coming towards the end of a very hard day. Eight years prior, almost to the day, we opened our small business—the beginning of a new chapter in our lives at once extremely stressful and exciting (think early-40s, “now or never” moment). While our business isn’t over or gone for good, John did the last clean sweep of the now empty beautiful and beloved music studios and joined the list of so many small business owners who couldn’t make brick and mortar work during these pandemic times. Handing back the keys was the right thing to do, and this time the landlord did the right thing too. I had driven the car downtown to the studio to help him get through the very last tasks of this hard good-bye. I waited patiently until the last remaining items filled up our small wagon, and in my memory, I gave him a big “It’s going to be OK” hug before he got into the driver’s seat to go back uptown.

I was hungry, realized I never ate lunch, and I asked him to stop on Amsterdam Avenue so I could run in and get one of my favorite grab-and-go sandwiches at Orwashers. I got back in the car and, with just one bite, my bad habit made its harsh reality known. Empty left ring finger. The one that matters most. Engagement ring and wedding band. I couldn’t breathe.

“Fuck!” I said harshly (I hardly use the f-word, and will use it only once here, but in reality, this was a moment when it came out repeatedly). “I am so f-ing dumb!” I yelled. My anger and shame immediately loud and clear.

“What’s wrong?” John asked, confused by the intensity of my exclamations.

I showed him my empty finger. “How could I do this?? What is wrong with me??” How could I be so careless?? Why would I put my rings back on my right hand and not my left??” Not today, I thought, I really, really don’t want to lose these rings today.

I started frantically searching my purse. “I put lotion on while I was sitting in the car waiting for you,” I explained. “I put the rings in my lap. I guess when you came out and I got up to open the hatch for you, I was only half done putting them back on my fingers.” I had no recollection of returning the right-hand rings from my lap to my finger, and clearly no idea that the more important left-hand rings remained in that precarious place, their fate potentially determined as I stepped out of the car. The search through my purse offered no resolution (I had to look, despite knowing I didn’t use that safe tactic this time), so he got out and looked under the seat, in the side door, in between the seats, everywhere, hoping two shiny objects would appear.

While in that moment my inner critic was raging at my carelessness and lack of “systems,” there are times when I defend my bad habits with this: I am more focused on people than things. I live in the moment as often as I can. I like to help people and feel needed. So, when John came out of the side door from the studio, his hands full with a big box, a small lamp, and maybe even a vacuum cleaner, I saw him and instinctually hurried out of the car to open the back. I was there for him. Patiently waiting despite my hunger and knowing this was a harder day for him than for me. That visual memory came back to me, as we desperately search the car. Then I imagined them falling from my lap in slow motion, like in a movie when something precious falls into a river never to be seen again. My rings lost forever because I was so eager to help my husband.

There was only one thing to do. We were on 82^nd and Amsterdam Avenue. There was very little traffic, but those 5.4 miles back to the corner of Clarkson and Hudson never felt so long. As we drove down the West Side Highway in the wrong direction (we were supposed to be heading north back to Connecticut, our mostly primary location during these empty-nest, now free of brick-and-mortar pandemic days), I was relatively silent; what I did try to say came out with a strained voice holding back tears. But I couldn’t actually cry, not yet. Not until I knew if they were really gone.

“They’re just rings” John said as he reached over and held my hand, keeping the other hand steady on the wheel. It was meant to be supportive, but I wasn’t sure I believed him in the moment. Nothing he would say could make me feel better. He had been disappointed by my lost jewelry before, but the significance of this was beyond measure.

During that tense car ride, I thought about another time when I couldn’t find my rings. It was at the end of a somewhat relaxing but strangely intense family vacation in Bermuda. Mostly intense for John, a very needed break for me. The kids, 10 and nearly 13 at the time, were happy to explore the pink sand beach and enjoy the magical open-air setting at every meal. With the studio under construction, it was hard for John to get away, but I forced upon him four nights of family time. He managed to enjoy it, the dark and stormy cocktails helped.

The quick getaway was coming to an end, and the porter had arrived to help us with our bags. “I can’t find my rings” I said, not too worried at first but feeling the time check for the flight. Bathroom, bedside table, under the bed, in my pockets. I started to panic a little bit more as everyone joined in the search. Turns out I was wearing pants that had that extra little area in the far inside of the pocket, towards the fly. You can put your hand straight down in the pocket and never feel something hiding to the side. Bingo! About the third time I put my hand in my pocket there they were. I felt pretty dumb, especially in front of the hotel staff, but we made it to the airport in plenty of time. What would be worse, I thought to myself now as time slowed down inside our car, losing my rings on a family vacation at the beginning of our new venture, or at its closing? Either way, there is something ominous in the connection. What if I lost one that day in Bermuda and one eight years later? My rings could book-end our business cycle, the lost symbols of our commitment entwined with its success or failure, and perhaps suggesting the fate of our marriage.

Having finally made the left turn onto Clarkson, John pulled up right behind the truck that had been parked behind me, I remembered it moving forward into our spot right as we drove away. I ran out of the car like a lioness saving its cub. Took a few second to look carefully on the ground, and then burst into tears. Two shiny round objects, right where the truck driver got out. How lucky I am that his boots came in contact with them, not his eyes.

John was standing by. He calmly wrapped his arm around me as I wept with joy and let go the shame. My turn for the “it’s going to be Ok” comforting hug. Those bands on my fingers felt a renewed sense of place. They would settle into my skin and make a slightly different groove. They are just rings after all, but for a moment they may have carried the weight of our marriage’s destiny.

Found. Yes, I made John take a picture while I cried.

The Spark and the Fuel

I wrote this two weeks ago now. While pondering the time to post, I received the NPR notification of RBG’s passing and I wept as I cooked dinner. I needed to take a pause to respect and mourn her, as the world did. And my little life’s trials, tribulations and occasional meltdowns suddenly seemed so insignificant. But I will continue to share my journey in my 50s, so here is my latest looking back and moving forward moment of reflection.

The Spark and the Fuel

I watch, listen, and read the news about the destructive wildfires out west, wishing that 2020 was finished presenting fear and loss, and the images leave me stunned. Countless acres and homes reduced to ash, the gray darkness at mid-day in Portland, the amber glowing sky over San Francisco. I hear the sheer terror in a man’s voice as he describes to a reporter how California is burning. “Do they see this?” he screams.

While there are many causes, it’s shocking to know that one of the fires, the El Dorado, started with an innocent spark. A celebration even – something called a “gender reveal party.” Apparently, these events (which I had never heard of before, showing my age!) replace the traditional baby shower and include a dramatic moment to cleverly expose whether the expected child is a boy or girl. This particular party used some type of firecracker to display blue or pink smoke while family and friends watched in anticipation. Clearly the ensuing drama was more than they intended.

I can’t understand anything about this Instagram-worthy ritual. I prefer to remember the simple oohing and aahing as I opened the cutest gender-neutral onesies, sweet white booties and multi-colored baby blankets given to me before my first child’s arrival. We saved the drama for the delivery room. But what I do understand is how an innocent spark can become something bigger than it was ever meant to be. “Fires happen when ignition meets available fuel” I read. That’s all it takes – something to ignite and available fuel to make the fire spread and grow.

That happened to me. An innocent spark thrower ignited my locked-up baggage of fuel. It was just a sweet moment, but it couldn’t be put out in my mind. I wish it were like the brief burn of a matchstick, but instead it was a slow-moving heat that I couldn’t understand. It attached itself to other things that were more significant than the charge itself, and like every one of the 300 fires raging in California, Oregon and Washington right now, it was the underlying conditions that made it grow.

Here’s what I know now about my underlying conditions at the age of 50. While unaware that I had enough anger hidden inside me to feed a wildfire, I was very familiar with another kind of heat. Yes, my natural cycle had aged, slowly faded away, and hot flashes took its place. You have to laugh at the extent to which they can consume you, because otherwise you’ll just be mad – angry mad on top of crazy mad (yes, they make you crazy). Your family and friends will giggle along with you when you can no longer hide the sweat that is dripping down your body as the heat travels up your neck and face to make your cheeks so flush you look like you came in from a run, but you’re just trying to enjoy a meal. Add wine to your meal and watch out! Try vodka (well, the experts will tell you to avoid alcohol all together but…). Your husband may tire, sympathetically, of hearing that you barely slept once again; your sheets so wet at one point in the night your bed reminds you of a damp tent on a childhood camping trip when finding a comfortable temperature between hot and cold eludes you. You try to remember to bring your water bottle to every work meeting, the kind that keeps that water cold for 8 hours, so that when you feel the heat wave rising you hope it isn’t obvious that your shirt is sticking to your skin as you take a sip for distraction. You pray it doesn’t happen when you stand in front of the room trying to get the decision makers to pay attention to your PowerPoint deck instead of the fact that you suddenly need to take off your jacket. No turtlenecks, ladies. Put them away. Cardigans. Sleeveless shirts under lightweight jackets and cardigans – that’s the work wardrobe you need no matter the season.

A few other compounding factors were playing a role in my life. My husband had his mid-life crisis (he prefers to label it a mid-career crisis) some years before, and we decided to give his passion business idea a go. The stress of a brick and mortar start up is risky under any circumstances, and things went wrong. While I believed in it with all of my heart, and even my brilliant spreadsheet predicted it could work, I supported it too much. Don’t get me wrong, I loved being part of building something from scratch, and he gives me all the credit I deserve. We fought hard to reach success, fought hard with each other too, and the struggle took its toll. My return to corporate America to provide the family with financial stability and healthcare was exciting and satisfying for a few years but eventually reached a point where the stress outweighed the benefits. My efforts to keep some semblance of family dinners with two kids springing into adolescence exhausted me and grounded me back to life’s simple pleasures at the same time, while my husband worked 80-hour weeks during those first years. Creating something together brought us closer too, but only after we began to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

So, as I found my feet firmly planted in mid-life, trying to balance it all, embracing the challenges, and starting to feel some stability after the changes we made, another condition kicked in. Anxiety seems to latch itself to those damn hormones telling you your time being the woman you once knew is up. Before I turned 50, I had experienced plenty of life’s usual stressors, but I never really understood the difference between stress and anxiety. Anxiety kept my brain buzzing at night. One little bee of a thought would become a loud nest with no explanation of why I couldn’t just relax into the buzz. There is a “bee breath” in yoga that is supposed to reduce anxiety and even lower your blood pressure. It never worked for me when the hornets swarmed at night. I guess I needed more practice.

Then one day, my unintended spark thrower met my fuel. In a state overwhelmed with anxiety and confusion, I said the wrong thing to the very wrong person. Maybe even bigger than that, I hadn’t shared my struggle with my husband because I didn’t know what was wrong with me. My life, at least the one inside my head, had slowly filled with fear and doubt. There was anger in there too, but until the aftermath of my mistake I never knew how deeply I tucked it away. My husband’s face was stunned with hurt and incomprehension as I tried to explain my behavior. My regret felt like pulling a canoe upstream; I thought the force of the current might never let me move forward. At the same time, another part of me could stand strong and present a simple defense of my moment of meltdown – I had a bad day, used bad judgement, I was confused, stressful things were happening, I did too much, I didn’t understand myself anymore and didn’t know what I needed.

I wished it could have been simple, but there was sadness and loss left in the path of my rage. Nothing was going to make sense until we did the work we needed to do, and the work is hard. I needed my husband’s attention. Our marriage needed to find its way back to balance. We hadn’t realized that we missed the natural cycle of renewal that breaks down the old stuff that gets in the way and returns nutrients to the soil. It took me a long time to forgive myself for causing suffering and avertable drama, but the fire needed to burn. Somewhere in the process my husband not only forgave me, but finally understood more of me. I understood more of him too. The work is worth it.

“You were doing double duty. You can’t do that forever,” my therapist once said, doing his job to validate while I struggled to understand my own feelings. I think the trees in those forests in California and Oregon and Washington have been doing double duty for too long. Trying too hard to take in carbon dioxide and release it back as oxygen while not having enough water to give the cycle its natural ease.

Today, in place of night sweats, my body typically warms me out of sleep around 5:30 am. I wish it were an hour later, but I’ll take it. As the season begins to change outside, we relax in our empty nest inside and enjoy the warm glow of our wood burning stove, together. There will be more moments when sparks will fly, and the uncertainty of these times for us and the world sure make for some challenging underlying conditions. For now, I cry for the people who have lost so much in those vicious fires. The world needs our attention.

Feeling the Discomfort and Keeping the Fight: A Perspective from My Comfortable White Space (actually a beautiful green).

I didn’t go to the Black Lives Matter gathering last Sunday on the town green with the intention of writing about it. In fact, that was the day that I spent hours obsessing over why, when and how to begin to share my writing more broadly. I was sitting on my porch in front of the computer cursing WordPress as I tried to make a blog site that was simple and at least somewhat official looking (I am 52, remember, it takes some people like me a while to figure these things out!). So, joining the small protest gave me a needed break from my self-absorbed preoccupation on a very beautiful Sunday afternoon in our small town in Litchfield County, Connecticut.

Perhaps it is fitting in this time that I move from sharing a personal pandemic moment to trying to figure out what, if anything, I have to say about the incomparably harsher reality and cruelty of “the other pandemic” that is racism. To write about it is to sit with the discomfort I feel. How can I, with my White privilege and absence of Black friends, add anything of value to the conversations that we are all challenging ourselves to have more deeply? I want to “lean in” now that I have begun to see more clearly the prejudice, injustice, violence and fear that is created by systemic racism. I want to be an ally for people who don’t look like me. But here I am feeling my White guilt. Does my voice really matter? I have to fight self-doubt too. I even cringe a little when I look at this picture of me sitting on the green (for the record I have a sprained ankle, so I had to sit while I stood for justice). I think I am too White, too happy, not angry enough and not scared enough to be representing this cause. And yes, I am even reading Ibram X. Kendi’s How to Be an Antiracist in my book club. I am that older White woman trying to see and understand.

As my 21-year old daughter said when I told her about my participation in this tiny town protest, “The fact that you feel uncomfortable sharing about it is exactly why you have to share. People will judge you; people will call you out for whatever reasons. Feeling the discomfort and keeping it going despite those feelings it is what really matters.” This is not the first time I have taken advice from this insightful young woman who calls me mom.

For context, on June 7^th, there was an amazing peaceful protest for Racial Justice and Black Lives Matter on this same town green. There were hundreds of people there and the young activists leading the charge gave me so much faith in the future. I thought the world was a better place when I was their age, and I felt humbled by their youthful passion and command. Since then, my friend informed me, there has been a smaller group that has continued the peaceful protest every Sunday afternoon. She has gone every week since. Last Sunday I took her up on her offer to join.

So, I joined this dedicated group of just 8 or 9 people, and we stood spread out in different directions along the sides of the triangle-shaped green where traffic was brisk. We waived our signs with enthusiasm when drivers expressed their solidarity with happy honks, thumbs up, and even some raised fists leaning out windows to join in as they passed by. Of the many motorcycles that rode by, the eternal optimist in me would like to believe that the thumbs up response won out over the thumbs down. I wasn’t counting, but in reality, I think it was about a tie.

Then one man in a pick-up truck actually stopped in front of us. “Look at you with your White privilege,” he said. He confused us for a moment; his friendly face made us think we may know him and that maybe he was making a very bad joke. Then we realized his smile was actually a smirk and his expression transformed into its ugly racist reality. He drove away with a snicker. “Right, look at us,” was the only thing we realized we wanted to say.

Although the moment was not a physical threat, it did make my heart beat a little bit faster. I realized that racist people are scary even when you’re White. I wonder if a Black man’s heart beats a little faster every time he walks down the street.

The next interaction was from the parking lot across from our location. A man leaned out of his pickup truck and yelled “All Lives Matter.” He made his position even more clear by showing us his MAGA hat and calling out “Trump 2020” before he drove away.

This incident led my friend and me to wonder what our best response could be to this common racist reaction. The Black Lives Matter vs. All Lives Matter issue still seems hard to grapple for some. While we discussed and pondered together what to say to the next person who might yell out that phrase, we noticed a few fellow protestors who had arrived after us with three large signs. As they organized their signs facing the other road across the green, we caught a glimpse of only one: “All Lives Matter” it said. We looked at each other with raised eyebrows. Could it be possible that our fellow protestors don’t understand? I hope that will be that last moment I ever doubt the people of this town.

My friend decided she had to go say hello and see what the other two signs said. Alas, our wiser participants had already answered our struggle. All Lives Matter When Black Lives Matter; the most efficient phrase written in bold letters for all passersby to see. I bet they had been there on many other Sundays and had already discovered the need to craft an effective response to that common racist reaction, even if it is sometimes stated in ignorance. A reminder from what I’ve internalized so far from Kendi’s book – we are either racist or antiracist. Ignorance is not an excuse.

So there it is. What I learned from protesting in a tiny White New England town. Perhaps each time I stick my head out I will feel a little bit more comfortable, a little bit more able to be a participant in this fight no matter who judges me or how I judge myself. I will keep leaning in.

Blessing of Cold Air

My first post!

I wrote this one month into the pandemic. I share it now as I remember the confusion and uncertainty we all felt; the comfort of being together and the fear of not understanding what would happen next. So much sadness, with gratitude mixed in as we were safe, healthy and yes, together. It’s a moment I treasure even more now as I settle into day 6 of empty nesting.

Blessing of Cold Air

Late April 2020

People are complaining about the housework, myself included. We have settled into the strange new reality of life during a pandemic; our prior conveniences and daily routines elude us as we adjust, accept what’s missing and try to embrace some “silver linings.” Indeed, despite the unsettled feelings, we are among the luckiest. We are lucky to walk quiet country roads instead of trying to avoid getting too close to people in Central Park. Grateful to be able to escape the epicenter of this horrible disease. While my mind cycles between the annoyance of domestic chores and the profound sadness of the situation, I find myself in a moment of peace, happily doing the dishes at my farmhouse sink in a rural corner of Connecticut. Yes, our weekend house has become our shelter where we shelter in place.

The window above the sink looks out over a small sloped lawn and into the scenic, comforting woods mixed with maple, beech, pine, and oak trees. I really don’t know what the most common tree is as my gaze enjoys resting on those quiet woods. Maybe my extra time in quarantine will make me study trees. There is enough space between the trees, the brush cleared away carefully by our landscaper a few years back, that on sunny days in late afternoon light I want to be a painter.

It has been a chilly quarantine. We all shelter in place hoping that walks will soon no longer require hats and gloves as we pass into late April. This particular morning snow covers the ground. We had one tease of a high 60-degree day which made everyone feel optimistic in the gloom that brews around us. Perhaps we wish we could hold that optimism in our hands, like a smooth round stone from the nearby river, and save it for the next dreary day.

Our house was built by the previous owner with a strange combination of low budget and high-end features (I think the money may have run out). One feature is radiant floor heating. Beware of this seemingly luxurious home detail; in a bitter cold winter it takes the whole weekend to warm the house enough to take off layers of wool and fleece.

I am explaining our heating system because even my feet are sweating. Despite the chill outside, I am a woman of a certain age. For about 22 years of my 25-year marriage, I was almost always cold. In fact, my cold feet (the literal kind) were one of the things that brought my husband and I together when we were “just friends” sharing a room in a summer house filled with college classmates enjoying a social summer while working mediocre jobs. Those were the days when you could be 20 years old and still have no idea what you wanted to do with your degree, so you worked in the college library, helped out at a summer camp or even scooped ice cream. Let’s just say that summer of unambitious work, beer and mini golf led to flirting, which led to other feelings, and I made the first move with the excuse of needing to warm up my cold feet.

Our insignificant arguments about temperature over the years seem to have some commonality with those in many marriages; the man wanting to turn on the air conditioner when the temperature outside hits the perfect 68 degrees, while the woman wants to enjoy the fresh air. The warm comforter was often tossed off his side of the bed while I snuggled under it in a fetal position, cozy up to my neck.

But now, all four of us in the family share our quarantine space and try to balance way more than the temperature. My 20-year old daughter is starting to have swollen knees because she can’t dance any longer on the hard floor (like all colleges, her musical theater program is doing its best, but continuing a degree that by definition requires more face-to-face interaction than perhaps any other is hard). Meanwhile, my 18-year-old son continues to hold his emotions close. I can’t help but believe that, as a high school senior, he also holds the shortest end of the stick, having to miss so much that would have marked this milestone. As for my husband, his stress is high, with a shuttered small business presenting even more complexity than before. His age has brought on a chill, while my body temperature switches between comfortable and clothes stuck to my sweaty skin. Quarantine benefit – I have not worn a bra in 32 days!

So, I stand at my kitchen sink looking out into those beautiful woods with my privileged gaze and realize – as I begin to sweat – that I can open the window. A cold breeze wafts through. As I take this new air into my lungs with a slow, self-soothing breath, I could stand there happily washing the dishes for hours. Or at least until someone in my family realizes there is a draft and where is it coming from and why did someone open a window and what’s for dinner and damnit why is there snow on the ground in April and why is all of this happening?!! Collective primal scream. But for now, I enjoy this moment, slowly washing the breakfast dishes as my family’s eyes watch their individual screens. Quarantine high.