…since I posted here. I’ve been grappling with what to do with what’s left of my life, see. I’ll be 60 on Aug. 2, and I’m getting super-sensitive to the notion that I’ve been a “senior citizen” for about five years in some books; I’ll suddenly turn into a senior citizen on that auspicious date in other books; or I’ll become one when I turn 65 in yet other books. It’s just not clear to me what the deadline is. In the end, I guess I’ll be a “senior citizen” when I decide to be one.
Yeah, menopause is so behind me and the “downhill slide” is stretching into darkness in front of me. I actually had an easier time than I thought I’d have with the big M. The hardest segment was the peri-M part. I thought I was going to lose it several times when I got so depressed and crazed that I had to sit alone in a room and cry until I thought my eyeballs were going to melt. Not a pretty thought, right? Then I discovered a tincture made by a woman somewhere in California (where I was also living at the time) with a list of herbs in it. I’ve never been big on conventional medicine or OTC drugs, so I decided to buy a bottle. It wasn’t cheap.
When that awful sense of falling into a black hole came over me again, I took some of the tincture and magic happened. Everything inside me lightened up and the world looked manageable again. I used up the bottle and decided, DIY person that I am, that I could make that tincture myself. So I did. It had things like black (not blue) cohosh, chasteberry, wild yam, and maybe five or six other herbs. I taught myself how to make a tincture. I made the tincture. It was like gold. It got me through both peri-M and M. It took the darkness away. I felt human. I didn’t get the hot flashes, the bitchiness, the weight gain, the insanity, none of that. It was, in a word, awesome.
Around that time (in my early 50s) I decided I wanted to get fit. I’d been sitting around at computers and reading books and cooking dinner for the family for so long I looked like a fat potato sausage in a casing. I couldn’t get into my fav black dress anymore. So I made up my mind was going to lose enough weight to be able to zip that dress. A 60-something guy named Rex at work (who I swear was a gay man married to a woman) was on the Atkins Diet and he kept raving about it, so I tried it. I couldn’t stand not eating fresh produce, so I dumped it after about a week.
On to something else. On my lunch hour I used to go to a health food store (as opposed to a natural foods store; health food stores are kind of quirky with their hygenic boxes and packages all lined up squarely on shelves) and browsed their book racks and shelves. I happened upon a book called “40-30-30 Fat Burning Nutrition.” It was a slim paperback that touted the role of balancing hormones in the body to lose weight using a meal plan that involves 40 percent protein, 30 percent carbohydrate, and 30 percent fat. I read the scientific section in front and it made sense to me, so I bought the book and tried it out. Counting calories doesn’t count as much as the glycemic value of food. It was a streamlined formula for the Zone Diet.
Needless to say, I stayed with it for a good deal of time, but I always felt hungry on it. I had to find a way to curb my appetite so I could stay on the plan. I was running about 12-15 miles a week at the time and loved the endorphin high. So I burned more calories than I took in. Somewhere I learned about this diet aid called Xenedrine, which contained ephedra as its most effective ingredient. It cost at the time about $35 a bottle. It began to take it. OMG, it revved up my metabolism and I could go all day on small amounts of food. I could run like I’d drunk 10 cups of coffee. I felt high, energized, motivated, inspired all the time. It was perfect. The pounds started falling away. I took the capsules only in the amount recommended on the bottle. Fantastic results, and I didn’t build up a tolerance to them for months and months.
But slowly things started to go south. First I hurt my knee. Then they took Xenedrine off the market because of a few dumb asses who couldn’t or wouldn’t follow directions or had heart problems and took the stuff, so the FDA outlawed it. I’ve never found a more effective way to curb my appetite. So not only did I have to give up running because of my knee, but I lost the most helpful diet aid I’d ever found. (Yes, it’s back on the market, but without ephedra and I’ve heard bad things about it so I won’t waste my money).
Anyway, that was between 2000-2004. I’d gotten lean and I felt fantastic before the loss of X and my knee. Slowly the weight began to pile on. My clothes got tighter. Some of them had to be retired. I hated how I looked sideways. The roll of fat around my middle. My face heavier. My arms…ugh! I went into a funk.
I tried to stay with the 40-30-30 meal plans, but again I was always hungry. I’m not a joiner, so I have no interest in Weight Watchers or fad diets. I tend to go things on my own and work them out in my own time. Now it hurts to get up and down on the floor to do yoga; it hurts to walk very far. But I’m determined to lose this weight, however long it takes. Yesterday I rode the stationary bike for 10 minutes; lifted 2# weights for 30 reps each for for exercises; and did four or five gentle yoga stretches. It felt good, but my legs always ache at night and keep me from sleeping after I use them a lot. I’ve been up since 3 a.m.
I took three Ibuprofen this morning. I’m dealing with this dreadful malady called being an older person. The invisibility and anguish of being an older person in America isn’t for the cowardly, to paraphrase a common expression. Somehow, unless we die young, we have to get ourselves through this phase which leads to The End, each in our own way. Somehow we have to come to terms with it, gracefully or kicking and screaming, or in complete denial. I mean to cultivate the first way, with at least a modicum of dignity, if it’s within my power. I acknowledge that society has drummed the Fear of Death in me, but I don’t have to succumb to external pressure. Why waste energy fighting the inevitable? Better to roll with it. Better to turn the far edge of life into a poem. Meaning, Slow down, stop trying to stay in the rat race, appreciate the simple things, and be realistic about physical limitation. At this stage, the mind settles down in its preparation for the great journey home and everything here takes on a deeper meaning, a richness that I didn’t have time to notice before. I tell myself all of this, but I won’t pretend I’m not clueless in many respects.
I think that Western society has blown Death all out of porportion by making it a spectacle, a boogey man, something to make money on, something to control us with. I don’t know for certain, but I suspect that there have been and continue to be cultures which accept Death as a natural aspect of Life, and therefore nothing to be feared. Life and Death are what we make of them. Animals and plants seem to fall into death as naturally as they fell into life. It’s human beings who know we’re going to die, so we get all squeamish and fearful and a tornado of horrible images swirl around in our heads. We’re afraid of annihilation. We cling to what we think is who we are. But no one knows what’s on the other side, or if there’s another side. All I know is that life is a spiral and there are no sharp beginnings or endings. I suspect that death is a blending from life into a different form, a transformation, not an ending. Thinking otherwise is just an artificial invention of man (and I mean MAN), like time and straight lines.
I wrote all that to get my thoughts onto the page. I may think differently some other day, but for now it serves my needs.
Oh, I forgot to mention that R, K, and N and I went to Wildwood to eat last night. My impoverished palate thought the food was divine. I had a mixed green salad with hazel nuts, currants, and granta padano, followed with a raviolo stuffed with asparagus, spinach, garlic, and a marvelous tangy sauce. The service was excellent and gracious, as it should be with a check totalling $110 – WITHOUT wine.
We REALLY need a senior dress code