No!

I am given to excess…

Once, when I was fairly young, maybe eleven or twelve, I ate enough chocolate to elicit an allergic reaction. Details of the event are lost in a blessedly selective memory. I know my mother had spent the better part of an afternoon baking what I remember to be cupcakes for someone’s birthday or a school party, or some such. I know she was called away by the telephone, probably to run her leg of a car-pool. And, while she was away I ate. Upon her return, we met each other red-faced; she from anger, while hives competed with embarrassment upon mine. I’m sure she was angry that I had wasted her efforts, but the subject of her tirade focused more on the effect than the cause.

Much later, I worked with a friend who took prescription diet pills, which she generously parsed among her closest friends. Solid food didn’t pass my lips for a solid week. There simply wasn’t any time as I had never perfected the art of eating while smoking, and smoking was really all I was interested in doing. Well, smoking and talking. I talked a lot that week. Understandably, our supply dwindled quickly, forcing us both to go cold turkey. After two days spent sleeping, when I wasn’t standing in front of the refrigerator, I called to tell her my speed-freak days were over.

I never suffered from morning sickness when pregnant. I was sick all day, particularly with my first child. The only food I could stomach was green grapes. Looking back on it, I’m sure this had something to do with the fact that grapes have no odor. You see, it wasn’t so much the sight of food as the smell of it that set my stomach to churning. Most nights, I met my husband at the door. As he fought to free his backpack from an over-ambitious screened door, I took the large, shrink-wrapped package of grapes from his over-burdened hand, consuming most of them before he emerged from the shower.

By my third pregnancy, I had learned to use vitamins and minerals to conquer my nausea, allowing me to eat as I liked. I was pregnant, after all. I was eating for two! Pringles had just introduced a new flavor, cheddar cheese, and after stowing the rest of the groceries away, I settled our girth onto a sagging couch cushion in front of one of my mother’s soap operas, and began to crunch. Immersed as I was in the drama of beautiful people saving the lives of others while seemingly incapable of solving the riddles of their own, I reacted with horror when my fingers were met by the hard, cold, metallic bottom of an empty Pringles can. Hours later, as I pressed my fevered cheek against the putrid coolness of bathroom tile, I silently vowed to never touch another Pringle’s potato chip as long as I lived. And, I never have…

At last count I own over one-hundred pairs of shoes, and those are just the ones I wear in summer. Untallied, the winter shoes were packed away.

Two drawers of my dresser are filled with frilly, feminine, lounge-wear, and yet, I almost always pull an over-sized, well-worn tee-shirt over my head after a bath.

It occurred to me today, that I have fallen under the spell of excess, yet again.

One of the best things about being a “woman of a certain age” is the freedom inherent in the experience we carry on our faces, in our hearts, and on our minds. I read recently that many women first learn to use the word “no”, comfortably, after the age of forty. I can relate to that. I never failed to speak a “no”, but I have spent a considerable amount of time wondering at the wisdom of the word. Time has taught me that most “no’s” are of little, or no, consequence.

And yet, I find myself reveling in the opportunity. I don’t wear make-up, because I don’t have to. I spend little or no time choosing my clothing because it really doesn’t matter. The tiny voice inside my head, who longs to see musculature ripple underneath my increasingly crepey skin, speaks loudest first thing in the morning. Rush and routine quiet her. And my diet remains relatively sensible until lunchtime, when a co-worker routinely waves warm tortillas in front of my face. I admit it…I’m a sucker for fresh salsa.

Many minutes of every day are given over to self-deprecation, to no avail.

On my way home, when much of my very best thinking is done amidst a multitude of carbon footprints, I realized I have taken saying “no” to a new level. “No!”, I don’t care to smear false skin-tone upon my sun-kissed face. “No!”, I really don’t care to spend precious minutes, otherwise spent sleeping, standing in front of a closet filled with the same clothes that hung there the day before. “No!”, I will start a new work-out program tomorrow. And, “No!”, I really don’t want the “Lean Cuisine” I deposited in the break-room freezer this morning.

Mid-life has turned me into a recalcitrant child. The music that inspired the dance I’ve danced since childhood has ceased, only to be replaced by a cacophonic, rebel yell inspired by the word “No!”.

I really can’t abide bratty children…

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