Stuck in the Middle Ages
When did it start? This inability to get back on track, this failure to follow through, this…laziness? I have a million excuses. In my defense, I did ghostwrite an eighty-thousand-word memoir in 2024, then completely rewrote my novel in the six months that followed. As I chained myself to my computer for hours on end, the habits I had accumulated over the previous decade slipped away.
Walking the dogs at 5:30 am? Gone. Strength training five days a week? Nope. Eating fruit for breakfast and salad for lunch? Absolutely not. Keeping in touch with friends and family? Minimal.
Yes, I can accept that some of those things had to give in order to meet my deadlines. There simply weren’t enough hours in the day for everything. But here I am, six weeks after my last deadline, and I cannot seem to get back on track.
Where is my motivation? Did I burn myself out? Am I in a period of letdown? Am I broken?
My body is angry with me. Thanks to the hours at the computer, I have tendonitis in my elbow. It is greatly alleviated when I stretch and apply ice. Why are those two simple things so hard to do? I complain about the pain yet continuously fail to take the steps to help myself. What is wrong with me?
I’m telling myself there’s no need to panic as I shove a piece of Easter candy in my mouth while feeling like a hypocrite. I am constantly berating my children for their lackluster immune systems, reminding them that if they ate fruits and vegetables and got more exercise and fresh air that they wouldn’t catch every virus that swept past their pores, yet here I sit on a beautiful spring day, caramel stuck to my teeth, begrudging the fact that I have to get dressed and take my dogs to the beach and leave my cozy couch behind.
I used to be antsy when I didn’t exercise, grumpy when I couldn’t check the task off of my list, anxious that I would be unhealthy. We only have one body, I tell my children. If you don’t take care of it, it will fail you.
My words haunt me. If I don’t get back on track, what will happen?
Will I never be able to return to the level of fitness I once maintained? Will I need help carrying my bags out of the grocery store? Will I pull a muscle putting on my pants? Will someone call me ma’am? Oh, the horrors!
I need to get back on track. I’d start today, but I just shoved more candy into my mouth. What happened to my willpower? Okay, okay, I can at least stretch and ice and walk the dogs. Tomorrow I’ll get started for real. Except I do have a lot going on tomorrow….
In my defense, it’s not like I’ve been sitting around doing nothing.
So many things were put on hold while I was writing- this blog being one of them. But also, doctor’s appointments, house projects, cleaning, reading, seeing friends. My schedule has been full as I try to catch up on everything that I have guiltily neglected.
Excuses, excuses. My exercise program takes fifteen minutes a day. Fifteen minutes! I spend more time procrastinating about it than it takes to do it.
There is a thought that nags at me. A niggle of fear that it might be too late; that I have let myself go for too long; that since I have reached a certain time in my life, I may never get back what I worked so hard and so long to build. By not trying, I won’t have to face it and can continue living in denial.
I can ignore the fact that my fingers, once slender and petite, are now two sizes larger and sport unsightly nodules along the distal interphalangeal joints. It can’t be arthritis. I’m far too young for that. Let’s also pretend that I haven’t shrunk an inch-and-a-half, because young people don’t do that, either. Certainly, my doctor’s appointments have not included visits to a podiatrist, a menopause specialist, or high cholesterol checks. Only old people would need those appointments, not to mention the additional one to increase my glasses prescription strength.
I definitely didn’t download an app to help preserve my mental acuity and I definitely don’t religiously complete the daily program.
In no way does my search history include questions about hair loss in women, or bunions, or retirement.
And I absolutely, most assuredly, did NOT walk through the grocery store with fiber supplements in my cart and bags of frozen peas pressed to my neck and chest as I was having a… a… let’s call it warming trend.
Admitting to all of these things would force me to face what I am not ready to face.
I am middle-aged.
Oh the humanity!
How has this happened?
Forget everything I listed above; plus a few things I didn’t mention. I still feel like I’m twenty-five! It isn’t possible that I am halfway through my life, past my peak, sliding down from the precipice to the thing that is supposed to forever be far away.
A quick Google search does nothing to quell my angst.
According to Britannica.com, middle-aged is the “period of human adulthood that immediately precedes the onset of old age.” What the fuck?! I always hated encyclopedias and their wafer-thin pages and how anytime I pulled one off the shelf my dog mysteriously had gas.
So, according to Britannica, I don’t even get a buffer? That’s it? I go straight from middle-aged to old?
Before I have a panic attack, let’s check another source.
Merriam-Webster.com says that middle-aged people are “people between the age of about 40 and the age of about 60.” Okay, deep breaths. That puts me in the middle of middle-aged, but 61 is way too young to be considered old. Shouldn’t the definition of old be less about age and more about our bodies’ abilities?
Yes, yes, I’ve been told that age is a mindset, but these definitions are a mindfuck. Throw on top of this the beauty standards our society expects women to maintain and it’s no wonder I’m panicking.
I am at odds with myself.
Am I a feminist who should flip the bird to the patriarchy and not care how I look as I age?
Yes.
Am I a byproduct of my surroundings, upbringing, and inherent vanity and find it impossible not to care?
Also, yes.
What’s a middle-aged woman to do?
Panic!
Should I get that facelift/peel/laser/tuck/lift/magic cream/stem cell transplant?
Should I buy a sportscar? Trade in my husband for a younger model? (Just kidding, love.)
I need ALL the money to throw at this problem. Where is Cher? Where is Helen Mirren? I need preservatives! I NEED THE MAGIC ELIXIR!!! I NEED TO START EXERCISING!!!!
Oh.
Right.
Um….
I’m just going to finish this piece of candy and get right on that.
If not today, then tomorrow.
Or Monday at the very latest.
I told you. There’s no need to panic.