Things That Are True - Ruminations Upon Turning Forty

Warning: cringe-inducing earnestness ahead. If you're looking for cynicism, click away. You'll not find it here.

My 40th birthday party - photo by HWSNBN

A month ago today, I turned 40.

I had a half a dozen half-written posts in my head at the time, which have grown to a dozen since. Things I've wanted to say: an update on my Fit by Forty mission, discussions of celebrations, birthday cake for the non-dairy set, clever quips about passing life's milestones, and some Significant Ponderings Upon Reaching Adulthood. It's taken a month for all of that to simmer on the back burner of my mental landscape and bubble over into this:

I'm 40. And I don't care anymore.


Let me clarify: this is not "I don't care anymore, nothing matters and what if it did." I have not been tsunami'd by a rogue wave of apathy. The exact opposite, in fact. I am as passionate, as engaged, and possibly more driven than I've ever been. This is "I know what I know, I love what I love, and I no longer give a damn what other people think."

This, friends and relations, is what freedom feels like.

This is a huge deal for someone like me. I have expended a lot of energy - enough kW hours to make a serious dent in the global energy crisis - being consumed with anxiety about not fitting in, worrying about what to wear, what to say, how to act. I have, more than once, allowed my fear to sink me into utter paralysis. I've not done things I desperately, achingly wanted to do - talk to that guy, write that song, go to that event, try that new scary thing - because of my fear of Getting It Wrong. Sheer will pushed me forward on occasion, but more often than not, I feigned aloofness and pretended what I really wanted didn't matter. I opted out.

No more.

An actual photo I took today just before the scribbling began

As I write this, I'm sitting in a cafe that is much cooler than I am. I put my pen down periodically (yes, I still write with pen and paper occasionally - I like the tactile nature of it) and dip in and out of the stream of conversation around me, capturing vignettes of people's public and private lives. I'm surrounded by 20-something hipsters. I admire their easy confidence, their languid coolness, their uninhibited friendships. And I wonder what I looked like at their age to a 40 year old woman sitting scribbling in a notebook nearby. Did I seem so easy and comfortable in my own skin? Or could she tell I was afraid of looking foolish every waking moment of every day? And are these beautiful younger-than-me men and women plagued by the angst (existential and otherwise) that plagued me at their age?

It feels sudden, this I-don't-give-a-damn liberation, but I'm sure, like everything else, that it's not that simple, that it's been creeping up on me far longer than I've been aware. It's just the introspection of watching a major milestone approach and go past that's made it front-and-centre.

I spent my twenties figuring out who I was in the wake of a disastrous and abusive relationship. What other people thought of me was always top of mind. In my thirties, I had a better poker face, but I was still consumed with how I appeared to others. The things that made me happy - designer clothes, extravagant vacations, expensive restaurants - were still tied up in how other people saw me. If I deconstructed every choice I made in the ten years between 27 and 37, what other people thought was the single most important factor every time.

Motherhood - ah motherhood: paradoxically crisis-of-confidence inducing and magnificently empowering all at once. While the mere act of living my life, examining my mistakes, and choosing better the next time has contributed to this new, giddy sense of freedom, it's motherhood that has triggered a quiet revolution in the way I look at the world. I've always been someone who had to know how to do something perfectly before I would even try it - as a result I didn't try a lot of new things. But becoming a parent isn't something I could know how to do before I actually did it. No matter how many books I read or friends I talk to, every person's experience of parenthood is different, and I can't do anything but figure it out as I go.

And Get It Wrong. Boy, do I get it wrong. I angst. I worry. I fret. It's a struggle, and a challenge, and a different game every day - which would have stopped me in my tracks ten years ago. Even five years ago.

But I keep doing it anyway. Aloofness isn't possible. Opting out simply isn't an option.

The getting it wrong and doing it anyway is a monumental change for me. Learning to be a parent has given me the permission to fail, and the courage to try to fail better next time. To just get over myself, to challenge my own assumptions, to reach out, to share my hopes and dreams in this space, and most importantly to believe that my hopes and dreams do matter. Pretty heady stuff.

Web cam photo taken right this minute

Hi. I'm Alexis.

My hair gets frizzy. My teeth are crooked. I make mistakes. I know what I know, I love what I love, and I stand up for what I believe in. I'm 40. And I don't give a damn.

Can I get a booyah?

Things That Are True - Why I Write Here

As I mentioned in my last post, I've been thinking a fair amount about why I blog. I've attended blogging events, learned a lot about what blogging means to other people, and wrestled with what blogging means to me. I've considered going the route of seeking PR pitches, doing giveaways and reviewing products in this space. Who doesn't want free goodies? I've read with some envy about blogger-freebie events that others have been invited to. Who doesn't want a free trip or spa day? I've thought about what it would take to really promote my blog as a brand, and I've struggled with posting regularly enough to build traffic and be considered for that kind of attention.

But here's the thing - it's just not me.

I write because I can't not write. I don't write often, and often I don't write well, but I can't not write.

For as long as I can remember, I've been a letter writer and a journal keeper, with the same sort of sporadic output as I've had here on my blog so far. I have boxes of old notebooks filled with no doubt mortifying-to-almost-40-year-old-me rants, raves, and anguish filled entries about boys (later men), school (later work), goals, to-do-lists, and passions, however transitory.

Me, Grade 8. Also transitory: fashion.

Those notebooks are the repository of my dreams, however ridiculous, unrealistic, or embarrassing they might be. In rereading some of them, I'm shocked at what 17 year old me had to say about homosexuality, amused by what 22 year old me thought was important in a guy, and embarrassed at the depths of wisdom I spouted about turning a whole quarter of a century old. (Depths so shallow you'd crack your skull open if you tried to dive in.)

But I meant those words at the time. Meant them fervently.

As fervently as I now wish I'd never owned that shirt. Me at 17.

As I get older I tend to forget that I haven't always looked at the world the way I do now. I forget how desperately in love I was with that guy in highschool, the one who didn't know I existed. (And who now, frankly, I'd be embarrassed to be seen with. Facebook can be very good for affirming your life's choices. Yikes.) And it's easy to forget how extraordinarily important little moments can be, both good and bad. Things I don't even remember now that rocked me to my knees as they were happening.

Me at 24. It seems I never did quite get the hang of a hairdo. Also: really? Tie-dye?

Now, as a parent, I'm glad I still have this written record of the passions, angst, and injustices of my childhood, teen, and early adult years. I hope it will remind me, as The Imp grows in and out of the various stages of life, that perception is fluid, that perspectives change, and that yes, he does truly, achingly feel like missing that party will literally end any chance at happiness for the rest of his life. I hope I can look at those snapshots of my younger-self feelings and, after chuckling to myself, still be respectful of his. He's a lot like me; I'm sure his passions will be just as fiery as mine were - and still are. No matter how embarrassing they might be.

But here's another thing: not all of them are embarrassing. I can remember writing several times from the age of about 15 until as recently as my early thirties about how I wanted to get a good camera and learn to take proper pictures instead of unsatisfactory snapshots. It's a recurring theme in my notes to myself. And while I certainly wouldn't call myself a photographer, this space, this very public yet somehow very intimate space, has allowed me to start another blog, filled with photographs I have taken myself.

I also wrote repeatedly and with great longing about wanting to sing, and to learn to play guitar, and to write songs. All of which I've done. Maybe not well, maybe not often, but I've done them. Every night at bedtime, The Imp and I sing our goodnight song, a little tune that came to me in the hazy hours of mid-night breastfeeding. I wrote that, and The Imp asks for it every night.

And the photography and the music, and the writing, oh the writing, have been my solace.

The sleepless night of a highschool broken heart has been replaced by the sleepless night of a feverish toddler. The teenage angst about a boy has been replaced by the complicated business of being married to a man. The goals (go to Paris, buy a guitar, get a job) have been replaced by different goals (go to Paris again, buy another guitar, start my own business). But the writing remains.

And when I can put aside the business of life to post here, I will. And I hope you'll come back to read once in a while.

The schedule: sporadic.
The posts: honest, as real as my limited skill can make them, and probably embarrassing to my 60-year-old self.
Also: there will be swearing.

And so be it.

Me at almost 40, and finally comfortable with who I am.

What I'm Doing - Fit by Forty: Rules

Yesterday I wrote a little about the reason I started my quest to get into better shape physically. It was my most visited post since I started this blog - clearly reclaiming your physical self post-baby resonates for a lot of us. Amber over at Strocel.com wrote a great post today about making peace with your mama body, and Gwen at Left Coast Mama wrote a heartfelt piece about having an ugly day.

Let me be clear - as I wrote yesterday in response to some great comments, this is more about improving physical fitness than losing weight. Don't get me wrong, losing the extra padding I'm carrying around feels great, and I won't pretend my vanity wasn't thrilled when my mother-in-law asked me, "Have you lost weight?" at a family dinner a couple of weeks ago. But my primary goals are to a) feel better and stronger and b) model healthy active living for the almost-two-year-old Imp. I hesitated to include numbers in my post, for fear of placing inadvertent labels on people who weigh more or less than I do, or who want to weigh more or less than I do. In the end I did include them, because numbers are simply the easiest and most tangible way I can think of to measure progress.

On to today's post:

So, I knew I wanted to lose weight. Like everyone else with these first-world problems, I resolved to get into better shape starting January 1st. Like an idiot, I went crazy and managed to injure myself, introducing my left shoulder to the fun factory of bursitis. That was an interesting visit to the doctor.

Dr: You have bursitis in your left shoulder.
Me: Wha? Isn't that something your eighty five year old grandmother has?

Apparently it's just as common in overzealous yet seriously out of shape 39 year olds too. Damn.

So I fell off the exercise wagon, and reverted to my ice cream eating, television watching ways. Again.

I knew this time I'd have to be more strategic, think things through. Have a plan. So I came up with some ground rules for my Fit by Forty efforts:


1) It has to be realistic.

Rule: No extremes, in terms of means or ends. No crash diets, no skipping meals, no denying myself everything that tastes good. No exercise until I puke. No trying to fit into a size 4 in six weeks. Nothing ridiculous. If it's not realistic, it's not realistically achievable.

Implementation: I set myself the goal of eating mindfully, making healthier choices, and adding exercise to my daily routine. You know, the stuff that actually works. In terms of those dreaded numbers, I set the weight loss goal of 1 pound per week.

2) It has to be financially viable.

Rule: There's no money for gym memberships, personal trainers, fancy pre-portioned food, or loading up on the latest equipment. These changes have to be on the cheap, using what I already have at my disposal or can buy inexpensively.

Implementation: I already own a yoga mat, some 5 lb weights, and a couple of workout DVDs. I have a bicycle, which I took in for a tune-up and bought new tires. I spent $8.99 on iTunes and downloaded some yoga workouts. And living on the 21st floor affords me ample opportunity for stair-climbing any time I can convince myself it's a good idea.

3) It has to be easy to do, time-wise.

Rule: I run my own home-based business. I parent a very busy almost 2 year old little boy. There's no time for me to go to classes on any kind of regular basis. Or maybe I should say that I'm not willing to take time away from other things in order to go out for instruction. Either way, time's at a premium. Exercise and healthy eating need to fit into my daily routine, or I know, despite the best of intentions, I won't do it.

(Aside: I used to think I wanted, on my gravestone, "She had the best of intentions." Now I've decided cremation is the way to go, so no gravestone. But maybe a nice park bench somewhere with "She always did everything the hard way.")

Implementation: I've started using the bicycle instead of the car as much as my loathing of rainy weather will let me. For short trips in the downtown core it's almost as fast as taking the car, and no looking for (or paying for) parking (or gas, come to think of it). Having 30 pounds of Imp (who loves the bicycle so much he wears his helmet at breakfast most mornings) in the child seat does wonders for increasing resistance levels too. I've also been using the bicycle to get around and take pictures for my new Vancouver Daily Photo blog, which guarantees I get out for a ride several times a week. I take the stairs up to the apartment any time I'm not dressed up, carrying a ton of stuff, or with The Imp. All 21 floors of them. I try and fit in video workouts a couple of times a week. Given that I used to exercise, uh, not at all, this is progress!

4) It has to be flexible.

Rule: We all lead busy lives. Plans change, children get sick, or climb out of their cribs and fall on their heads and then refuse to sleep in their new bed. (Imp, I'm looking at you.) I need to be able to adapt my efforts as I dodge the sucker-punches that get thrown in my general direction.

Implementation: One of the benefits of not relying on scheduled classes or appointments with a trainer is that when my plans go all askew, I can still take the stairs and get in a workout. Although I discovered that my self-care takes a nose-dive when The Imp gets sick. Gotta work on that.

5) I have to somehow be accountable.

Rule: In the past, I've let deadlines slip and not met fitness goals, and nobody knew so I could pretend it didn't matter. I need to do this in a public way.

Implementation: And here we are. I've been on twitter with #fitbyforty updates at least once a week, and this week I've put it out there in this very public space. I've meant to write about it here since the process started five weeks ago, but something always got in the way. (*cough* fear *cough*)

So here it is:

I started at 149 pounds on March 1st, 2010 and I turn 40 on August 24th. I want to lose a pound a week.

Goal, measurable: 25 weeks from A to B means a goal weight of 124 by the time I hit the big four oh.

Goal, intangible: As much as I've talked about numbers so far (it's hard not to get fixated on them) the name I've given this process is Fit by Forty. What's most important to me is fitness, which as a subjective term is much less measurable. When will I consider myself fit? When I no longer have to get off my bike and push it up the hills close to my apartment. (Downtown Vancouver has more hills than you'd think!) When I can run across the playground with my son and not feel too tired to keep chasing him. When I can see an improvement in my posture because my core is stronger. When I can go on an hour-long bike ride and not feel too sore to move for days afterward.

And most importantly, I want to model a healthy, active lifestyle for The Imp. I'm mounting a pre-emptive counter-offensive for the years of junk food advertising, and the sedentary nature of spending hours a day in front of a screen (TV, computer, video game, any kind of screen) that are sure to come.

Anyone care to join me on my quest? Any advice? What are your fitness goals, and how are you working toward them?

What I'm Doing - Fit by Forty: Background

In August I will turn forty.

I'm not freaked out about the number. Forty. Four-tee. 40. Four-oh. Whatever. Doesn't faze me.

Thirty was much harder. Somehow leaving my twenties behind had far more emotional impact on me - in terms of the milestones by which we measure our lives, it was a much bigger deal. There was a lot more taking stock, comparing where I was with where I thought I'd be, thinking about what I'd accomplished and what I'd let slip by. But my thirties have been great. Better than great: I got married, I had a baby, I started writing again. (I have a half-completed BFA in Creative Writing I really must finish one of these days.) In the last year, I started my own business.

As I creep up on forty, I have a much stronger identification of who I am, and what I am about than I ever have before. I am much stronger in my convictions. I feel more confident that the life experiences that have shaped me - the difficult: overcoming alcoholism, recovering from a abusive relationship, and the wonderful: meeting my soulmate, becoming a parent - have made me who I am, and that what I've learned, what I have to share is of value to others. After the insecurities of my twenties and the whirlwind of my thirties, this is a good way to feel. So forty, in and of itself, is not scary; it's just what comes next.

What IS freaking me out, however, is the physical aspect of being firmly ensconced in the land of middle age. (The first person who says the word "cougar" gets a punch to the throat. Just sayin'.) I am 5' 5". When I was thirty, soaking wet I weighed 120 pounds. When I got married, I weighed 115. I looked like this:

And now, well now I don't. Let's just leave it at that.

Let me be clear: this is not just about how I look, although it certainly plays a big role. I haven't been in very good shape for quite a while now. I get winded going up a simple flight of stairs. I don't like that I struggle with the physical demands of parenting a very busy little boy, that my back hurts after carrying him any real distance, and that other minor aches and pains prevent me from being the kind of parent I want to be.

Granted, I'm ten years older. Granted, I had a baby. And my work now is nowhere near as physically demanding as being on my feet on a film set for 90 hours a week. Still, I'm not pleased with my physical condition. I've crept up from a size 2-4, to a 4-6, then an 8. And then into the double digits: a 10. And I can't blame it all on having a baby. I started to gain weight long before The Imp was born. Just a few pounds a year, but it added up. By the time I got pregnant at 37, I was hovering around 135-140. I was the cliche - get married, gain weight. I was literally the person sitting in front of the tv watching The Biggest Loser with a bowl of ice cream on my lap.

The weight I gained during the pregnancy was right in the middle of the healthy range. I stopped looking at the scale the week my weight was higher than the winning female contestant on The Biggest Loser (I was eight months along), but my doctor assured me she would let me know if there was any cause for concern. I struggled a bit with gestational diabetes toward the end of my pregnancy, but easily controlled it with careful eating. And when I was breastfeeding, the weight melted away pretty quickly. My husband said, "Wow, that little boy is LITERALLY sucking the fat right out of you!" By the time The Imp weaned at 13 months, I was down to 140 pounds, right around my pre-pregnancy weight.

But I wasn't very physically active, and I kept eating as if I was still breastfeeding, and slowly over the next eight months I started to put on weight. Five weeks ago, I stepped on the scale and was 149 pounds.

That was just a little too close to 150 for me. I know numbers are supposed to mean nothing, but let's be honest. We all have an ideal number in our heads, and a number that horrifies us. Or spurs us into action. And 150, combined with the upcoming 40, is that number for me.

So Fit by Forty (or for those of you who'd like to follow along on twitter, #fitbyforty) was born.

That's some of the background. Tomorrow I'll post more about the process so far.