Fashionista to Passionista

Yesterday I decided to head to downtown Toronto. Typically, I will take a small bag with just the essentials: ID, money, credit card, cell phone, lip gloss. Yesterday, though, I took a backpack. And in it was goggles, a towel, several bottles of water, a bandana, a camera, painkillers. Usually I prepare for my downtown trip with fun and culture in mind. Yesterday I prepared to be tear gassed. (For the record, I also took my lip gloss. I am, after all, a fashionista who shelved her heels in favour of sneakers for this outing.) My son and I had decided we wanted to see what was going on at the G20 protests for ourselves so made a rather spontaneous decision to head to the core. A number of friends asked me why I would put myself in harm’s way. The answer is simple: Because I can.

The purpose of this blog is not to be political. So why a post about the G20? Because the purpose of this blog is to document and share the experience of middle-age and all that comes with it. Five years ago, I would not have even considered the trip downtown. But now I can. And the shift from can’t to can is relevant to this blog.  So we’ll start there.

I have asked parents what the biggest shift in their lives was after having a child. Sure, lifestyles changed, finances dwindled, joy increased, stresses mounted, sleepless became the new badge of honour. But the single most surprising thing to new parents seemed to be the overwhelming instinct to survive. This was certainly true for me. When you realize you have a person completely and utterly dependent upon you for his or her survival, you make different choices than you otherwise might. It’s a no-brainer. You have to be here for them and you can’t afford to take any chances. As a result, a good deal of your effort goes into protecting and providing for these little people. You don’t drink and drive, you give up smoking, you hang up your mountain-climbing gear or back country skiis and you become responsible. You don’t take chance. You can’t get sick. Does anyone remember the show 30-Something? One of the characters, a mother of young children who is battling cancer, pleads “I just can’t die. I’m not done with them yet”.

One of the recent freedoms I’ve embraced is that my children, Search and Destroy, are now 22 and 20 respectively. I did my job.  Sure, I will always be here for them. But they are educated, capable adults who no longer need me for their survival. I don’t have to be afraid to die. Well, other than the fact that that would suck for me personally. But the overwhelming instinct that has guided the last two decades of decisions is rapidly fading. Mama bear has figuratively kicked those cubs to the curb and they’re going to be just fine. And now Mama can have some fun of her own.  And what better way to celebrate this freedom? Why, to put myself in the middle of a potentially dangerous situation, of course.

Part of my nature as a writer is to observe and document what motivates people. And part of my nature as a passionista is to participate in life, not just watch it. So, I turned off the news coverage and headed downtown with my son, Destroy. We packed our teargas gear and were downtown in minutes, given that most sane people were staying home and watching it on tv. By the time we arrived, most of the violence had ended, although a third police car was torched while we were there (which is why we had trouble getting back to our car – we had parked in the hot zone, literally). Here are some images from the experience.

A lot of gear for a hot, humid day.

Holding back protestors chanting "Whose streets? Our streets!"

Typical scene on many core streets.

Security guard waits for repairmen.

Huge destruction. Alarm was still going off as we passed by.

I’m glad I saw it for myself. I’ve spent twenty years watching the world go by. It’s time to rejoin. I realize I could have been harmed. I could have become trapped in a crowd, tear gassed, hurt, even though I was only there to observe and document. Things could have gone horribly bad. As it was, the only trouble we had was getting back to our car because by the time we were ready to head home, a third police cruiser had been torched and it happened just a block from the parking lot. And here’s one of the differences between my son and me. If he’d been unable to get back to the car, he’d have had to call for help, hung out on the streets, whatever. At this age, I could have just pulled out a credit card and got a hotel room. As it was, we had to take such an out of the way route to double-back to the car, that I just hailed a cab, and paid him $10 to find his way through the back streets.

This morning I discovered the other difference between my son’s experience and mine. He is ready to head downtown again today. I need to ice my leg after walking for 4 hours through the rain yesterday. He might have the strength and the stamina of youth, but I have the money for the cab.

I’m not sure how old Bette Davis was when she said “Getting old ain’t for sissies” but I think she was into her 70’s. I’m just around the corner from 50 and (say the rest in a gravelly-voiced-Keanu-Reeves-in-Speed voice) Sister, I’m already there….

I’ve noticed obvious changes over the decade of my 40’s.  There is more grey than colour in my roots now, and where I was once hard and defined, I’m now a little soft and doughy (and not in a good way). I’ve had to start trimming nose hairs, waxing a moustache that would make a 13-year old boy proud, and plucking those pesky stray eyebrows that spring up at various points along my once-tight jaw line. I cannot see properly no matter what I do. I’m either exchanging distance glasses for reading glasses, or looking over or under my transition lenses, or closing one eye so I can read a novel. (I have discovered that if I duct-tape the outside corners of my eyelids to my hairline I can see fine.) I refuse to wear nude pantyhose in the summer for fear I’ll resemble Ruth Buzzi but bare legs are no longer acceptable due to veins and discolouration:  spray-on cover up is a must. Let’s not even talk about what happens when I sneeze unexpectedly. I have learned to identify and overcome these challenges with merciless precision. However, a new indignity has recently come to light.

Last spring I experienced a hair disaster. It’s too painful to talk about so we’ll leave that for another post. The result was that after 20 years with long hair, it had to be cut to above my shoulders. Sure, it was cute and current and fun (horrifyingly, at some point someone called it “sassy”), but that’s not the point.  When it was long, I wore it up regularly.  After my cut, it was too short to wear up so I hadn’t actually seen my profile in almost a year. Recently, as my hair now rests on my shoulders, I decided to wear it in a low ponytail. As always, I check my view from the back and sides before leaving the house. Much to my horror, upon examining my profile, I experienced a new brand of horror: I now have f^&^%$!! sideburns.

Not actually believing it, I thought perhaps I’d failed to wash my face properly (although I’m not known to come home from my corporate job in the suburbs with facial grime). Alas no, it didn’t wash off. Gingerly, I attempted to touch it and I could actually feel soft, fuzzy little hairs that were there enough to pull on. What fresh hell is this?! I flashed back to my childhood…..

Here’s an adorable, precocious, 5-year-old me, sitting on my beloved grandmother’s lap, patting the sides of her face, cooing “I love you Grandma. You’re fuzzy.” She was probably 50 at the time, and it speaks to her kind nature that she didn’t unceremoniously toss me off her lap and tell me little girls shouldn’t make such comments. Instead, she just hugged me tight and told me how much she loved me. And then she probably broke the land speed record driving to the beauty shop for waxing.

It seems I am now my grandmother. Or more accurately, my grandfather. Because here is what is happening. Here is the big secret no one talks about as we age. Everyone wants to know why men just get better looking with age and why women don’t. It’s because men are turning into stately older men which is good. Unfortunately women are also turning into stately older men, which is bad.

As women go through the stages of their lives, they pass their peak fertility years. As much as we’d like to think that we’re civilized, evolved beings, we are still largely governed by biology. The reason that 20 and 30 somethings look so desirable is because nature intended it that way. As women age, our fertility declines as does our desirability, which is the natural order of things. If hot, young men were all jumping the bones of post-menopausal women in favour of their 20-something sisters, our species literally wouldn’t survive. I believe the aging process of women is designed to make us as unappealing to the male animal as possible. I guess turning me into a wrinkled, pudgy, grey-haired hobbit isn’t enough to keep the young men away, so nature decided to add sideburns to the mix. Awesome.

Before I say anymore, let me just say that I am not a desperate woman trying to hold onto my youth. I am venturing boldly into this new stage of middle-age. I am certainly more comfortable in my (less than taut) skin, and more at peace than any other time of my life. I am confident and assured. My grown children are decent human beings I am proud to give to the world. I am succeeding professionally. My personal style has changed from one of trendy to one of elegance. Ironically, my personal style strategy has always been to mix elements of both the feminine and the masculine. The look I’m going for, however, is to mix an over-sized men’s watch with a delicate bracelet, not to mix Blue Suede Shoes eye shadow with Elvis sideburns. Geez, what’s next, a soul patch? 

I find 40+ women an incredible species, all fashioned with the fabric of their own fascinating stories. I am – and I say this with complete honesty – absolutely okay with the crow’s feet that surround my eyes. I am happy with the elegance and grace that comes with confidence and inner peace. I am less emotional and more cerebral. I like these changes very much. I don’t want to remain young, but for crying out loud, I do want to remain a woman. 

I’m not sure what the next 50 years have in store for me. The “old broads” who have come before me inspire me with their candour about aging: Bette Davis, Lauren Bacall. I am proud to be on my way to “old broad-dom”. Meryl Streep, in her 60’s, was recently quoted in Vanity Fair as saying “I don’t remember the last time I cared about being appealing.” That is a wonderful freedom which I am just beginning to experience and appreciate. And I like it. On the other hand, Gloria Steinem, inspiring confidence and self-sufficiency in women, was quoted as saying “We are becoming the men we wanted to marry.” I figure she meant socially and professionally. Who knew it was also happening physically? (Or maybe it’s just happening to me. I’ve heard other women share their horror stories with the opposite issue: balding.) Either way, these conditions are associated with males, not females.

The benefits of middle-age – wisdom, grace, inner peace, and more - far outweigh the (mostly superficial) changes. I’m still not crazy about the fact that I now have to buy my waxing strips in bulk, but given that fresh (hell) challenges are still waiting for me, I’d better man up.

It seems that mid-life crises get a bad rap. I’ve been pondering this lately because I had an epiphany the other morning (but I now have meds to prevent that kind of thing from happening again…) I realized, for the first time in twenty-two years, that my mornings are now my own. I’ll just wait a moment while the gravity of that statement sinks in, because it’s a biggie.

Insert a thoughtful music montage here….

After twenty-two years of having to consider one or other of my children’s schedules, needs, priorities in the morning, they now are functioning independent of me. Halle-friggin’-luiah! While they both still live with me full time, they have their own schedules, they tote themselves around, they (mostly) make their own money. Whaddya know? The first ten years I was married and the last twelve were as a single-parent. My ex (and dear friend whom I’ll call Chuck – as in Yaeger, test pilot) says I should take most of the credit for raising two decent, functional human beings because they’ve always lived with me fulltime. However, I am always quick to point out that without his financial support, I could never have purchased all the wine and Excedrin that two decades of child-rearing requires, so I think we made a good team. What this new state of affairs means, is that I have some headspace available that was previously taken up by kid stuff. I have some room in my brain. And it immediately filled up with American muscle. Let me explain.

Back in the early 70’s when I started high school, I didn’t want the boys who drove the muscle cars to school (well, except Rob Langedyk – he was an unattainable god, but that’s another post). I wanted the cars.  Raised in a family of men who ran and worked for Ford Canada, it could be said we were a car family. My grandfather’s yellow Mercury with the blacktop, my father’s beloved ‘65 black, convertible Mustang, my grandmother’s Falcon which I believe I took out of gear when I was about 3 and the car and I slid down the driveway and across the road. Come to think of it, that early experience of exhilaration behind the wheel may very well have been the seed that blossomed into a love of driving and the open road.

Well, life carried on past highschool to marriage and children and practicality. Except for a short affair with a ‘78 Camaro (which was perfect except it was an automatic – make no mistake about it: driving a car with an automatic transmission is sitting, not driving), our priorities became whatever was economical and practical. Enter the K-car years and honestly, they’re too painful for me to dicuss here. (I feel like Burl Ives’ Sam the Snowman shuddering behind that big umbrella when describing the Abominable Snowman – those K-cars were horrifying.) Eventually I moved on to an Escort wagon and then a Focus wagon, since I had to cart around two growing kids and two fairly hefty dogs. About 6 years ago, I moved on to the Ford Escape, and absolutely loved it. It still wasn’t driving, but it was more fun, and prettier, than a wagon.

Interesting how when I get a few spare cells in my brain, that it fills with American muscle. Why is that, I wonder? Well, it could be that I’m currently on a personal voyage of self-discovery, to root out those things that bring me joy. After all, isn’t that why we’re here? To discover what we love, what makes us get up in the morning with joy, and then go and do it? Bring it out into the world? Share it? Build with it? I think so. So, those kind of thoughts are the ones that rush into any empty spaces in my brain at any given time (like those quiet Sunday mornings when the kids are still asleep and it is blissfully and utterly quiet). That’s when my soul starts to speak, and I have started to listen.

I realized that – ta da! – I no longer need a vehicle that will cart around two big teenagers (and all their friends), and two big dogs! Huh. Now for those of you thinking, well duh, do you need a helmet? let me just say that when you’ve spent a good portion of your brain power on single-handedly raising kids for a couple of decades, those thought patterns become really ingrained. And so I am constantly surprised by these aha moments that are coming more and more often these days, and my money, time, and headspace is freeing up. What a wonderful thing! But then, as soon as I pictured myself sitting in a shiny, new Mustang, my first thought was oh dear lord, I’m a giant cliche. I’m (amost) 50, and I want to buy a pretty sports car. Middle-life crisis, anyone?

But wait. I will not go gently into the mid-life crisis! In fact, this isn’t about a mid-life crisis at all. It’s about a mid-life awareness. I’m not trying to recapture my youth – hell, I never had a muscle car as a youth. I’m not trying to be 20, or 30. No, I was driving the car that can’t be mentioned at that time. This is about something that brings me simple, pure joy. The love of drving, the love of torque, the love of the open road. That wanderlust was put in the trunk a couple of decades ago, but I can hear it knocking. Quite simply, good ol’ American muscle brings me joy. I actually cried at the end of The Fast and the Furious when that ’70 Charger was destroyed. It was painful for me to watch that kind of wanton and unnecessary destruction of something so pure, elegant, and powerful, even for the sake of art. Oh the humanity!

Sure, some of us at any given time will fall prey to an internal crisis. We may wear clothes that are too young or too tight. We may grab ourselves a younger lover. And some of us may buy a car slung so low that we need to take Robaxacet to get in and out of it. For me, it’s all about discovering those things that exhilarate you, that inspire you, that motivate and move you, figuratively – and for me, literally. I’m putting a picture of a Mustang GT on my fridge and I’m going to leave it there to remind me that life is about joy in all forms, and sometimes in the most unexpected places. And if this is textbook mid-crises in action, I say bring it on!