TheBanyanTree: Getting Better or An Oldie But a Goodie or This is Way Too Long For Comfort (take your pick)

[Maria Gibson]

It's an intense thing, not necessarily a bad thing, it's just intense, 
this midlife crisis.   My therapist (a pretty good sign that something 
is happening in your life is weekly or bi-weekly talks with  someone who 
hangs a diploma on the wall) asks me how do I know?  What have I 
discovered to make me believe or know that this is the real deal?   
(She's always got these wacky kinds of questions...)  And ya know...?  
Just so happens I have been thinking about that all along anyway.  I had 
some answers up my anxious sleeve, juicy,  just waiting to be plucked.

Ok, here's something.  It is in one's forties that one starts to meet 
adults who are young enough to be their children.  Self sufficient, been 
through school, earning paychecks and even some raising families...yep; 
coulda birthed 'em.  Coulda nursed them at the breast twenty years or 
more ago.  Coulda had an episiotomy with their name on it.  I think that 
by the time a person gets to the fifties and then sixties and so on and 
so on, this is old hat but it is a surprise in the forties...as if we 
didn't know all along we and the world around us was getting older.  It 
sort of stuns the senses when all of a sudden you look down and your 
body went ahead with a stealth aging process whilst your mind grew 
sharper and clearer, you learned who you were as a person, became 
confident within your own skin.  This....all of this....as your mutinous 
and defiant flesh began flowing south.  It boggles this sharp, witty 
mind.  So...that's one thing I've learned.  Chalk one up for me.

And, of course, no brainer, I just so happen to have made a significant 
life change right in the middle of said life.  Hence, the midlife 
crisis; you understand the connection.  I carry pictures of me of when I 
was nearly three hundred pounds because it is at the point where people 
don't always believe me.  Which is another mind boggler...who would 
lie?  I mean, sure, I might be tempted to say I used to be a smoking hot 
runway model who let herself go but why would I say I used to wear a 
size twenty-six pants, got made fun of by children and felt breathless 
lying on my back because the fat so squeezed my lungs if 
it...weren't...true????  Ok, I know, I know, they don't really think I'm 
lying.  They are just amazed because to merely look at one who has done 
this is to not know she did it.  I find that amazing, too, and sometimes 
will look at the pictures for myself just to see that I'm not 
hallucinating and that this is really and truly the new me even though 
I've been this me for a while now.  So now when I look in the mirror I 
get a glimpse of something very unfamiliar.  I see an attractive woman 
and then I dress her attractively and apply makeup to her face which has 
become a lot less round.  I lead her around with a false confidence and 
try to imagine who she would be if she had not ever had to lose a 
hundred pounds and what she might have done with her time in a different 
meantime.  Which leads to a lot of anxiety about where new me could go, 
how old me could eat new me in the space of a nanosecond if there was 
ranch dressing to dip me in.   How old me could talk new me into all 
kinds of things just to get her fleshy toehold back into the game.  Then 
a struggle ensues.  I can see how easy it would be to let new me develop 
some of the bad habits of old me and put them to dasdardly use by 
refusing food or eating only fruit and yogurt and in general using 
control on the other end of that raw, dirty and dark spectrum.  It's a 
lot to think about as I enter insurance at work or drive or talk on the 
phone or shop or cook.  It's non-stop.  So there we are, new and old me 
trying to find a comfort zone because we all have to live in here.  No 
one is going to go away, no one is going to bully the other.  We are 
going to all hold hands and get through this together and come out 
friends.  We have to.  I can't survive if we don't.  It's that simple.

Ah, the age old questions of a midlife crisis....  Is this all my life 
is about?  Have I made a contribution?  Am I doing what I was destined 
to do or did I miss the boat or worse, did I jump off of it?  What the 
hell is my purpose anyway?  Yes, yes, these questions and more all 
spring to life as one waits minute upon hour to go back to sleep night 
after night after night.  I think about the kind of person I want to be, 
strive to be, which has nothing to do with any of those questions.  I'm 
comfortable with my level of honesty, my treatment of others, my love of 
life in general.  But I lack time to do the more tangible things I love 
like write and exercise at the intense level I enjoy most.  Perhaps it 
is that I lack the energy by the time I get home from work.  Why do I 
hook myself out every day to make money for someone else and then wonder 
why I don't feel fulfilled?  Some would say why ask why and then keep 
right on punching that time clock.  No, I say.  No.  I can't keep doing 
it because this is not my life.  If it were, I'd have to shoot myself 
right this very instant, first in the foot so that it wouldn't hurt so 
bad when I shot myself in the head.  I suddenly care a lot less about 
having disposable income than giving away my life in small slices which 
over time add up to the whole damn pie.  The solution to this puzzle is 
in the works and God bless the pimp I work for.  The love and 
understanding with which my request to severely reduce my hours was met 
is unheard of in the working world, or at least the countries of that 
world in which I've traveled, anyway.  When I landed on their doorstep, 
a bit battered and tattered, it was a miracle from heaven for which I 
will always be grateful.  I sometimes venture into trying to explain the 
depth of my feelings for the people I work with and if I went as far as 
it is deep, I'd end up crying.  So, just to keep a little sanity in the 
mix, I downplay it at the point at which sobs could escape.  But, truly, 
truly, do I love the people I work with.  You might understand how these 
two polar opposite sides of the fence could pinch the ass that sits on 
it and cause some angst.  Sure, there are other parts of the 'purpose' 
equation such as nearly desperately wanting to live solely for others 
for a while, say a year in Gautamala, but those things are further 
back.  Either I have abandoned them in the path or have not yet 
encountered them to their full extent.  I am not sure but it is the 
first question, the question of not working everyday for someone else, 
no matter the amount of love I have for them, that is foremost on my 
mind.  I think I should get another chalk mark for making these 
distinctions even if I can't always sort them into sensible patterns.

So at this junction I begin to see that if I am to move away from some 
of the things that keep my life the way it is; which is not bad but not 
everything I think it could be, the only thing for me to do is leave.  
Leave the comfort zone and take some risks.  Leave the safety net and 
begin to jump with the clear knowledge that I could fall and be 
bruised.  Now, some might dare to sky dive or run with the bulls but I 
am willing to begin at the beginning which is to say, I have taken teeny 
weeny steps at risk taking these past weeks and almost months.  First, I 
have shared some of the things I have written at work.  Things that are 
very personal and show a piece of who I am that I don't usually share.  
I was amazed and in love all over again to have these writings so well 
received that I ventured again to inviting some people in person versus 
just hoping they'd pick up the folder.  Personally as in an invitation, 
to read the stuff.  I might as well say, please know me.  Please care 
about who I am under and within and aside from what I do here.  This 
could be a surprise to the people who have been getting to know me 
through what I write for several years now but in person I am much less 
vulnerable than what you see written.  And to pass these people in the 
hall when I know they know I know they know.  Well.  It's daunting, I'll 
say that much.  But good; good daunting.  Pleasant daunting, living and 
breathing daunting.  I can deal with that.

I also recently almost went rappelling.  Yes, I almost went and I am 
happy with the outcome.  Not because I didn't or even as simple as that 
I tried, no, I am happy because I actually went as far as I did.  I 
stood with my back to the edge of a cliff and although I didn't go down, 
I stood there believing I would not fall.  Now, I would have had that 
fear had I gone down but I got right next to the edge without it.  It 
was huge for me because I have an issue with height but it is the edge 
that really scares me.   I can't even stand with my back to the stairs 
here at home.  The people I went with were so wonderful and so 
supportive.  The instructor was confident and capable.  He was 
reassuring and made me want to try again just by his sheer kindness.  I 
was sent a picture and noticed right away that as his head was bent 
toward me, his voice guiding me with a strong and gentle tone, his left 
arm was behind me.  I know there were others there but it is almost from 
the perspective of a blind man.  I can close my eyes and sense every 
part of it, from the tight fitting harness to the odd tangles and 
twisted metal configurations that make a rope safe.  I can still smell 
the air as it cooled and feel the presence of the strength next to me, 
an arm behind me.  No matter how many people, no matter the lack of 
broken gravity, no matter coming back when it was only four steps out.  
I was safe, I was respected and it was a gift.  I can't wait to try 
again.  Baby steps, baby steps.  As I proudly showed the picture around, 
yes, goofy me bragging about not finishing (but I've already explained 
all that so I know you understand) I knew I had gained something.  And 
it was good.

I drove there by myself, by the way.  Yep.  Never been there, didn't 
know the way.  That is a huge risk for me.  And there have been smaller 
risks along the way but it's something I try to do on a daily basis.  
Wear something snug fitting on my waist or call the 'running' store and 
describe myself as a beginning jogger.  Let a new friend know how much I 
like her and want to get to know her better even if I sometimes skat 
away.  All of these things take me out of my comfort zone and that's 
where I want to be.  I don't want my air of confidence to be a big, fat, 
fake lie.  I don't want to wake in the night in fear and gut wrenching 
anticipation of what might happen.  I want to live and live and live.  I 
want the world to know how I feel and I want the ones I love to know 
it.  I want to be known for who I am which isn't always that great but I 
want it to be known real in any case.  Warts and all.

Might I suggest, there should be more acceptable answers to the question 
"How are you?" than "Fine."  It seems so often I am not really fine, 
particularly if I am having an intense day.  I want to introduce 
'fraught.'  'How are you', you ask, I say 'fraught' and no more 
explaination is need.  Perhaps I can say more with a simple 'wrought' or 
a more telling 'overwrought.'  'Distraught' can be held for those days 
which are so bad you wish to God no one would ask and then when they did 
they would know the full extent in the one word answer without the need 
for a full explaination. 

"How are you today?"
"Distraught."
Whole story done and done and everyone can keep right on walking.

It sounds as easy as pie to me because the real truth of the matter 
isn't that people don't care about the answer or how we actually feel, 
it's the situation in which the question is usually posed.  The question 
with the most potential for truth and understanding is saved for the 
least amount of time in which to deliver it.  We should stop doing that 
but in the absence of  sewing together a whole new culture, let's try it 
my way as a small step forward, one small patch on the quilt.

So, that's me.  Having a midlife crisis for those who didn't know.   
Putting together the pieces sometimes with a blindfold and other times 
with boxing gloves on.  It doesn't seem to matter the nature of the 
struggle, it is still a struggle.  The more I learn the less I know and 
the more I want to know.  These are the days of my life, my friends.  I 
am on the hunt for so much but not bored and am revelling at this sink 
or swim time of life.  I think I'll swim even though it is trying and 
tiring and I get leg cramps.  The water is still refreshing even if I am 
afraid that I see shark shadows in the deep.  And if you see me on the 
street and ask the all important question, I want you to be forewarned 
that I am changing the face of our society forever and ever amen with 
this one simple new rule of social ettiquette.

"How are you today, Maria?"
"Rife."

The hell with anyone else.  I earned these chalk marks all on my own.



~ ~ ~Maria~ ~ ~