Adventures at Midlife

* Some background: msmeta’s two BFF, msadventure and msfit, have both become single in the last few years after 30-year marriages. Following a requisite period of litigation, anger and grief, both are expressing interest in returning to the singles scene, and both have embarked on excruciating regimens significant programs of self-improvement: dieting, personal trainers, plastic surgery, dermabrasion, the usual.

Listening to the two of them over lunch, singly and together, takes me back to my college days when I and my friends would spend hours trying to come up with strategies to attract — and keep — young men, who might as well have been bighorn sheep or striped bass when it came to their predictability. Both msadventure and msfit were quite good at the whole dating scene then, with the curvaceous msadventure racking up more than a dozen marriage proposals (and likely a lot more proposals of a less savory kind) during her wanton youth. (“Yeah,” she says, “but you should have SEEN some of them.”)

I, frankly, sucked was less than successful at the whole thing. I have always been what we call around these here parts a Big Girl. Tall, big feet, big hands, statuesque. Not an amazon, but I was about as tall as at least a third of the guys I graduated from high school with. And I am not particularly pretty. Oh, now, stop. I am NOT disparaging myself. I wouldn’t stop a clock or anything, but as proof I offer the fact that I have never really been sexually harassed, mostly just ignored. Men know. I dated a little, mingled a lot and was mostly miserable. It was a meat market, and I just wasn’t a prime cut.

The Spouse, bless him, rescued me from Singles Hell (I have a great personality) and I haven’t looked back — at least until my friends were propelled into singularity. They’re back to where we started in our 20′s, and I frequently find myself picking up and absorbing some of their understandable angst about their marital status/appearance/weight/looks/age/future.

AND MY POINT IS: But why? Why am I still worrying about this? I’m not single. I’m not “out there” like they are. After 30 years together, The Spouse and I seem to be in this together until the end. Sure, I want to look nice, but most aspects of my life don’t depend on it. I’m reasonably healthy. I wash behind my ears. Because I work in a professional office and get out in society most weeks, I’m not about to “let myself go.” But I don’t think I’m ever going to fit into a size 10 again no matter what I do. Indeed, I don’t think I WANT to fit into a size ten. It’s too much work.

Another long-married friend, a former beauty queen who has battled her weight all her life, puts it this way: “When is it okay to go ahead and throw the Slim Fast away and just eat that extra cookie?” Exactly. When is it okay to stop expecting myself to look like Rachael Ray and instead go ahead and look like Paula Deen? (I actually like Paula Deen a lot. I ‘d like to have her wardrobe.) Last week I read several blogs that were all about Oprah’s big cleansing fast.** IS SHE OUT OF HER FRACKIN’ MIND? Oprah might not look like Halle Berry, but she cleans up pretty well just the way she is. (Insert more wardrobe lust HERE.)

I suspect that, after all these angst-ridden years, when I finally do give myself permission to go ahead and eat that extra cookie, I won’t even WANT that extra cookie.

* I lifted this image from BigFatDeal, one of my favorite fat acceptance blogs, who borrowed it from someecards.com, an irreverent alternative to Hallmark.

** Don’t miss Dooce’s take on the big fast. Hilarious.

This entry was posted on June 28, 2008 at 8:35 pm and is filed under Adventures at midlife, Diet wars, Image, Women.

Tags: diet, Fat Acceptance, midlife