Well, dear readers, our Fifty is the New summer vacation lasted so long, that while we were away, I climbed the proverbial hill, lurched over it, and landed smack into the shitsky—I mean sixty. 60. Yes—I’m up to my neck in a steaming pile of years. I’m happy to report that in the wake of this monumental event, the earth did not rend itself in twain, the seas did not turn red with blood, the crops did not wither and fail and the climate has not changed. Oh—wait a minute, yes it has but not because I turned 60.

I had been dragging my ass towards this birthday, really glum, and I thought I might greet the day by sitting in the dark alone with a half-gallon of ice cream, a fifth of vodka, a sharp knife and some Joan Crawford movies. Happily, it turned out, my nice husband rented a cabin on the east side of the Sierras and nine of us spent a weekend in Mammoth eating, drinking, hiking, laughing, enjoying the scenery and each other’s company. Our Cathy was there too, celebrating her birthday, and all of us had a grand good time.

Eons ago when I was turning 45, I started thinking that it would be wise to prepare myself for the turning of 50. I joined Jazzercize. I loved the music, the dancing and the camaraderie. Now, this was back in the day when everybody wanted to look like Jamie Lee Curtis in Perfect. Of course, none of us, except our instructor, even came close; but there we were, middle-aged in our thong leotards, leg warmers and sweatbands bouncing our boobies and looking more like the cast of exercisers in Richard Simmon’s, Sweating to the Oldies. Still, it was fun and I did slim down and firm up. I did Jazzercize for about ten years before my knees and back really began to protest and I quit. Since then, I’ve done Pilates, Zumba, yoga, Curves and gone to the gym. I’m like the Where’s Waldo of the workout world; and still, between the menopause, the Jelly Bellies and The Food Network, I have slowly gained back all the weight I lost.

I’ve finally wrapped my head around my 60th birthday and I’ve become crystal clear about what’s coming down the pike. I’m grateful to have been born with good health, a strong body and a happy outlook on life, but the fact is no matter that good luck, I still may have only 20, 25 years in front of me. It’s hit me like a ton of lard, that if I don’t get my shit together over this, turning 70 is going to be hard and not just in a mental exercise sort of way. These ten years between turning 50 and 60 have sped by like a bullet train and I can only surmise that this coming decade will feel even more like a moment, a dream, like the snap of my fingers. So, I’m back in the saddle again, taking the reins, cowboying up, and all that other buckaroo bullshit and I’ve signed back on at Jazzercize for low-impact aerobics, dancing, sweating and smiling, and thank goodness all of us, even Jamie Lee Curtis, seems to be over that “perfect” thing.

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Jamie Lee Curtis in Perfect (1985) and Jamie Lee Curtis featured in More Magazine (2002)

Cathy contemplates the source and the cure for her perfectionist ways

This is revolutionary… get ready for it…

Being a perfectionist is a waste of time.

There I said it.

Perhaps it’s the energy suck of hot flashes and other midlife maladies, or just the wisdom of the years, but lo and behold, I have come to realize that I must conserve and preserve my time and energy, and that no one really cares if what I do is less than perfect—no one, that is, but me.

According to Wikipedia, in its pathological form, “perfectionism is a belief that work or output that is anything less than perfect is unacceptable.”

I come to perfectionism by example. My 88-year-old mother is like a heat-seeking missile: she will find a crumb, an unraveling hem, or a physical flaw and call it out. You can literally eat off my mother’s floor, and to this day you’ll find her cleaning down there. Often.

My many years of dance training—always striving for perfect lines, timing and execution—hasn’t helped either. Nor have my earlier days in the PR biz. A couple of years ago, the president of the nonprofit I work for talked to the staff about venturing into new territories. It might be messy, she casually remarked, and not perfect but that’s ok. That’s ok? What? I was aghast. I, who had been a writer/editor for years, had it drummed into my cortex that nothing less than perfect will do, and that trying your hardest and being your best every moment of every day is the true path to greatness.

Obviously I’m re-thinking that.

I was born at the tail end of the boomer timeline, under a nuclear cloud and the early influence of the 1950’s. In junior high school while the boys were woodworking and fixing cars, we girls were required to enroll in home economics. We honed our life skills by sewing paisley tote bags, “cooking” cinnamon sugar toast and tap-tap-tapping on typewriter keys. We were coming of age in the wake of the How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying era (“I’d be so happy to keep his dinner warm, while he moves onward and upward…”) yet we were smack dab in the middle of the second wave of feminism. And a strong wave it was. We forged ahead, following in the footsteps of our foremothers who burned bras and blazed new trails. We over-reached, over-achieved and strived for perfection in the kitchen, the workplace and the bedroom.

Ahh, the bedroom; how I admired those Bond girls’ seductive Sixties style. They shaped my aesthetic with their sensual ways. But they, like the pinups of the ‘50s and the wafer-thin models of today, represented impossible standards of beauty and fashion, driving girls to self-destruction and anorexia and grown women to self-loathing and debt. In my quest to turn off my perfectionist parrot (the mite-infested one), I’m declaring no more airbrushed comparisons and no more suffering for style. While my 22-year-old niece goes clubbing in her stilettos (I just hope she doesn’t hurt herself), I vow to no longer stand, wobble, cinch or suffer for fashion.

I used to pride myself in being a visual, detail-oriented person with high standards, and now I’m finding it a burden. While I don’t think I need to lower my standards all that much, I need to be less neurotic about it.

Life is not black and white.

Yet, old habits die hard. How many drafts of this post have I done trying to make it sing? Don’t ask. I’ve been polishing this piece of prose with the vigor my mom uses for her silverware. Yet, both of us don’t see as well as we used to—and when it comes to being a former perfectionist, that’s probably a good thing.

My yoga teacher Peggy has been known to say during class,
“Triangle pose is like a little black dress. You can take it anywhere.”

As my birthday month comes to a close I have been ruminating on all, like the triangle pose, that is wise, helpful and transportable. Even more so than New Years, my birthday has become a time of reflection and review. Like my closet, my life gets a spring cleaning at every year when the wheel turns toward my birthday. “This gets tossed, this stays, this needs cleaning and that needs altering.” Although this year has been rife with challenges, I am not immune to the good news and that is the wheel is still turning. And with each turn of the wheel I garner new pieces of wisdom to add to the mix and I become myself and push my brave tender heart toward the promise of a new day.

Recently I read a blog titled “Inspiration and Chai” by Bronnie Ware. For many years Bronnie worked in palliative care with the terminally ill. As such she was privy to the intimate revelations of the dying. Bronnie noticed that there were common themes as people voiced their thoughts about living and dying, and what they wished they had done differently.

The most common regret was,“I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.”

Generally the wish to live differently had to do with unrealized dreams. I think about this and I am reminded again to be mindful of the choices I make lest they someday become my own utterance of regret when time no longer offers the opportunity to redirect.

I ask myself, “How can I live my life in a way that is beautiful? How can I actively choose the life that is mine to live?” and “How can I move from wishes to action, word to silence?”

I am not by nature a fearful person but I have noticed a particular brand of fear that gets caught up in the speeding passage of time; fear of holding on too tight, and fear of letting go, a fear of opening my heart too much, or of armoring myself in equal measure—a tightening then a lightening.

This year I am determined to embrace the concept, to the duty of opening to the whole darn thing. The question which remains on my lips is, “How can I open to life?” I find that every act of love is in some way also a promise to forgive, but I have also learned this year that when a moment of truthful loving appears not only should I open and open some more, but seize on it lest it never come again.

I have also formalized what up until now has been an informal tradition of mine and that is to commit to doing at least one thing I have always wanted to do which I haven’t yet. In fact this year I am folding into my “beautiful life” two things I have wanted to do for years and years. As an avid reader I have long wanted to work with adults who cannot read well or at all. Next month I will begin training as an adult literacy volunteer at my local library in hopes that I might assist somebody in advancing their literacy not only to help in their everyday worlds but so s/he might also experience the magic of reading novels and short stories, plays and history.

The Bhajans and music of India has long enchanted me. So I will soon begin lessons on the Harmonium that I may learn the songs of India and accompany myself for my private pleasure only.

Last week in my yoga class while many of us were attempting to work our way into a somewhat complicated arm balance, the sounds of people falling, breathing and trying again were greatly evident. Peggy said to us in that moment, “Whatever you do just err on the side of beauty, grace and ease.” This is a motto that can go anywhere with me, one way to live my life in a beautiful way day by day.

From ennui to elastic waistbands, Connie’s singing the menopause blues

As I was gazing this morning into my 15x mirror, plucking here and there, the increasingly annoying black whiskers on my upper lip, I reflected upon the changes in my life, my change of life, my menopause, what I am now calling the” menoblahs”; and as I pluck, pluck, plucked, I thought long and hard about how much really I hate this shit.

I was one of those women who actually looked forward to menopause. I could not wait for the freedom and the neatness, for clear skin, and a steady weight. I believed Dr. Christiane Northrup when she wrote about the “Wisdom of Menopause” and I looked forward to the promise of “The Pleasures of Menopause”. May I just say, in response to those two urban myths, and with my middle finger fully erect, “PTHHHP”!! I have not found any pleasure in menopause, and the only wisdom I’ve gleaned is to quit believing once and for always, anything a size 2, blonde, nip/tucked TV/author/doctor has to say. While I acknowledge that indeed I do have freedom from the tampon, I’m hostage to the hot flashes. I am tidily not hemorrhaging all over my white jeans, but some juice from somewhere would be nice. My skin, though I’m not breaking out once a month, is itchy and dry, and my weight? Well, it’s steady all right—steadily going up. When I gained the first ten pounds I said I’ve gone all fluffy, now I’m just plain heavy, man.

And I feel heavy in my spirit as well. This is not easy for me to admit. I have always been the snap-out-of-it girl, the bounce-back kid. The “C’mon gang—we can put a show on in this barn” type. Truthfully, I’m just not feeling it. I’m in a menopausal malaise that feels like I’m moving through molasses. My tack right now is to keep on showing up as if I am fully engaged and energized, (there is tremendous juju in the as if), but I am dragging my ass to the party, ya know?

Aside from the physical bullshit, which, have I mentioned, I hate? I am also struggling with yet another “who am I” crisis. NOOO—not again!!! The self I’ve worked so hard on, so lovingly created is melting, melting like the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz, and I have to start all over—from scratch. Damn you, Dorothy Gale, you and your bucket of cold water! You cursed brat! Look what you’ve done! I’m melting, melting! Oh, what a world! What a world! Who would have thought a good little girl like you could destroy my beautiful wickedness? I just hate it when that happens. I’ve worked so hard on my beautiful wickedness. Oh—and now I find out that I’m not even a Libra anymore, but a Virgo. A VIRGO!!!! No wonder I feel so out of balance.

So how do I go forward with my gray hair, my bad knees and my elastic waistbands? My first order of mental health business is to stop beating myself up for gaining weight. It is what it is right now, and I know what I must do to change that, and self-flagellation is counter-productive. I am watching what I eat and drink, limiting sugar and flour, and increasing my commitment to exercise. Aside from good muscle mass and burning calories, exercise releases serotonin and endorphins, those feel-good chemicals; and depression is fattening.

But the real challenge is in the re-invention, to see myself through an unfiltered lens and be at peace with this newer, older Connie. Oh, and by the way, there is only forward. I know there is not a better path to the future but the one that leads straight in. Follow the yellow brick frikkin’ road, right?

Join Melissa as she vanquishes demons, delights in distraction and cultivates deep belly laughs

OK, I am not going to pussy foot around here — transition and change, not so much fun for me.

Last week, I was listening to an interfaith podcast discussion about happiness in which the Muslim scholar Seyyed Hossein Nasr talked about how the word jihad actually means to combat one’s own negativity or quite simply to struggle — it is the process of exerting our best efforts. In response the Dalai Lama said, and I’m paraphrasing here, then all of Buddhism is jihad. That is what I call reaching across the aisle.

I am not sure about my “best efforts” but I do identify with the struggle and if it’s a noble struggle then all the better.

Recently I observed the holiday Diwali with several friends. I resonate with the holiday for the symbolism of the lighting of many lamps — in our case candles — to signify the triumph of good over evil. Specifically Diwali celebrates the return of Lord Rama from 14 years of exile after vanquishing the demon King Ravana. The festival of lights also serves to direct an observant devotee to the awareness of his/her inner light and it signals the end of the harvest.

I am a mujahida, engaged in vanquishing my demons while in a personal kind of exile.

A couple of weeks ago I spent a weekend in retreat with the great Buddhist teacher Pema Chodron. I am sure that Pema and her colleagues would refer to my demons, my current suffering, as “bourgeois”. She would say this with a compassionate smile and she would be right. So be it! For now I’ll wear the T-shirt with a playful smile proudly proclaiming myself “Bourgeois Mujahida!”

I’m told that suffering and negativity, in the bourgeois sense, can just be indulgent or it can serve to teach and advance self-awareness. In my case I am hoping for the latter. We live in a very rich world, one that by all accounts never runs out of messages — whatever I do or say, I will surely receive a response from the world.

So while my inner light is in flicker mode I’m exploring new modes of transport. What I mean to say is I am looking for my “laugh out loud” in places out of the ordinary for me. If I am going to be hanging out in the borderlands then I might as well explore some new territory.

I’ll take it however it comes and I’m not going to be proud about it; Oprah and Gayle’s great Yosemite camping adventure made me laugh out loud on several occasions. A friend of mine made me laugh out loud after reading her horoscope for the month of November and saying “FINALLY it says I am going to be in the right freaking place at the right freaking time!” My friend Kate makes me laugh out loud when she describes the utter seriousness around her in an Iyengar yoga class while focusing on spreading the “butt cheeks.”

Speaking of butt cheeks, my own exercise practice, or lack thereof has been on the wane because I’ve needed something new and different, something that holds the promise of joy. The elliptical machine just doesn’t have that quality. So in a weak moment I bought a Zumba exercise package (a form of dance exercise with a Latin flavor) after seeing an infomercial. (I said I am not proud). Frankly, Zumba just looked like fun. I received the package the other day and popped in the first disc and began to learn the basic steps. I have found my “laugh out loud” laughing at myself trying to revive some hand/eye coordination. I sent the dog packing with a particular kick forward followed by a reach back with the opposite leg. Frankly anything that calls on me to jump up and down such as one particular Mexican influenced dance step makes me feel awkward, like the proverbial bull in a china shop, but it is funny.

So if you are walking by my place and hear some great Latin music, underlined with banging and crashing about, and punctuated by guffaws and giggles, don’t worry, that is just me cultivating my Laugh out Loud. Joy comes from realizing that nothing is ever a dead end. I’d reached a dead end so I’m trying a different road. It looks promising.

With her eyes on the road ahead, for Melissa it’s been a journey of miles, memories and insights

As a child my mantra was, “When I grow up I’m going to… __”(fill-in-the blank). Usually I was exclaiming what I was going to do, or know, or be. I think back now on how I must have felt then making such definitive statements and I long for such simple confidence and belief.

Theoretically I am “grown up” but generally speaking I’m really just figuring IT all out on a daily, sometimes, hourly basis. And as I go it’s becoming clear that the more I think I should know, the less I really do.

A recent work-related change of location and the necessary drive across the country provided hours for contemplation and a framework for a glimmer of the understanding I’ve been seeking. The long road became a tome of memory, and simple insight mile after big sky mile.

Driving South on I-25, the river to my right formed a vein of connection to the place I started from, leading me to wonder what was left standing in the place I’d left and what would be waiting for me when I arrived at my destination. One thing that became evident is I am hauling around way too much stuff. A slave to sentiment, I have boxes of family memorabilia, journals, pictures and random items collected over half a century.

When my mother died, I sought a connection with her through her belongings. As such ten years later, I still have boxes of her possessions; odd things including a box of buttons and empty thread spools. I think I’ve believed that if I held onto, for example, — the spools — long enough, I might understand their meaning to my mother and therefore understand her posthumously. Needless to say, the spools have not proven to be revelatory. After packing, storing, hauling and packing, storing and U-Hauling again, the stuff has to go.

Along the road I also realized that everywhere I go something is inevitably left behind. Taking leave has always been so hard on me. I am not graceful or peaceful when leaving a place, a friend, my family, an experience, and/or a love. I think this has been at the crux of my need to carry boxes of things with me from one point on the map to another — my belief has been that the things connect me to that I’ve had to leave. Along about mile 382 I began to wonder what can be carried… on the road?

My friend Caryn has always told me I have a “Big Life” and I guess in the moments when I can step back and be an impartial witness to my own living, I am able to find places where I would have to agree with her. Much of it has been blessed luck and the rest has been my willingness to step into the unknown and muck around. I am grown-up and I still have much I hope to do, know and be. But for now I am going to lighten my load.

I’ll carry a knapsack of talismans; a book of Hafiz, an arrow, a few aspen leaves, a benevolent deity carved from stone, a folded picture from the a newspaper and some pie pan poetry.

At the end of the road, I’d like to lay my head on a soft pillow of constancy and peaceful reassurance in a place free from so many conditions. I’ve been this way before. I’ll look for my connections in the light of the moon, the scent in the air after a rain and the knowledge that somewhere overhead, there is a kind unkindness of ravens on wing carrying magic prayers, a bequest from my friend the poet — just one of many I’ve had to leave,
for now.

The road is long and that is just part of the good news.

Post Script: One thing I’ve had to leave for now is my beautiful home in Taos, available for the discriminating traveler. www.casabetita.com

I am above the clouds at 37,000 feet, coming back from a trip to peer into my future which, in an odd twist of fate, actually might take place in a place I thought was my past.

A week or so ago someone dear said to me, “I never thought my life would look like this at 54.” Some days later I heard myself echoing the sentiment to someone else adjusting the age down by a year.

I don’t have any idea why I said that though because I don’t recall ever imagining the age of 53 at all. In fact I don’t think it ever occurred to me to think about what life would be like at the age of 53. When my mother was 53, I was 30 and I have some sense that at that time I was still kind of thinking life was about to happen, or rather thinking that whatever I was doing, and wherever I was couldn’t really be it.

It is easier to recall what I know I would not have imagined; I would not have thought that by now my best friend would already be dead. I never would have believed that someone I respected, trusted and looked to for inspiration would let me work for him and then simply not pay the thousands of dollars owed to me. A scenario in which the person I loved with my life betraying me and humiliating me even as I celebrated her, would not have flickered in my imagination. I could not have imagined then that a “bad hair day” now would entail more worry that my hair looks “middle-aged” rather than simply out of control.

Last week a butterscotch colored kitten died in my arms, even as I pleaded with her not to die, holding her in one arm and driving to the vet with the other. Despite the refrain of apologies uttered on behalf of my dog who, had only been attending to her very nature when the kitten was hurt, that cat went ahead and died. I was forced to recognize between my sobs that in my need for her to live I was desperate for a good outcome. In that moment this small being was made responsible for my hope. A good outcome in this case would be anything, anything at all that looked like living. This small being cradled in my left arm wrapped in a Sponge Bob beach towel, continuing to breathe would mean redemption, forgiveness, do-over’s for mistakes made, a few more years to accomplish the unaccomplished, belief made out of nothing. Her breath and life would somehow look like the life at 53 that I never imagined in the first place. How could such a one even have a chance with so much weight placed on her struggle?

When she died I would not believe it, and rushed her into the vet in a panic anyway. When the young woman I passed the kitten off to came back a few minutes later, her look was so kind, so tender in the harsh reality she came to communicate that words were not necessary and right there in the waiting room, in front of a number of complete strangers I broke down and sobbed out loud. Those people were all there with animals so they were kind and supportive as one might expect, murmuring their own apologies in the background, never daring to enter into my private grief space, never imagining how much more was there than the death of the kitten.

At 37,000 feet, thoughts fling themselves at me at the same speed of the passing clouds.

I think I never would have known how pure the pleasure and delight of one red poppy blooming on the morning of my recent birthday could be. Nor could I have understood the reward of a conversation with someone long admired now a friend becoming. In the taxi before dawn this morning, the driver was playing Sanskrit mantras. When we got to the airport I asked him about the mantras, at which point he looked at me and then cast his eyes down and said simply, “Morning Prayers”. “Yes” I said, “Thank you for the morning prayers”. The driver looked at me again, smiled and turned to go back to work.

Then I recalled how at the beginning of this trip I saw the sunrise in my rearview mirror which is somewhat counterintuitive, but is in and of itself a morning prayer, and I know that when I leave this place which is not working for me, that still I will cry and wear a t-shirt with its name on it. This is life in action, the life at 53 I never could have imagined.