I Think I'm Going To Shut My Mouth

I’ve often heard it said that one of the best things about turning 40 is finally knowing who you are. That you’ve arrived. The big questions have more or less been answered, the battles with parents and lovers waged and won. Or at least put to rest. With all that baggage stowed safely away underneath the proverbial seat, never to be seen again save for the occasional bad day when some random issue rears its ugly head, 40 means shit's about to get good. Sure "stuff" occasionally looms, but it’s fleeting. Not like the old days when being triggered meant hours or even days of fights with the boyfriend I thought for sure was “the one” (how many “ones can a girl have in a lifetime, anyway?), and scrambling to find the time for the subsequent therapy sessions needed to talk myself off the ledge.

But not anymore. Nope! Now I'm 40. From here on in, wise female elders proclaim, I am poised to live out the rest of my life knowing the worst is behind me. 40 is just the beginning, the start of a new chapter. The skin is comfortable. The wisdom palpable. For I now KNOW myself inside and out. It's a right of passage, by virtue of the fact that I was born in 1970, I have finally earned. I’m just not sure I agree.

One of the many confusing things about life, and aging in particular, is that at each turning of a new decade, and sometimes part way through it, I’ve been absolutely convinced I knew myself inside and out; what I wanted, what I needed, the mistakes I'd never make again and why I made them in the first place. Oh the journaling, the endless analyzing, the "how I’ll do things SO differently next time" conversations with girlfriends over wine. "Jesus what an idiot I was! If only I could go back and tell that girl what I know now." And I meant it every time. Only to get a few more years under my belt and with it, the dawning of an entirely new realization that who I was the last time I said I knew exactly who I was, looks nothing like who I am TODAY, and thus, I guess I didn’t really know myself at all because that girl was an idiot! Since this keeps happening over and over again, I’ve become fairly dubious about making that claim ever again. If I do, my 50 year old self will just look back on it and laugh anyway. I’d like to avoid the embarrassment, if I may.

For the record, I am more comfortable in my skin, and yes I know the mistakes I've made and why, and I most certainly would NOT go back for all the money in the world - I like my battle scars. I'm just tired of convincing myself that I know how this life thing works. That I know the depths of my soul and how much more there is to come because by virtue of my proclamation that I know myself THIS fully, I'm also professing to know how much is left to uncover. Which isn't much if I think I've got this thing licked at 40. So I think I'm going to shut my mouth, and resign myself to the fact that I am a total and utter ass. And I'll always be one no matter what age I am through the eyes of the me that's a few years older. It never ends. I wouldn't want it to given the choice. Finally understanding that I will always be a relative fool is the best thing about turning 40.

Why Aging Doesn't Suck, Reason #11 - TINA FEY

Because she combines serious brain power, a facial scar and librarian glasses yet still elicits dirty thoughts from unsuspecting men who still can't quite figure out why it is they find her so damn sexy.

Because her talent swayed perceptions, and ultimately the vote on an inept politician destined for the White House.

Because she didn't hit her peak until her late 30's.

Because she admits her behemoth, Spanx collection accounts for a quarter of her ASSets. She ain't heavy, she's my brother.

Why Aging Doesn't Suck, Reason #57 - LAUREN HUTTON

Because at 62 she was hand-picked by 23 year old, neophyte moguls Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen to be the new face of their highly coveted, high-end fashion line The Row.

Because she refuses to get her face "fixed" and can still manage facial expressions.

Because she said this, "Lord knows, I never want to waste any more of my time in mirrors."

And this, "We have to be able to grow up. Our wrinkles are our medals of the passage of life. They are what we have been through and who we want to be." And you know what? I believe her.

The Cougar Of It All

Is it just me or have I suddenly become an undeniable magnet for much younger men? Seemingly out of nowhere, there's an influx of cute, slightly awkward but undeniably sexy, 20 something guys in my office who seem to hang on my every word, walk by my office for no apparent reason, and throw off handed compliments at regular intervals. My mum remembers the same happening to her around 40. Though not husband material by any stretch, those young 'uns hold an undeniable appeal. Raw, unformed, and full of testosterone, they have the ability to put a grown woman - me at least - very much in touch with her most base urges.

About this time last year I dipped my proverbial pen in the company ink - namely a several month affair with my boss's 26 year old assistant which was some of the hottest sex I've ever had. Until we both got emotionally involved. So I ended it. Then re-started it. Then ended it again. You think it's hard breaking off a normal relationship? Try one with the guy who sits outside your office door, the one you have to interact with 70 hours a week, the one you used to steal kisses with in the womens bathroom.

I finally got over it after a trip to London where I promptly fell into bed with yet another near-minor. This time my l'enfant terrible turned up in the form of a 24 year old kid from Glasgow and so started an entirely new and sordid affair... heck if "the one" can't be bothered to show up, I might as well have some fun in the meantime. While the sex wasn't quite as good as with office boy, here was a guy, a working class laborer with the bluest eyes I have literally ever seen, who showed up, without games, armed only with adoration, affection and a willingness to open up his heart as much as our week together would allow. Or it might have something to do with the fact that he was just so damn young, so young in fact, that love and life had yet to reach into his chest, rip out his heart with a spork, and it eat for sport. He was pure. And hot.

Actually if I'm to be honest, he was rather inexperienced and putting my sexual prowess and experience to good use was rather sexy. Sometimes it's just more fun to rock someone else's world, which in turn rocks your own and so the cycle of well being continues. Everybody wins.

I once read that older women and younger men are biologically wired to have off the charts sexual chemistry, so really it should come as no surprise that it often does. Something about women gaining more testosterone and subsequently reaching their sexual peak, while those unformed, nearly-men operate at about the same hormone levels. All in all, a good match. At least physically.

While I don't know how much any of the above holds true, what I do know about affairs with much younger men is that they tend to end in frustration. They're great in the beginning while the sex is good. Inevitably, the contrast between what you really want (the husband) and what you've got lying in your bed (usually dressed in a Hollister t-shirt and sports-ensignia boxer shorts) gets too massive, and you end up resenting them for not being able to be anything more than a good fuck. You don't mean to, and you swear at the outset your expectations are minimal and will stay that way. Because after all, they are technically young enough to be your son - that is, if you were a total slut by the age of 14. The truth is, the emotional, biological need to have a real mate, and kids, and a solid partnership that comes with being in your 40's ultimately outweighs the Big O. It rears it's ugly head eventually and the expectations put on a man who is unable to meet your needs,becomes too much weight for either of you to bear. You become his nagging mother, and he pulls away, wondering where his "I'm Hot For Teacher" fantasy went. It went in the toilet, kid. Biology is a mother fucker.

The Guy Who Stole Half My Thirties

We met when I was 32. He was 7 years my junior, an unemployed snow bum living in a ski resort town in California. For some ungodly reason I found this attractive. In his defense, or mine, he was gorgeous, kind, and most importantly really laid back - a trait I initially thought would be a nice counter-balance to my hyper ambitious, alpha femaleness, but would instead become his greatest downfall. And the source of much hair-pulling; mostly my own though I desperately wanted to tug on his. Hard. Constantly. In case it got him off the couch. Which is where he spent most of his time. Unless he was surfing, which was often. There's nothing like having the "swell reports" dictate the quality of your relationship. In layman's terms, if there were waves, it was Goodnight Irene on any chance of having any sort of time at all together. If the ocean was flat, I'd get the little peckerhead at home, but he'd be so miserable - surfers need their fix like addicts need their drug - I'd just leave him to smoke a bowl, drink his organic, Oregon micro-brewery beer, and sink further into the depths of the couch. Which of course I bought. Because he didn't work. And therefore couldn't afford to buy anything.

Zack is what is known as The Monk - an archetype used by Neurobiologists to describe the type of guy who has no interest in being in the real world. Instead they see responsibility as the trappings of modern life. Stuff like jobs, bills, health insurance. In fact, when I pressed him about getting the latter, especially because he engaged in dangerous sports like surfing and snowboarding, his reply was, "I don't plan on getting into an accident." And he was serious. This is what I was up against. Instead of grounding themselves in common sense like the rest of us mere mortals, The Monk dreams of more ethereal pursuits; namely anything that doesn't involve working. In Zack's case it was reading Henry Miller in the garden, waxing his surfboard, or taking long walks in nature. All sounds good but they come at the expense of taking care of the basics.

"Maybe he'll calm you down. You know how you get," my mother proclaimed, hopefully. The whole "opposites attract" theory became the thing we both clung to when things got really bad between Zack and I. Which they did at regular intervals.

To her credit she was trying to be supportive, knowing full well it would be better to let me figure out he was a dud, instead of inserting herself into my relationship, telling me how wrong this much younger man was for me. She did that once, with Patrick, the only BAD guy I dated, and I didn't speak to her for 3 months. Poor woman. She was right about him all along too. She knew Zack wasn't right for me either. I could hear the subtext in her voice, despite choosing her approach very carefully - she didn't think Zack was any better, albeit "not better" in an entirely different way. While Patrick was manipulative and controlling, Zack was ultimately harmless. In fact, he had one more move than a dead man. This was a guy who had NOTHING going on. Nothing! So how did he manage to convince me he was worth it? He didn't. I reappointed myself Mayor of Oxytocin City (see POST number 1) and slept with him that first week we met at the ski resort. And in that instant, I was doomed.

He was so damn nice that for the first 6 months, that infamous honeymoon period where all is perfect in the land of love, none of this really bothered me. I was busy working, trying to find us a place to live near the beach, helping him find a job. I did these things to satisfy what was bubbling underneath,the growing subtext of my life that seems to hit a gal in her early 30's, something I couldn't really articulate at the time. I wanted stability.

Yes, I had just started to crave security and the idea that maybe buying a house and planting roots was something I might finally want to do. I even started looking into such mundane things as retirement funds, hiring a business manager and raising my credit score so I could get more aggressive interest rates. I would ask Zack if these things were important to him, and his reply would always be something along the lines of "I want what you want. I want you." I'd get hopeful that he'd step up his game. Sure enough, weeks would go by and he would do nothing to achieve anything on our supposed joint list of goals and dreams, leaving me frustrated, angry and resentful.

Isn't it interesting that a woman who suddenly wants stability picks a guy who would be just as happy living in an RV by the ocean, toes dangling in the sand, gazing at the stars? I was playing something out for myself, but what that was I would have no idea until many years later. It would take some intense therapy, introspection, and a bitter break up for me to really get serious with why I ended up in this mess in the first place. I CHOSE him. Albeit subconsciously. I CHOSE him because his inexperience allowed me to barf up all my unresolved issues, affording me the opportunity to really take a look at what was still unhealed. Even when I was the worst version of myself, he stuck it out. And for a girl with abandonment issues, there's nothing more valuable than that. I CHOSE him because he helped me to see that I was no longer interested in being the boss in my personal life (work gave me my fix on that front), that I wanted a real man to step in and let me relax for once. You know, take the reins and the load of my shoulders. This young man was never going to be that, and once I understood this reality, I resented him for making me fall in love with him. At least that is how I saw it at the time. That would change, but it would come much later.

Eventually, at 35 I finally left him. In the meantime, I would endure 4 years of absolute hell on earth. Frustrating, painful, excruciating love - the kind of love that in your head you know isn't right, that he's not the one, but every other part of your body craves him like some sort of addiction making it impossible to let go. When those two opposing forces fight a daily battle against each other, it can drive a person insane. It almost did.

Sometimes the contrast between what we have and what we really want is life's biggest gift for it thrusts us into action, hurtling us towards our true desires, wants and needs. Sure I wish I didn't spend half my thirties figuring this out, but I got there. In the end. And I'm a better woman for it.

My dalliances with younger men would get better, my expectations of them newly managed, never again exceeding what I know their limited years and experience can offer. Now I see them as a fun diversion while I await my partner in crime to arrive. So Clyde if you're out there...

May I digress with a little backstory?

I don’t want to be another sourpuss female in Los Angeles who moans about how hard it is to meet men except that it is really hard to meet men. I’ve been here a while and I can tell you I have managed to single handedly assembled the worst group of ex-boyfriends since landing on these shores at 30.

First there was Patrick, an obsessive, damaged, paranoid control freak who managed to manipulate me into cutting ties with my friends and family within weeks of knowing me. Looking back, I needed to get mad at my parents - more on that later perhaps in another post for it opens up an entirely new can of worms. I’m still not sure how he did this. Those that need to have their loved ones isolated are clever. He would need to be. I’m no dummy. Luckily I got out within a year.

Then there was Gavin, a film director I met at an industry event in Santa Monica. We spotted each other in a bar moments after I had just ceremoniously quit working for a notoriously crooked producer. He was scheduled to leave on a plane 2 hours from the time we met. He stayed for 4 days. We never left his hotel room. From there he would come into town after shooting his latest movie and promptly whisk me away for sex and romance fuelled weekends. It was just like the methods used by courtiers of yesteryear – he’d get in my pants, get my pheremones raging, then just as we started getting close he’d leave. Oh he’d surface every few months, just as I had slowly, painfully, worked him out of my system. It’s an all-too-common dynamic for which there is a scientific explanation. By the way, wise but crafty men know already know this. Sadly, most women don’t…

When women have sex they release a bonding chemical or neuropeptide called oxytocin (also known as the Love Hormone) – the very same one that wipes out all memory of how painful childbirth is for a mother, mother nature’s way of making sure she’ll do it again. The result is we are left feeling like we are hopelessly in love, with a man we hardly know. Out goes all logic, reasonable thinking and any sort of perspective – the one that is supposed to be reserved for clear headed assessment as to whether our love interest is indeed worthy of our body, mind and soul. Oxytocin makes sure all of that is clouded with euphoric puppy love. Before we know it, we think we’re in love. We’re not. But at that point it doesn’t really matter. Men like Gavin thrive on this. Even if they don’t know the neuro-biology of it all, on some semi-conscious level it’s all about getting in our pants, both as a form of self-pleasure but also to ensure we’re theirs hook, line and sinker whenever they want us. Whenever they want us. Without having to show up in any real way. Like a boyfriend, or heaven forbid a husband. When I eventually had enough of the casual convenient dynamic I had set up with Gavin and suddenly demanded more, he ran. Fast. So fast he left a Gavin-shaped hole in the wall behind him.

The truth is, though of course there are exceptions, when you sleep with men the first night you meet them, the likelihood they’ll want to settle down with you is remote. You see, they’re biologically wired to seek out the best WIFE – virtuous, trustworthy, feminine. If they got you into bed easily, imagine how easy it would be for OTHER men to do the same. They know how predatory males can be when they see a woman they want. Heck, they did the very same thing with YOU! In Gavin’s mind, though he never said it in these exact words, if I slept with him so quickly, with little effort on his part, then who was to say I’d be any more discerning should other viable prospects enter the picture. Unfair? Sure. Truthful? Absolutely. Based on my actions with him. At least from his perspective. Did I learn from it then and there? No. However, at 40, I’d like to think I know better than to jump into bed with someone too soon. Well, for the most part. But Gavin and Patrick weren’t the biggest lessons in love I’d get… the piece de resistance would come shortly after the Gavin debacle. And he would suck up half of my thirties...

Ladies may I present... a gray pube!

Shocking. I am officially distraught enough to put my therapist on speed dial. Except that I don't have a therapist. I'm beginning to revisit the notion that I may in fact need one again. Nobody tells you about turning 40. Nobody tells you there's no such thing as having it all. So I chose to have a career, which is all fine and well during the 20's and 30's. At least in my case. While friends were enduring baby weight, the 7 relationship year itch and forcable moves to the suburbs of whatever city they lived in when they were single, I was off shooting movies, having affairs with hot European men, sitting in private boxes at The French Open of Tennis in Paris, and buying designer handbags like they were going out of style. Which they were. Which is why I had to buy more. And it was grand.

Nobody tells you the thing you thought was an old wives tale, an urban myth of epic proportions, something that happens to other women - NOT ME! - suddenly enters your life and bounds on your lap like a Great Dane puppy that's been left alone all day and can hardly contain itself when you walk through the door at night.

Yes, that elusive biological clock is licking my face and jumping all over my designer clothes, making a mess of everything I thought I knew and wanted. It just showed up one day, evidently when I wasn't looking. Probably in the lunchroom at work. And while I may have the career, the friends, the money, and the best body I think I have ever had, I can't believe I want babies as badly as I do. And a husband who holds open doors. And is in charge. Hey, I'm tired. Not of my career. In fact I've never been more fulfilled. And not of my life. Not exactly. It's just that I've been working since I was 16 and I think I might want to stop for a while. But I'm scared to get off the career train because I might not be able to get back on once I'm off. And do I really even have to choose? Can't I be an amazing mother AND continue the career trajectory I'm on?

I can't believe I'm putting all this in writing. But it's true. One February day (I'm guessing the 6th which is when I turned the big 4-0), I realized I've done all I can do on my own in terms of personal growth. There's no more growing to be had - except for learning even more patience as I wade through the shallow dating pool that is single life in Los Angeles (when I say "shallow" I mean literally and figuratively). No more value in coming home to an empty house, or eating cereal for dinner because I can, and not having to talk to anyone from Friday night to Monday morning if I so choose until I'm back at work again. No... now I crave babies, and family, and cooking and nesting and nuzzling, and compromise, and stretching my insides out so that the man I lay beside every night can see the seams of my soul. Even the seams whose stitches are coming out, frayed, frazzled and a little dirty. I want a man, MY man to see the real me. One thing about being 40 is that I have no desire to hide those things like I used to. I no longer wish to send my "representative" on dates. I just want to show up as me, warts and all (this I mean purely figuratively) complete with battle scars, bad habits, and a wide array of idiosyncracies, so much so that if someone could actually get past the first 3 months of dating me, well then we both just might be on to something. I want that reflection back so I can keep evolving. Call me on my shit. Bend my ear when I'm being ridiculous. Take me over your shoulder and carry me off to bed when you want me. I'm down.

I want to be the woman who wants to make him want to be a better man. I want to be a woman a M-A-N spots across a room, and who in turn says to his friend, "See that woman? I'm gonna marry her," as he sips a quality bottle of wine (a 94 Montrachet perhaps?). And he does. Marry me. And he doesn't wait 5 years to do it. He just knows. And there's a trip to a nice ring store. Yes, I've also become a woman who values nice jewelry even though I still wear converse 6 out of 7 days of the week. Can I also attribute that to the 40's?

In turn, I want to give some version of that back to HIM. Whatever he needs, I'll do my absolute best to provide. I'll be a damn good partner. And I'll sure as shit call him on his own "stuff". But he'll be able to take it. As will I. It'll make us laugh. That's how mature we are. We can take it. 'Cos it's safe. And since I don't know him just yet, I wait with bated breath at the arrival of his laundry list of peccadilloes. I can't wait to see all that he is, good and bad.

And then we're just... married! Together we create our little space in the world. We laugh, listen to music, drink wine, travel, buy furniture, read books on the floor of some cool store in NYC or Prague or Bali, share our stories over tapas - the horrors as well as the triumphs. We slowly, organically and joyfully carve out a soft spot for each other to land. From there we raise babies, (2 though I'd be happy with one) and by virtue of the fact I am now a 24/7 model for their happiness both now and for the rest of their lives, I evolve beyond anything I could have ever dreamed. Because I have to. I want to raise dynamic, special people who contribute to the world. So I need to be on my best behavior. As a result, I love who I become. I love them and him, and us, our family, beyond anything I could have imagined. It's epic, and exhausting, and the next chapter. It's what I need. It's what I crave. It's what I find myself dreaming about. I can feel it, him, them. It's like I already know my little family. Except that I don't. They haven't arrived yet.

And the problem is, I have no idea how to find them....