I made it home from work, showered, put on makeup and an evening gown, all in under 20 minutes. Not a minute to spare. The only sacrifice I made was "doing" my hair (messy updos are in, btw!). Now I'm off to dinner and the opening night of Mamma Mia at The Fox theater! What could be better? Not much. I just have to keep reminding myself to slow down and savor every moment, not keep rushing to get to the next thing.
Tonight I almost decided not to post anything. Take a break. Why not? I deserve it, I've had along day. But if you commit to something, especially something that's only 30 days long, you might as well stick with it. I'm not a fan of things like diets, workout crazes like P90X, or anything that is too constrictive, regimented, or militaristic. Sometimes it's hard for me to stick to things. But then again, I've stuck to things that I should have quit sooner. But then there are others that if I had just stuck it out, who knows where I would be now? One big regret is quitting the piano at age 6. My cousin was a concert pianist and my mom decided it would be a good idea if he taught me to tickle the ivories. Bad idea jeans. I was an unruly child who didn't really like to practice. He was a preoccupied teenager with no desire for teaching. Match made in heaven; I didnt do my drills, and he never enforced. I wanted to be good at something instantly, or not do it at all. It's a trait that has plagued me throughout my life, a consequence of having things come too easily to me. And so the piano, like so many things before and after it (figure skating, violin, pottery class) fell by the wayside.
I've learned that there are probably many things in life I will never be very good at: I'm not an athlete, my cooking is good but not five-star, my photogrwphy skills dabbly at best, and my boyfriend's two obsessions - golf and poker - are two things I will not only never be good at, but will likely be very, very bad at. I'm not one to hide my cards or conceal my emotions.. And I'm not patient with a tiny ball and a club I can't swing. I could learn, take lessons, read books, study videos, and the dreaded practice. Or I could enjoy watching, enjoy learning but not excelling. I'm actually getting quite good at that part. And if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to the World Poker Championship on ESPN. Seriously.
Why do we love October 31st so much? Putting on costumes, face paint, disguises? Becoming someone else for a night?
Both my mother and my sister are professional thespians, so I come by it honestly. I've always loved the thrill of a transformation. I've changed careers more times than many have changed underwear (ok, I exaggerate, but only slightly), and each time I fully embraced the part. But it was always a role, a challenge to convince others that I was - or wasn't - who I said I was. My favorite parlor trick at bars and parties was to make people guess what I did for a living. I offered money, prizes, prestige, but no one ever came close, not even when I gave the hint of healthcare. Was it that I was female (and doctors are male, of course), or that I so didn't look the part? I often got graphic designer, entertainment lawyer, fashion PR agent. It was beyond amusing. But it also got tiring, all the playing dress up, the pretending to be someone I wasn't and fooling people wasn't exactly a fulfilling reward. Now when I announce my job on planes, in bars, on dates (when I was going on many), I don't get much of a reaction. Oh, don't get me wrong, I still get the usual freakout over my academic pedigree, but it's pretty tame in comparison to the Olde Dayes.
Does this mean I'm finally being who I am? That I'm old enough to know the difference between who you are and what you do? That you can be a doctor, no longer be a doctor, and still retain your identity. A job is just one facet of who we are, but it doesn't, or shouldn't, define us. That way once a year we are free to reinvent ourselves as slutty nurses, TV show characters, historical figures, and any number of goblins and ghouls. Nothing scary about that. Happy Hallowe'en, everyone.
I had always known what I wanted to be when I grew up. How I "knew" this is not entirely clear to me, as 6-year-olds may not be the best judge of career compatibility.
Nevertheless, I carried on, doggedly pursuing my goal of "Doctor" a la Hawkeye Pierce.
Problem with Plan D was that I was a bit of a free spirit. After getting kicked out of three different nursery schools because I disagreed with various totalitarian concepts like 'nap' and 'toilet' time, my parents charted my career path as "juvenile delinquent" and "dropout."
My father came to the rescue and managed to find an extremely liberal Montessori meets Waldorf meets Fame type of school where I spent the next 12 years. Oh so happily, I might add. The problem was that now I was an artist, a creative, and even more of a free spirit than when I started. Which begs the nature- nurture question: my parents were both artists/creatives so really, the decks were stacked against me on both sides. So how did things go so awry? How did I end up so far down the wrong path?
The problem lay in my analytical, smart kid brain. Being good at school, at test taking, and the standard scholastic indicators of success can actually be a major liability: trust me.
"Really, you can do anything! Your scores are off the charts!" my guidance counselor cooed when I was hesitating about college applications and choosing a major. "Just stay away from the military and agriculture." Wow. Surprising insights.
Here is the problem: when you become good at taking tests, at achieving, that becomes a goal, a reward, in and of itself; it becomes more about what you are CAPABLE of doing that what makes you happy. In fact, that never entered into the equation. I just jumped through one hoop after another, like a trained pony, living for the applause.
It does all catch up with you, eventually. The discord between who you truly are and what you are doing with your life will at some indeterminate point become unbearable. If you're lucky, that happens early on; for most folks, it's after the first pre-med class they take ("are you kidding me?????? Who needs this shit!!!!!!"). However, there is an inversely proportional relationship between your academic ability and your lack of self awareness, multiplied with a determination factor. At least, that's how it went down for me.
Many miserable decades later, I finally got off of the golden treadmill, the endless pursuit of accolades and prestige just stopped keeping me warm at night and wore on my sanity.
You can't change who you are. But you sure as hell can try, especially if you have enough brains and drive. In addition to acamdemic parameters and inventories, there should really be more of an emphasis on personality testing. Which is controversial, especially for young, moldable, impressionable teenagers, but it's sorely needed. There is talk of instituting personality profiling for prospective med students, and while it smacks of 1984, I can't say I'm against it. Although I might have been able to outsmart the test, and even if I hadn't, would I have been ready to hear the results? Definitely not.
We should be teaching our kids to truly know who they are. I think Gen Y and the Millenials caught on to this theory just fine. It's we Gen Xers and those before us who struggled with what we SHOULD be rather than who we are.
It took me a while to catch up, but eventually I got out of personality remedial and into the mainstream. It could be worse. Some peope never do.
I've always been in a bit of a hurry to get on with it. And maybe that's because of the November birthday and the stupid rule that if you were born after September you were held back a year in school. This arbitrary cut-off didn't truly hold me back for long, though. A precocious talker (but definitely not walker), reader, writer, and generally gifted child, before I knew it I had skipped from kindergarten into the third grade in a manner of months. Great! Or not so great, as emotionally, I was, well, still a 6 year old.
I also rushed through Harvard, graduating in two years instead of four due to some wacky transfer of Canadian credits and my general desire to get to medical school as fast as possible. So, I graduated at age 20, but with the emotional maturity of a 12 year old. Awesome.
And then I started to slow things down. I decided not to to go to medical school. I worked in advertising. Lived in New York City. Studied opera. Traveled and lived abroad. Was an au pair. An English teacher. A cancer researcher. After all, I was so much younger than everyone, I could afford to take time off, "find myself" and enjoy life a little before eventually succumbing to the Hippocratic oath.
By the time I got to medical school I was just shy of 25 and officially felt "old"; there were 19yr olds in my class, for chrissake.
After the initial panic wore off, I again believed I had time, and lots of it. After all, I was nowhere close to the dreaded three-oh.
As for relationships? Who needed them? Not me. Boys were mean and stupid and generally in the way of my Medical Career. I dated with little to no success until my late 20s-early thitrties, but by then it was sort of too late.
No longer in college or medical school, everyone around me paring off and tying the knot, popping out babies (something I just could not comprehend! We were TOO YOUNG for all this shit!!!), buying houses while I racked up debt and went on a handful of fruitless blind dates.
It didn't help that I was god awful miserable throughout my residency. It wasn't just the not eating or sleeping for decades that was taking its toll, it was the whole "oh-shit-I-picked-the-wrong-career-and-it's-too-late" epiphany that made me pretty much undatable. But I still had time. I wasn't 35 yet.
All was not lost.
The wake up call was not a subtle one and came in the form of my best friend's husband dropping dead while playing frisbee. He was 35. And that's when it all hit me: this is it. This is all there is. Time is finite and it runs out so you better do what you love and you sure as hell better do it now.
When you're little you think you will always live in your parents' house. That your grandparents will always be there to cook special dinners like lamb with mint sauce or gefilte fish. That your favorite restaurant will always be in business. That there is always another time, another chance, another day, another try.
But there isn't always.
Paradoxically, all the rushing and focus on the next exam, achievement, promotion, date, milestone, and brass ring only serves to perpetuate this sort of timeless tunnel vision that is so dangerous. Because one day you might wake up and realize the things you have are not necessarily the things you want.
So, stop. Reevaluate. You have time. Sort of.
I grew up in French Canada, so you'd think that would make all of us naturally bilingual. It doesn't. When you live with your Jewish anglo parents, go to English school, have English friends, and watch American movies and television, you find yourself languishing in a second language class conjugating the verb "to be" for 11 years straight. To say I was bored was an understatement. But I did relish my neat array of 100% report cards.
By the time I was finishing high school, something of a budding linguist and smart alec, my French teacher approached me with the option to transfer to the French literature class. For native speakers. I said "not a chance in hell," but she was persuasive, appealing to my overachiever/perfectionist side: "Mais c'est un défit! It will be a challenge of you!" Fine. I was sold. For two years I toiled in one of the hardest classes I've ever taken in my life (second only to advanced bioorganic chemistry at Harvard, I kid you not), only to get near- failing grades that would forever tarnish my perfect A+ record. Never mind that I still got in to Harvard, that one blip on my transcript followed me to every interview, and was met with quizzical disapproving scowls from admissions officers the world over.
That was the last time I was taking a risk!
When I got to Harvard I was a fish out of water, a small fish in a big pond who thought she was a killer whale. Back home I was the star pupil, the apple of every teacher's eye; at Harvard, I was simply just another genius. Average. Not Nobel material. Not even brighter than the football jocks who outshone me in my legal theory section week after week my first semester.
I struggled through my premed classes, attempting to fill my course load with easy As, avoiding courses with papers because I was convinced I "couldn't write" because I once received a B from an unimaginative English teacher who didn't approve of my comparative analysis of The Day of The Triffids and Coleridge's The Albatross.
I though it was pretty inspired stuff for a 16-year-old.
In my senior year a rare seminar course was offered called "Thinking About Thinking," taught by such luminaries as E.O. Wilson and Steven Jay Gould. It was a graduate level course, but open to 4th year students. I contemplated. I hesitated. I never registered.
It is one of the great regrets of my young academic life.
So terrified of failing, I prevented myself from learning from the world's greatest thinkers, some of whom are no longer with us.
Today, I would be camping out in front of the registrar's office, climbing over other students to be the first to sign up.
Because along the way I've learned that there are no stupid questions. Only fear. And I have a lot more to say.
I have 30 days left of being in my 30s.
Which is a terrifying thought.
I'm trying to look back and remember what it felt like to turn 30, and I can't, really. I mean, there was a lot of gin involved, but I do recall thinking I wasn't a kid anymore, that I had to grow up. But if I'm being honest, I put that last part in quotation marks, quipping pithy remarks like "30 is the new 20" which is true in some ways. In many. But not all.
Then I turned 35 and it got real. Scary real. The days of looking forward to my birthdays, of longing to be older, ended back when I was 21, but this was a new level of dread that I had never felt before: all of a sudden I was old. 35 is officially over the hill for a single woman. It marks your expiration date, the end of your viable fertility without significant risk, and a life sentence to the over 50 set in the world of online dating. It's a fate I wouldn't wish on anyone. Unless 5 more years go by and suddenly you're turning 40 and you would give anything, a kidney, a million dollars, an eye, to be 30 again. Or even just 35.
I have friends, plenty of friends, who tell me it's "not so bad" (there are the quotation marks again). Said friends are all married with children. So they can't really tell me how it is, now can they?
And it isn't all bad: I'm older, but I'm also wiser. More confident. Successful. I've reinvented myself many times over and have emerged victorious. I have a job that I love, I'm climbing the corporate ladder, I have many friends scattered across the globe, I'm finally no longer drowning in debt, and I will be spending my dreaded birthday in a villa in St Martin with my closest friends. Not bad.
Not what I expected. Not what I planned. But that's the way the cookie crumbles.
For the next 30 days I plan to reflect on certain lessons that I've learned over the past four decades. Some I wish I had learned earlier. I just hope it's not too late to grow up without growing old.