Midlife – The Green Study

The Quiet Desperation of the Middle Ages

canstockphoto6752521 It’s hard to write or talk out loud these days. I’ve disappeared on friends, but talk to strangers just to know that I still can. I dread the question how are you? because I fear that a flood will pour out. At first, I thought maybe I’d simply had too much solitude. Re-entering the world after periods of quiet is like walking after roller skating. Gliding replaced by a toddler’s gait.

Then the election came, a demoralizing event that made me rally the get ‘er done troops in my head. I started volunteering again, hoping the humility of service would soothe me. And I committed to finishing the rewrites on a novel. I created challenges when I was already playing in the weeds. Sometimes I’m my own worst Tony Robbins.

My body decided that if common sense and rational thinking wouldn’t slow me down, it would jump into the fray. My knees revolted against weight lifting and running, only allowing me a limp that smelled like Tiger Balm. My eye condition came back with a vengeance, leaving me afraid to close my eyes at night. Every single one of my joints began to ache. I started to wail in my head about aging and Minnesota winters.

I walked the red carpet to a massive pity party. canstockphoto2438668

But I live in Minnesota, so I automatically think: it’s not so bad, could be worse. Nothing like experiencing passive-aggressive depression.

I’ve arrived at a junction in my life where all roads look like they’ve been traveled before. Dried up goals tumble across deserted expanses. The discarded skins of youthful hopefulness lay curled near the skulls of dreams past. I’ve lived through a zillion depressions and unaccountable bursts of energy and pulled myself out of swamps and over precipices.

Persistence is often lauded as one of the qualities that lead to success. Except if that persistence is something akin to beating one’s head against a wall. Even if you eventually get through that wall, you’re going to end up pretty bloodied and exhausted.

On an earlier post, I’d written a pithy comment about being “grateful for the struggle”. An honest friend, in the midst of her own struggle, said Really? I think it sucks. I felt a little embarrassed. I know it sucks and I am exhausted by it. Expressing gratitude in the middle of despair is like living in a shitty little house and hoping that a new coat of paint will hide all the drywall patches and lack of structural integrity. But I’m afraid that if I let go of trite positivity, my house will fall down around me.

canstockphoto9420051 Insecurity and fear have been my bedfellows of late. One of my volunteer gigs is to help in an office that supports volunteers. My superhero persona is “File Girl” (because all women superheroes suddenly become girls, doncha know). File Girl spends hours filing paperwork with alacrity and remembering that in the decades of office careers, she used to be a contender. I feel the weight of aging and irrelevance and a desperate need to remember that I’m competent.

Physical changes trigger a fear unlike any other. I’ve had the fortune of good health most of my life. My body has been a true workhorse for me. I’m used to strength and endurance, all of which are fading by degree. I’m having trouble adjusting to the new reality, my workouts an uneven jumble of doing what doesn’t cause pain. I’m desperately trying a new regimen of supplements and stretching and kinesio taping to keep moving.

Last week I self-consciously sat next to a teenage boy in a classroom of body sprays and attitude. He’s an English learner who I’ve been assigned to tutor, but he turns his body away and ignores me. I glance about the room. Five kids are furtively texting. Two are sleeping. The rest are in a variety of sprawls across desks with attached chairs. Desks that try to corral and contain.

Being in a high school 32 years after I escaped my own is a bit of a trip. The more things change, the more they stay the same. It reminds me of how painful it is to figure out who you are, trying on and discarding personas and friends and ideas. Becoming middle-aged carries the same issues of discovery – the uncontrolled physical changes, trying to figure out where you fit in and irritated that you spend so much time on stuff that won’t even matter (gym class and Christmas card lists, in case you are wondering).

canstockphoto16610014 As a teenager, I spent a lot of time daydreaming and imagining possibilities. I’ve spent nearly five decades eliminating many of those possibilities and discovering that I will not, indeed, become an omniscient librarian with ninja skills and a penchant for rugged, but fleeting lovers. I’m a bit of a suburban lump right now, grateful for my little house, my stable family and a room full of books. What I’ve lost in passion, I’ve gained in binge-watching entire seasons of shows that are cancelled on a cliffhanger. I’m worried that is how my life will end.

The canons of epiphany suggest that I should go wild or eat, pray, love myself out of complacency. There’s not a lot of guidance for those of us who stay in place, cling to our families and believe that change can come in increments. The problem with incremental change is that it is so minor as to be unnoticeable. Nobody is going to be inducted into Oprah’s book club for adding more beans and greens to their diet or meditating five extra minutes in the morning. Nobody will be playing me in the movies. Unless I get axe murdered or come down with an incurable disease.

canstockphoto22044551 At the bottom of my despair, this thought creeps over me: This is how it ends. Laundry and dishes and filing. A bit fat and unaccomplished. People saying pithy things at the funeral. People I loathe shedding tears and making scenes. Prayers being said for my atheist soul. My possessions scavenged, my life in an urn.

And that makes me laugh a little bit. Because if that’s how it all ends (and inevitably it does), there’s a few things I can drop off my to-do list. Like being relevant or having something to prove. The elusive teenage cool of saying screw it, but with wrinkles, a credit history and a barely discernible will to live.

December 16, 2016December 16, 2016

Michelle at The Green Study56 Comments

A Body of Evidence

canstockphoto8980615 I finally forced myself to go for a physical, stirrups included. Yee-haw. It was embarrassing when the receptionist announced I’d have to fill out new patient paperwork, since it’d been nearly 6 years since I’d last shown up. After a flu last month kicked off a party of hot flashes and inexplicable pains, I forced myself through the door of the clinic.

As they reviewed my information, I stood there stiffly, until I blurted “I’m having an anxiety attack.” My heart was pounding so hard I could barely focus on what the woman behind the desk was asking. Age? 48. When the nurse took my blood pressure, it was through the roof. She chuckled knowingly about “white coat syndrome”. All that damned meditative breathing did nothing.

The doctor was a woman about my age. I do what I usually do under stress, which is to start cracking jokes. I did all the usual perimenopausal material about facial hair, stomach fat, hot flashes. Yes, it’s a real laugh riot, this slow deterioration of the body. She said “Yeah, I really don’t like my body at this age. I was much happier with it at 25.”

And it hit me, I don’t feel that way.

This may not seem much of an epiphany, but a lifetime of self-loathing and sharp self-criticism would beg to differ otherwise. Things have started to change for me over the last few years – I am starting to feel and look my age more than ever before. But what I feel about my body is kinder, more accepting, more appreciative and more respectful.

The exchange stuck in my mind on the drive home. I have rarely felt good about the aesthetics of my body, because unless I had major plastic surgery, developed fashion sense and put in some serious time, I would never come close to the cultural ideal of beauty. Whenever I’ve put on makeup or a dress, it felt like a costume. And I knew that somehow, I would never quite measure up and that there was no point in keeping skin in the game.

It’s an interesting time in our culture, with the widening of gender definitions. Once you pull yourself out of the mainstream and sail down your own little creek, an amazing thing happens. You become human. All the strictures tacked on to whatever parts you were born with, suddenly mean nothing. It’s a challenge for those of us who were raised with binary ideas, because we have to rewire our thinking to encompass bigger, less defined ideas about our own genders. What makes us us?

Through much of my life, I’ve treated my body like the container that carries my brain. Gender felt like an inconvenience. That disconnect can be problematic, since our bodies are intricate and complex and connected in every way to our brains. But once I hit my 40s, my body was suddenly a piece of IKEA furniture. I had no idea how it was put together, but I loved its functionality.

My body has survived a reckless childhood, basic training, childbirth, martial arts, running, weight losses and gains, years of garden crouching, illnesses and syndromes and odd twinges and aches. It’s not beautiful. They don’t tell you that, unless you’re young or plasticized, when you age you start to morph into a cellulite pumpkin.

M canstockphoto18744450 y daughter will sometimes ask me about visible scars. I have tiny cross-hatch scars on my face from trying to do an Olympic flip off of playground equipment in 3rd grade. In the days when playgrounds were covered with large gravel, it all ended badly when I landed on my face and the nose pieces from my glasses embedded in my forehead. It was the first time being a daredevil had real, painful consequences.

Even the scars unseen remain as psychic reminders. I can tell you exactly where I slipped with a woodcarving tool in art class and stabbed myself in the hand. I can still remember my 6th grade art teacher shrieking as blood ran down my arm. I learned how someone’s reaction made everything so much worse than it was.

There’s a long scar on my belly that saved the lives of both myself and my child. I learned, despite my homeopathic leanings, to appreciate modern medicine.

My knees make noises when I go up and down stairs. My shoulder aches if I sleep wrong. When I run, I have to pay attention to the stress reactions in my feet since getting fractures two years ago. When it’s about to rain, my joints ache.

My hands have begun to look my grandmother’s, which reminds me to cherish them before the arthritis starts to do its work.

Wrinkles have come to stay on my face. I look to see if they are from smiling or frowning too much. I seem to have them equally from both expressions. Maybe that’s balance, I don’t know.

canstockphoto0171983 With all the talk about body positivity and the “everyone is beautiful” memes, I roll my eyes. Beauty is subjective, but the only standards most of us have been measured by are not. I was never going for beautiful. I was and am still going for sticking the landing. As each year passes, I’ll be doing a jump of joy for resiliency – even if it hurts.

My body carries all my stories. It tells me that time is passing and that there’s no going back. It’s my evidence of a life well-lived. But more importantly, of a life still lived.

February 21, 2016February 21, 2016

Michelle at The Green Study59 Comments

A Birthday, Allelopathy, and an Epiphany

This summer has been one of my worst summers since that year I had to go to church camp and make macrame owls, alongside girls who wanted to try on my glasses and giggle hysterically about how bad my eyesight was. Haha, dumbasses, you can’t Lasik stupid away.

When they say someone has snapped, I always think that must be a relative term. One person’s breakage is a trip to the grocery store for another. My trip to the grocery store involved me being angry for weeks on end. I’m still feeling pretty hostile.

It’s a child’s rage and it took me completely off guard. I turned 48 last week and for the months prior, I felt this anger build. We’re told that women tend to turn their anger inwards, but my depression was not a big enough vessel to contain it this time.

As hard as I try, I think I’m kind of a shitty human being. Some people go through life effortlessly, with little introspection or regret. Part of me wonders what that would be like. The rest of me thinks they’re either extremely healthy or sociopaths.

Over the last couple of years, I’ve struggled with the do-gooder me. Like a cheesy answer to a job interview question about weaknesses, I feel overly responsible for others. Leading the parent-teacher group, taking care of my mother-in-law, stepping up when volunteers are asked for, donating money, goods, time. I’ve done a lot of organized volunteer work in my life, as well as the informal saying “yes” when someone asks for help. I was a problem solver, reliable, responsible and generous.

Something has changed. I’ve become so angry and resentful that I’m blurting “NO!” even before someone finishes the question. The pendulum has swung. My motivation for doing good often lay with my sense that I was not good enough. And that no longer seems a good enough reason.

It starts young, this goodness of the heart that really isn’t. It starts with the oldest child in a family of alcoholics. It starts with words. Lowbrow versions of not good enough, not pretty enough, not thin enough, not outgoing enough. Thoughtless words tossed off by adults who were never enough, either.

It starts the first time you believe that a fundamentalist God will strike you dead because you lied about sneaking food at night. Dear god, please don’t kill me. I’ll be ever so good. It starts when adults praise and fawn over you because you are such a good, polite little girl, but you know that it’s an act. Theirs and yours.

It starts when you’re 11 and your stepfather passes out while driving and you desperately tug at the steering wheel and push your foot on the brake to steer to the shoulder. It starts when you quickly gather your brothers and sister, herding them out of the house before the punching starts. You are 13 and responsible for their lives. From that point on, you feel responsible for everything.

It continues when you have trouble making friends, because you’re an introvert. So you do favors. You give rides and money, make them laugh, drink enough to be outgoing. They seem to like you. You try to be agreeable, even though you think their latest perm makes them look like Carrot Top and that their boyfriends are numb-nuts. You keep your sharper opinions to yourself, smile when you don’t feel like it and drive them to the movie theater to see a movie you don’t want to see.

It continues when your boyfriend calls you a whore for not being a virgin and you think he is right, because they all are. You thrive at Army basic training because being screamed at that you’re too slow or fat or stupid or woman is nothing new. It doesn’t phase you. You think you’ve got it under control. The rules are laid out for you to follow and you follow them.

It continues for decades. You are a good employee, loving spouse, decent parent, reliable friend. Your anger is this vague, pulpy mess that you sort of, kind of, blame on others’ expectations and exhaustion. And that works for awhile. Until it doesn’t. Until one day, you wake up and realize that it’s all you. Your expectations and demands of yourself are holding you hostage.

Insomnia has become my new thing. I lay wide awake at 3am, my witching hour. I think, what if I stopped doing it all? Would anyone even notice? Bit by bit, as I do less, no one really has. For a moment, I mourn the wasted time and feel a little sorry for myself. And then there’s the anger that smells like childhood. How could you be so stupid, so misdirected, so delusional?

No, no, that’s not right. I’m confused. I thought I was less than, so I worked to be good, but now I’m angry about the fact that I was “good” for all the wrong reasons and because of that, I’m less than. Dysfunctional math at its finest.

They call it a midlife crisis, as if it’s a one-time event solved by a racy car, a gym membership, a young lover, airline miles. Maybe for some, it is. For me, it’s a slow burn in place, growing more intense by the moment. It’s not a lifetime of regret, it’s the thought oh no, I want to do so much more. Time has taken on a physical quality. Every activity is weighed and measured and found wanting.

There will be a contingent of people who tell me none of it matters as long as good was done. It reminds me of a term in nature called allelopathy. The word allelopathy comes from the Greek, meaning “mutual harm” and defines the biochemical effect plants can have, both positive and negative, on the organisms and plants around them.

In my case, I have this old, scraggly tree that grew from those childhood years, overshadowing the ground around it. But there is a seedling, borne of the love I’ve given and received, of those moments of happiness and creativity, of contented solitude. It has grown as high as it will be allowed to while that old tree shades it. And that, my friends, is an epiphany.

September 3, 2015October 12, 2016

Michelle at The Green Study49 Comments

Some Disassembly Required

My mother-in-law likes to tell me how my husband tore apart household appliances as a kid, just to see how they worked. I suspect she’s still bitter about a toaster or two. Now an electrical engineer working as a programmer, he continues to take things apart to figure out what’s broken. His great skill is in coming up with non-linear solutions, which is sometimes delightful, other times irritating, if you have any aesthetic sensibilities at all. Nothing ever looks the same again. But it works.

There is a level of fearlessness required to take things apart. I’m often bound by a fear that I will break something while trying to fix it and it will never be useful again.

For the last year, I’ve been struggling to reshape my life, to give it a makeover that reflects my intentions. I made some big moves, like cutting back on volunteering and moving to a vegan diet. I made some smaller changes, like working out less intensely and working a little harder at managing my time, trying to bring more focus to writing and attention to the moments with my family.

Despite a little progress, everything has started to go to hell in a million different ways. Fear has been seeping out everywhere. I feel such a high level of anxiety running like a fetid sewer under everything I’m doing these days.

As we waited for the train to go on vacation a couple of weeks ago, I realized that I’d left all my identification and credit cards in the photocopier at home. My lifelong habit of photocopying everything in my wallet before I go on vacation, in case of loss or theft finally bit me in the ass. We were fortunate to have our tickets.

I sat on the train, wondering aloud if I’d had some sort of stroke. I am that person – the one who organizes, schedules, packs, plans. Lists are my bailiwick. What was happening? Why this sudden spate of forgetfulness and imbalance over the last few weeks? Structure, schedule, lists, goals. Always do the unpleasant, must-do tasks first. Life would be manageable if only everything were clean and put away.

I’ve been getting lost a lot while driving, trying to get to my kid’s soccer games at fields all over the Twin Cities, swearing in frustration. We discovered later that our car navigation system had reset to a default of western states (we’re in the Midwest). It mollified my pride a bit, but nothing takes away that bitter, helpless feeling of being lost, while so close to one’s destination.

This last week I dropped a jar of barbecue sauce which hit one of my pinky toes, now blackened and I suspect, broken. It has found kinship with the toes next to it, still recovering from running stress fractures. I’ve named it Quasimodo. And the joy of eating summer cherries was brought up short when I broke out in hives all over my face, neck and arms. The last time I got hives was the night before my wedding 15 years ago.

Taking my mother-in-law to see a dying friend, I blew a fuse when she told me for the fortieth time that it didn’t look like the right house and asked me if I knew where I was going. It was and I did, but my mother-in-law has dementia. What kind of jerk yells “Well, it’s a good thing you’re not driving!” at someone with a cognitive impairment going to see a friend in hospice care? I felt marginally better when I saw the satisfied look on her face. Now we’re family.

I turn 48 in a couple of months and unlike most birthdays, this seems significant to me. Somewhere in all my late bloomer rationalizations, I really thought I’d have my shit together by now. And I really don’t think I do.

Some friends joke about middle-aged brain. But I think things, namely me, are just falling apart. And despite my fears of being in some sort of menopausal decline, I suspect that breaking things and falling apart and generally being in a chaotic state are part of a bigger process.

I remember that old Army saying about how they’d break us down to build us up. It was a euphemism for we’ll turn you into a bunch of chain-smoking binge drinkers who will follow orders because you’re too damned tired and hungover to do anything else. Maybe that was just me.

There is something to be said for everything going to hell. We cling to our habits and processes like security blankets, until those soft, comforting blankets become concrete prison walls, beyond which we seem incapable of moving. Sometimes things just have to break so that there is room for new ideas and perspective to work their way into our lives.

Things haven’t been working for me. My goals are often diametrically opposed to my habits, leaving me frustrated and depressed. My constant striving for perfectionism eats away at my resolve. I am disciplined and structured until I make a mistake and then I go completely off the rails. I binge-live.

So if my posts seem more like diary entries these days, it’s because everything is raw. I don’t have the energy to fine tune things with wisdom and perspective. It feels as if I’m a disassembled mess, bits and pieces strewn about on a workbench. I only hope that when I get myself back together, nothing looks the same and it works.

July 2, 2015July 6, 2015

Michelle at The Green Study36 Comments

The Green Study “What’s on the B Side of that 45?” Contest: Honorable Mention

An Honorable Mention from The Green Study “What’s on the B Side of that 45?” Contest goes to d. Myers for his poem about a mid-life crisis. He’s a writer, currently working on his first book.

He was sent one The Green Study Coffee Mug, a postcard from Minneapolis and $25 donation was made to his local Red Cross chapter.

mid-life crisis

By d. Myers

slow down and watch it all collide
watch it trail like a fish
is there ever any sign
smelling dog food in a dish

I’ll play with monkeys in a barrel
and legos at the mall
gonna get another snow cone
while I buy my kid a doll

old cars, old shoes, old people
they help to keep it all intact
I’m getting better all the time
I’m getting so I like the cracks

not the smooth stuff or the easy
is ever worth the trip
when I fall I fall so hard
but I’ll never feel the slip

little white fences all around me
I don’t feel too safe at all
fluffy curtains on the windows
and stuff hanging on my walls

great big trees and open highways
start to sooth my aching head
come and put me in a jacket man
and take me off to bed

Congratulations d. and good luck on your writing journey!

December 26, 2014December 26, 2014

Michelle at The Green StudyLeave a comment

The Green Study “What’s on the B Side of that 45?” Contest: Honorable Mention

An Honorable Mention from The Green Study “What’s on the B Side of that 45?” Contest goes to Ruth at Travelling True North for the morning conversation we often have with ourselves.

She was sent one The Green Study Coffee Mug, a postcard from Minneapolis and $25 donation was made on her behalf to the Red Cross International Emergency Response Fund.

“Life in the Midlife Teens”

By Ruth at Travelling True North

Mind: What’s that noise? 5am and someone woke me up. Ergh… Zzzzz.

Body: Zzzzz….

Mind: Argh. Again? It must be the cat. No, stop that, it’s your child.

Body: I’m not getting up.

Mind: Well, neither am I because I am only 18 and I deserve sleep.

Body: Still not getting up.

Mind: No. No. No,no,no,no,nooooooooo. Still with the noise! What’s that husband doing? Sleeping. Argh…

Body: I still hurt from staying up past 9.30pm last night. But YOU ARE A PARENT. Get. Out. Of. Bed.

Ok, done. Ugg boots on (it’s still a bit cold), fleece….

3 mins.

Body: Damn. Still up. Now with cuddly child. Lovely cuddly child, all warm and soft and desperately clinging on while saying ‘cuddddddddllllllllllleeeeeesssssss’. Nice. Eyes still barely open though. Just missed walking into the wall. Argh.

Mind: What do you mean we have to function? It’s 5am. 5. A.M.

Well, I leave it up to you.

Body: Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no no. I’m the one who knows how old we are. I’m the one who feels the aches, the stress of aging joints, the fatigue of needing a few hours more sleep each day, and the head thump of that extra glass of wine last night.

YOU’RE the one who seemed to think this is all ok. That kids past 40 was a great idea and that we all had the stamina for several YEARS of sleepless nights, extended bedtimes, no personal time and endless rounds of the ‘why’ game. We’re all in this together, baby. Stump up.

Mind: Hmmm. I am still 18 you know. 18 was not that long ago, if you recall. We were vibrant, healthy, had a nice growing bank balance and could lift weights greater than our body fat index…

Body: 18 was YEARS ago. YEARS.

Mind: But then not so much has changed, has it?

Has it?

Body: No, no. Though, um. There’s that ‘changed’ waistline, the hair colour, red-eye-reduction eye drop fascination and fondness for soft cheeses. Oh, and the need to head to bed at 9pm…

Mind: Well, in my defence soft cheeses are brilliant. And the kids have ruined all hope of normal sleep.

Body: And we’re all just passed 40…

Just sayin’…

Mind: 40 is the new 20.

Body: Really?

Mind: Really.

Body: Realllllly??

Mind: Pause.

…the new black??

Body: Clutching at straws, my friend. Clutching at straws. Do you recall when our 17 year old niece came to visit? You spent all that prep time thinking about how you would connect about social interests, school, friends and personal values. And it became verrrry clear that your scintillating conversation about home cooking, tree hugging and the joys of craft were falling just short of the dramatic eye-roll/ rapid-exit combo move. Even your ‘I really liked a party’ tale from the 90s was met with a well meaning, bemused, smile and a quick hug goodnight. Loving, but. Not quite what you were expecting?

Mind: Humph.

Body: Or the time you said yes to skiing and we broke a leg? 12 weeks in a cast, no driving, little travel and a particularly challenging time trying to work. Could have gone better, Lady Osteo?

Mind: Well, it did break on the end of a great run… And it was a very stylish manoeuvre…

Body: I say it again, juuuust not 18.

Mind: Right. Well then, I guess you’re saying it’s all back to hot flushes, the hair colourist, a stab at the 5:2 Diet, and carving out personal time in an overworked schedule?

Body: And reading Miffy at 5am.