Thinking of a friend

I get overwhelmed. I do. I think I may seem to have it together to the people I work with, to my friends. But sometimes I just want to fall apart. Just crumple in a heap and cry for days. Stare at the walls, drink nothing but tea and vodka.  Eat only potato chips, never change out of my pajamas.  It seems like too much sometimes.

The kids fighting.  Smacking each other with the intent to really do some damage.  (And then happily reading comics together a mere 5 minutes later).  The pressure to support the family. Just me. Supporting myself, the kids, the ex even. What if something happens to me? What if the powers that be just decide they don't need me anymore?  I don’t pull my weight.  I'm no good. I am no longer shiny and new (I was never really shiny to them anyway but even less luster is surely possible). What if, I am, proverbially, pink slipped?  Any of these things could happen.  Why won't he share this burden with me?

And then, I am stopped in my tracks. In the midst of being overwhelmed, tragedy strikes an old friend. Friend might not be the right word. An idol. Tracee was a gymnast, slightly older than me. A child wonder and member of the 1980 Olympic team, the team that didn't compete due to a US led boycott. Politics intervened in an incomprehensible manner, at least to a bunch of teenagers who'd trained more than half their lives for this.  And, of course, the starry eyed children that anticipated the Russia games and the chance to see a Kathy or Beth or Marcia win a medal.  We loved Nadia and Olga, but were just aching to see one of our own up there on the podium.

Tracee went on to participate in the 1984 games in Los Angeles; no longer the spunky youngster, four short years later, she was a senior member of the team that won silver, a first for USA Gymnastics.   Though this team was led by Mary Lou, at least according to the TV coverage and post games Wheaties boxes, I cheered for Tracee and Kathy Johnson. The mature. The graceful. The courageous.

Tracee always had a kind word of guidance for me or any teary eyed young girl, who just fell off the beam, or face planted her last tumbling run.  She had been through it. The ups and downs. She was on top and then she wasn't.  She was perseverance incarnate and had the silver medal to show for it.

And in the last few years, we became email friends. She read my book. "Thank goodness," she said. "Someone finally said it all." What courage, she said. This, from courage itself.

This tragedy knows no mercy. Her son, Miles, not yet 5, accidentally strangled himself. The smile on this kid could melt a heart, un-panic a panicker. Remind you why you're here. And why nothing is that bad. Except this.

I have ached for her over the last week. How to undo what is done? How to will her the chance at maybe not happiness but peace, one day. Is it even possible? It seems maybe not. To lose a child is surely the worst thing that can happen to a person. And for it to happen in such a gruesome manner can only be a relentless nightmare.  The woulda coulda shoulda’s must drive a mother to the brink of madness, perhaps even over it. The collision of circumstances required for this to have happened is stupefying. It makes one believe, a non-believer like me, that somehow it had to have been meant to be. How else could this many things have smashed together within the span of a few seconds, to produce such a hideous result?  Is there some meaning, some learning, to be gleaned?  I don't really think that way, but what can one do at a time like this but search for meaning and pray for the mourners?

I don't pray. Not to God anyway. But I have found myself on my knees in recent days, unable to catch my breath. Please make it so that this child did not suffer. Please make it so that his parents can remember the sweetness of his breath, the stars in his eyes. Please make it so that they can find their way to some sort of equanimity. One day. Please make it so that my boys keep pounding on each other only to find themselves, moments later, reading Iron Man together on the couch. Side by side.  In plain view.

Dear Discreet Cougar

A few days ago, I received a spam email addressed to Discreet Cougar. Yowzer. I am hoping I am neither, though that hope is likely in vain. My age qualifies me as a "cougar", I know.  Though whether my looks do or not is up to the beholder. Are cougars well maintained? Or just ungracefully fighting the aging process? Are they pathetic or bold? Or both? I'm not sure and is anyone really using that term anymore? Has it not yet gone the way of "disco", "rad", "awww snap" and "cherry"? Can't I just be a not totally old looking 40-something rather than a "cougar" with all the desperation that term seems to conjure? In my mind's eye, Cougars wear too much make-up, inject too much Botox, get their boobs puffed up, wear spandex or some other too tight synthetic fabrication, all in a frenzied attempt to appear younger than they are.  This ungraceful endeavor is in service of wooing men much too young for them, as these ladies (who don't look young by the way, they look their age, with fake ones) are simply unwilling to face the fact that these gents are no longer in their wheelhouse.

As far as "discreet" goes, not something I've ever been known for. Loud. Boisterous. Sure. Not decorous. And "discreet" has a cagey connotation, a characteristic I try to avoid.

Anyway, I deleted the email as you would with any spam. But started thinking about age and dating and the fucked up dynamic of being a 42 year old woman who has never really dated and now is faced with having to. On match.com the men in my age range are, by and large, looking for women that top out at 35. They took their time finding that special gal, and now in their mid-40s have decided they want children! So what choice do they have but to go young.

Since I signed up I've gotten more emails from men 55 and up than I care to ponder.  You are not my cohort! You are much older than me! Leave me alone silver fox (if you were a silver fox by the way, I might reconsider, but you are simply "grandpa")!

Of those few that have decided they are willing to consider a woman in her 40's, since they too are in their 40's, my first requirement is: a job. A job that he likes. Sounds simple. But you'd be surprised.  It doesn't have to be lucrative. But he has to be passionate about it.  I've had four first dates. No second dates. One fellow who we'll call "Short and Angry" listed himself as a "trader" but then told me he hasn't worked in 5 years.  Eject.

First guy was under-employed. He said "self-employed" but he meant under.  We'll call him "Hippie Buddhist". We met for coffee. It was fine. I was too ... just too.  He lives up North, takes graphic design projects when he finds them and is engaged in studying meditation and Buddhism.  I told him I have one speed and it isn't slow and that was about the end of that. But he sent a nice note after and it was very encouraging in that I was able to go on a date, enjoy a pleasant conversation and leave knowing I wouldn't see him again but that there would be no awkward extrication. We'd shake hands and that would be it.  Ta da!

Second guy, had a job! A great job (or so he said).  He has a shorthand name as well but I won't use it for fear of being offensive.  He was ever so pleased with himself, in a way that I actually had a ton of empathy for. He'd felt criticized and not good enough for years in his marriage and now that he was outside of that dysfunction, he looked in the mirror (euphemistically) and said: Hey, I'm pretty terrific! Which would be fine. If he didn't talk about how cute he was, and how much money he made, and then try to get me back to his place repeatedly which was not going to happen. When I was younger I could sleep with people if 1) I was drunk enough, 2) I'd harbored feelings for them for some time having eyed them around campus. I can't do that now. There isn't drunk enough and I've never seen these fellows before as San Francisco is a relatively big city.  I need to be wooed. I need to fall. Not hard. But there has to be some emotional falling before the panties fall.

On to number #3. "Wine guy".  He assumed I would be endlessly fascinated by how he got into the wine game. Eh. He also seemed to have tremendous disdain for those corporate types who carry smart phones (yikes) and can afford to buy the wine he's hocking. I don't buy $80 bottles of wine. I'm more low key than that and I can't taste the difference anyway. But if that's what you're selling and that's what you like, you can't hate the people that can actually pay for it. Well you can. But it seems counter-productive.   Hand shake, thanks, bye.

And then came "Short and Angry" also known as "Jobless". Who, via email, I'd had tremendously high hopes for because he seemed so smart and funny. So this one was most disappointing. I'm now taking a break to gather myself but then I will try again. None of these excursions have been the least bit painful. I've spent a pleasant enough 2 hours with each fellow, started out hopeful and quickly turned an about face. Which is I'm sure exactly how they felt about me, and Lord knows what nick name they've ascribed - I can only imagine - "Corporate Bitch with 2 Smart Phones", "Agro Levi's Lady", or "Still Into Her Ex". These are all viable appellations to assign, I suppose, without the full picture.

I remain hopeful. I will keep at it. As my friend Anna tells me (and has been said many times before), you have to kiss a lot of frogs.

Croak croak.  Ribbit.