A Deliberate, Jumbled Path
By Maura Alice
Never one to worry much about my age, I recently turned 59, and that’s one step closer to 60. I’d thought for many years, that by the time I reach 60, I’d have my life pretty much under control, and by that I mean my weight. I weigh at least 50 pounds more than when I was married 28 years ago, and it wasn’t a gradual gain.
When I started depression meds back in the 90s, I gained a whopping 40 pounds right out of the gate. It’s stuck with me, like a burr under a saddle, adding ten or so more pounds as I’ve aged and entered into menopause (at age 45).
Despite the meds and menopause, with diet and exercise my weight has fluctuated by 20 pounds so many times over that last 30 years that it’s like a family pet. I should give it a name. Now, the weight pretty much stays the same; it’s the degree of flubbiness that fluctuates — a new kind of diet and exercise to weight ratio that’s as disheartening as it is frightening.
I’ve come to the age that I now have the physical ailments that I only used to hear about. I am the woman with the sore knees and hips. When someone says, “She has lower back issues” it’s me. Add to it the dark spots on my hands and face, and the crepey upper arms and thighs, and I am very aware that I’m aging into my crone years.
In anticipation of the inevitable, and in the spirit of Jay Gatsby (great dreamer of big dreams), I began what I creatively call the Maura Beautification Process a ridiculous number of mid-life years ago, and it looks like this:
Phase 1: Remove bad influences, be more positive.
Phase 2: Realign chemistry, be physically balanced.
Phase 3: Rethink diet and exercise, be more thoughtful about choices and have more energy.
Phase 4: Resolve to live a more joyful life, be stronger, more present and compassionate.
Phase 1; I divorced my mother-in-law and stopped drinking booze, check. Phase 2; I took a hard look at my body in menopause and on meds and stopped hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and depression meds. Phase 3; I eat a somewhat clean, real food diet verging on plant based except chocolate (ok, any sugar really – it’s my nemesis and prime energy source.) During the pandemic, exercise has fallen off except daily dog walks, but slowly beginning a resurrection as the weather warms… Phase 4; I have daily challenges and rewards, always. I’m still not sure how to define compassion as it applies to my life, and the people in it.
In other words, these days, the MBP is a jumbled pile of all four phases, and isn’t life just like that – never on the path we conjure, but instead the one that is thrust in our faces each morning? All we can do is keep moving, looking in all directions, stepping deliberately to forge change and discover a secure feeling of self. In this time of irresponsible and hedonistic leadership, amidst unbearably sad misfortune, abuse and death, it’s not always easy to stay on the path we choose; we derail, but we are all able to form an opinion or a plan that seems like it will work for us, and those we love. And it’s how we turn that plan into action that matters. At the end of the road is the ever-elusive feeling of serenity, the goal of every old crone.
Maura, like everyone she knows, moves between being really aware of what his going on around her and the choices she makes, and not having a clue as to why that chocolate cake looks so appealing.