gettinoldaint4sissies

Hi, similar to my personal journal, I’ve been remiss in writing here, even though I enjoy it and find it quite therapeutic.  A couple updates are in order: 1) I’m now 49 years old and terrified of turning 50-seems impossible; 2) I was fired from my job a couple weeks ago and given the state of that industry, it put a nail in the coffin of my twenty-four year career.  I won’t lie, tears sprang horizontally out of my eyes as soon as I hung up the phone (I worked remotely, from my home).  And I cried the next day too.  Since then I’ve been trying to embrace this change (like all of life’s changes) and figure out what to do with my life.  I am a blank slate – single, no kids, no job, sadly no pet once my dog Bailey passed in August, with a mortgage and car payment as my only anchors.  My advice to someone other than me would be to sell the house and travel!  Travel provides incomparable life experiences and could lead to a new career and hopefully some new friends.  Fear tells me to stay put, sell the house, get another office job.  Typically I give in to fear – it stopped me from attending a ball in Venice years ago, visiting friends in Switzerland and Russia (also years ago), modeling (when approached in my 20s) and attending art school/pursuing a career I would have loved vs finance which was supposed to be “safe” (we didn’t know then that Electronically Traded Funds would be the grim reaper for many careers in finance).  So now is the time!  Just typing that made my stomach hurt.

Tomorrow is the last day I receive a paycheck from my previous firm.  A real estate agent is coming over in February to determine what my house is worth.  I’m scared.  But I’m trying to be excited.  There is no family I can lean on, no mother to move back in with.   I am on…my…own.  Synonyms for “solo” are unaccompanied, companionless, unescorted, unattended, independent, lonely, solitary.  Gosh that sounds grim.

 

That’s what my gyno said to me last week after I told her, in tears, that I could not explain a now 20lb weight gain, seemingly overnight, despite healthy eating and working out with a trainer.  I’m 47 years old with no history of weight issues.  She followed up with “maybe you should look at your diet”.  Bitch, please.  I’m a pescatarian, ex-NYCer (ie terrified of carbs), non-sugar eating or soda drinking, generally active woman.

Perimenopause.  Sexy, isnt it?  When I turned 46 years old a year ago, I suddenly gained 15 pounds which felt like overnight – I could wear my jeans yesterday, absolutely no shot today.  “Ok”, I thought, “I’ll just skip dinner a couple nights and pare back the wine intake and work out more”.  That’s what’s worked my entire adult life. Didn’t work this time. As someone who’s been the same general size for most of their life, it was if I woke up in someone else’s body. Actually it felt like waking up one day and your significant other says “I dont love you anymore”.  My body and I were now at war.  Then I noticed my very thick hair had thinned at the temples. Seriously Body, what next?

My sister was seeing an endocrinologist and suggested I do the same.  My thyroid wasn’t in terrible condition but needed a tune-up so the doctor suggested medication. Oh yay, THIS is the reason my body is different!  I can not WAIT to feel like myself again.  Months passed – nothing.  I booked appointments with my general physican and gyno – they shrugged their shoulders and offered no solution.  I cried as I walked to my car after those appointments, feeling defeated.  I worked out with a personal trainer, added more cardio – nothing.

I’m in NYC often for work and when my work friends of twelve-ish years (almost all male) walked in the bar we were meeting in I could see the shock in their eyes at my weight gain.  I decided not to meet up with friends anymore because I was ashamed. And granted, I am not obese by any stretch but a 15-20 lb weight gain on a petite woman is…noticeable.

Girlfriends were worse.  Once in a Pret-A-Manger, my super-skinny friend announced the calories for each sandwich I picked up.  Elsewhere I would disparage myself before the girls had the opportunity to.  I suddenly empathized with anyone, no matter what size, with weight gain.  My judginess had ended.

Months later I went to a new gyno, a female probably around the same age as me.  I brought the results of a hormone test taken a year before which indicated I have low testosterone. That made sense, in my non-scientific estimation, because I used to be muscular and now I could not gain muscle from lifting weights and had more body fat then ever before.  Her response was revolting, “There just aren’t enough studies about women in peri and menopause for us to determine a course of action. Years ago we recommended estrogen and that caused cancer.  I could prescribe testosterone, but we don’t know the long term affects.” I left livid.

REALLY?  Women going through menopause is a NEW thing?  No one’s had the time to figure out how to relieve women of something that’s called “THE Change”?  Somehow we figured out a solution for Erectile Dysfunction, I believe it was the fastest FDA-approved drug ever.  Guess what men, if your wife/partner can’t have sex because it’s too painful due to menopause, then an ED solution is gonna backfire.  Literally.  I truly think if this was a male problem, a solution would have been discovered a long time ago.  The fact that female doctors shrug their shoulders at our “female issues” is even more infuriating.

None of us are alone, we just don’t want to talk about it.

I took this picture at age 13, with my very own camera, in April of 1983.  My dad was a native New Yorker and we lived in Richmond, Va.  I think this was the trip where my mom decided at THE last minute not to join us – the car was packed and she removed her bag and declared defection from the family trip.  My dad, typically not a nice guy, was surprisingly great.  He took my sister and I shopping and let us buy anything we wanted (he knew the way to our hearts!).  I took this photo during our boat ride back from the Statue of Liberty.  NYC was still 1970s-gritty and I loved it.

Many years later I moved there, in 1999.  My dad was thrilled and my mom was not.  She never came to visit me. I worked in the first tower at the World Trade Center and was fired from my job September 2000.  It’s strange to think on THAT day in September 2001, everyone working in NYC was told to evacuate their building, except those in the twin towers.  They were told to remain in their offices.  It’s strange to think so many of us were wandering around aimlessly, not knowing where was safe or what would explode or implode next.  We were all totally vulnerable and we lived on an island.  Many of us had nowhere to go because we lived downtown (thankfully I was able to walk the 30+ blocks to my apartment in the West Village that night).  The air smelled of burnt plastic – that’s a smell you’ll never forget – and there was a fog of burning debris for days.  Once my cell phone picked up a signal again, I had voicemails from many friends checking on my well-being.  They knew I had worked in the first tower but didn’t know my new work address.  My sister lived in D.C. so she did not have reception once the Pentagon was attacked.  We heard nothing from Mom and Dad.  They just didn’t check on their daughters, knowing we lived in two of the three cities attacked by terrorists in the U.S..  Strange how I wasn’t surprised by that.

Since then my dad has died, my mom has died and way too many friends have died.  Way way way too many innocent people globally have died, at the hands of terrorists who enjoy killing.  I struggle to drum up a positive message from all of this except, Carpe Diem!  To quote my sister’s eulogy at Mom’s memorial service, “My mom encouraged us to get the most out of life-take that vacation, buy that car, have another drink.” Mothers always know best.

Here we are, 47.  You and me for the next year until I’m forced to break up with you for 48.  I’d actually be happy to stay with you 47,  but that’s not the way life works. And that seems to be the prevalent theme in your 40s.  And actually turning 40 wasn’t bad – I was living in NYC, my career was right on track, I was in the best shape of my life and when I walked my dog Bailey I’d think “Wow I have made it, I really have my shit together!”.  And I had a lot of fun going out all the time, with interesting people traveling across the globe for work and fun.  It was a lifestyle I aspired to.  Fast forward (and I mean fast) seven years, and things are much different.  I moved back to my hometown of Richmond, VA, where I work from home…and don’t do much more except walking Bailey and meeting my friends for drinks or dinner occasionally.  Welcome to my adventure of Lizzie Getting Her Groove Back, where I work to reclaim ME from the grips of tragedy and malaise.  I’m excited and thrilled you’re going with me! xoxo

Killing time at a bar in the LaGuardia Airport is nothing new for me. If I could log airport drinks as frequent flier miles, I’d be at Chairman status. It started with televisions in bars, this dumbing-down of patrons’ treatment.  When a very elegant hotel in my hometown of Richmond, VA (built in 1895, marble columns, oil paintings of our founding fathers, a marble statue of Thomas Jefferson in the lobby) posted TVs in not only the more casual downstairs bar, but also in the upstairs elegant restaurant bar, it just did not sit well with me. Can’t we unplug for a couple hours?

Now airport bars’ customers are forced to use an iPad to order and pay for food and drinks.  I hate it, and I think most hate it, but we have adjusted. To add insult to injury, some airport restaurants have bolted the bar stools to the floor.  Why?  Has anyone actually tried to take one onto their flight? What is the purpose of this?  For us shorter patrons, the distance between the seat and the bar forces us to sit on the edge, with the risk of falling off.

TVs in elevators and restaurants, iPads to place food and drink orders… What happened to social interaction? Isn’t that the point of sitting in a public venue for a drink?  Otherwise, ex the airport, you could make that vodka-tonic for 1/4 of the cost and watch T.V. at home (on a channel of your choosing!).  Bolting down the barstools makes paying for that $15 cocktail a lot harder to swallow and I found it personally insulting. Hey guys, you CAN trust me with your barstool,  I know it doesn’t belong to me even though I rented it for four hours as my flight was delayed. Generations of civilized people have been entrusted with restaurant chairs and bar stools. Give my bar stool freedom!