 One of my favorite rom-coms from the early 1990s is a little-known film called “Prelude to a Kiss,” starring a luminous Meg Ryan at her quirkiest and a young, handsome Alec Baldwin before he developed a reputation as a narcissistic asshole.
It’s basically a body-swapping fantasy, in which Rita (Ryan) gets a kiss from an elderly stranger at her wedding at the precise moment they each wish they were old/young. Hijinks and hilarity ensue as Rita’s soul in the old dude’s body spends most of the movie trying to convince her new husband, Peter (Baldwin), that it’s really her under all that saggy skin and ear hair. When Rita and the old man finally switch back to their own bodies at the end, he says, “Can I give you two a piece of advice? Floss.”
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 I’ll be 45 next month. It occurred to me that this milestone birthday likely marks my true “middle age.” Yep, I am officially at the mid-point of my existence. Half dead, as it were.
The women in my family are a sturdy lot, particularly on my mother’s side, many of them living until age 90 or older. So, this is not naïveté on my part. It could actually happen. I feel fortunate that I’m more than likely going to grow into a wizened little old lady. If I make it another 45 years, I hope I inherit the spunk of my Aunt Pauline, who was still mowing her 2-acre yard in the heat of rural Mississippi summer just weeks before she passed at age 96.  I’ve often spent time in rooms full of like-minded people who are focused on their spiritual and emotional growth. In one of those rooms recently, someone mentioned a tendency that I am all too familiar with — the extremes of either being obsessed with or indifferent to people, places, things or events.
I’ve been an extremist in many areas of my life, but particularly in romantic relationships — I think about you every minute of every day, or I completely cut you out of my mind and heart. There is no middle ground. I’ve come to realize that this approach is more than a little nutty and certainly not emotionally healthy. (Perhaps this is why I am blissfully single right now. But I digress.)  I didn’t mean to do it.
I didn’t intend to carry it so far. I just wanted a taste. Just a tiny boost. Nothing extreme. But a taste wasn’t enough. It led to another, and another. I felt myself falling into the deep chasm of obsession. Before I knew it, I was full-on in the madness. Before I knew it, I had … I had … completely redecorated my living room. Now, I don’t mean to make light of addiction. True physical and psychological addition — to drugs, alcohol, food, sex — is blinding, brutal and ravaging, and it does not discriminate.  Brace yourselves. I’m still reeling from my recent head-on collision with the Affordable Care Act, and I’m fired up about the government taking my money. (OK, technically the money goes to a certain health insurer downtown, but I'm trying to make an impassioned argument, so poetic license is in order here.)
Now, I rarely show my political colors in public. My political bent is no one’s business, for one thing. And for another, I am not particularly invested in any one issue. Most of the time, I am simply happy to live in the home of the free, and I resolutely accept the bad stuff that inevitably comes with all the good in these here United States. I registered as a Democrat at age 18 because my mother told me that Kentucky rarely turned out any decent Republican candidates, so it was important to be able to vote in the Democratic primaries and at least help choose the best jackass out of that bunch. I don’t know if I agree with her logic, but I’ve left my official allegiance with that camp all these years. If I had to pick a party based solely on my beliefs, I would align with the Libertarians. When it comes to supporting business and industry, I am a conservative capitalist. On social issues, I fall more on the liberal side of the fence.  I have discovered that, since I celebrated the milestone almost two years ago, 40 truly is the magic age when your body starts waging a Sandinista-style rebellion.
Oblivious to the damage you’re doing to yourself in your youth and all the time-tested literature on the natural effects of aging, you dismiss the warnings of your parents and middle-aged friends, thinking, “I’ll be fine until WAY into my 50s.” And then 40 sneaks up on you like a kitten under the covers at 3 a.m. Forty has TEETH, man. Your skin suddenly says nuh-uh to collagen production and yes to saggy jowls and eye wrinkles. Your stomach starts screaming “Hell to the no!” when you dare to eat anything greasy or (burp) spicy. And your metabolism says, “Fuck you, that tiny piece of carrot cake WILL go straight to your ass if you don’t get up off of it right this minute and kick the shit out of those calories at the gym.” |
About Amy HiggsA former newspaper columnist, Amy takes her random, slice-of-life stories to the web. After 12 years, she's still just saying. Archives
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