LOVE IN THE MIDDLE AGES

Spring, with all its flower power promise, arrives tomorrow concurrent with a potential nor’easter which may be heading our way and there you have the perfect metaphor for what love is like in the Middle Ages.

I’m not talking about history here.  

I’m talking about the pursuit of love and happiness for we, who are middle-aged, where love can go from heartwarming to global warming in a matter of seconds.

Backstory.

Due to circumstances which were out of control (because I was out of control) I had no choice but to take what turned out to be a ten-year sabbatical from relationships.   

When you find yourself stuck in the 405 fast lane of Hollywood, as I was, for decades, as you age, you find that the only way that you can survive is by driving faster than yesterday and slower than tomorrow.   

The hypnotic delusion, which sings cacophonously in your brainpan like an in-house choir of Sirens, is, if you move fast enough no one will see what you really look like.  Including you.

You cannot afford to take the time for any kind of periodic maintenance for fear that you will be replaced (writers, especially, are the radial tires of Hollywood: we are easily worn down to the bare tread and banished even if we had a Goodyear).

The optimum word up there is FEAR which really should replace the HOLLYWOOD sign because that is the word that looms over everyone out there.

Fear is the high risk/high octane fuel of Hollywood.  It’s what drives us.   It’s what makes us reckless and desperate.

No matter how long you think you can ignore the high-speed age limit signs, you have a choice.  You can keep going until that one, fateful day when you will be pulled over by the studio/network police who will take away your writing license or you can simply smash head-on into a wall.

I chose the wall.

Dealing with the boy or girl meets wall aftermath can be a very expensive proposition because you need to get yourself to both a brain and body shop.

Step one is to get the hell out of Dodge.  And Tesla.  And Mercedes.

In my case, I scurried home to New York to, well, repair myself.

The initial estimate you get seems, at first, pretty grim as you have done massive wear and tear damage to yourself.

But as you hoist yourself up and start doing the agreed-upon work,  that is when you begin to discover the OEM essence of yourself, and when you reach that point, that is when you get to trade-in your old self for a far more age appropriate vehicle.

And that my friends is called getting a new lease on life.  

For me, it took three years of agony and zero ecstasy until I finally realized that in order to move on in life,  instead of trying to crawl back into the fast lane, I instead had to stop and allow my“self” to metaphorically die.

No, this does not mean that you are headed for the scrap heap.   And no, it doesn’t mean that you are old, battered and are about to leak in your driveway.

It means something far more cosmic. Because this undoing process allows you to discover that the black hole of depression is actually nothing more than a crisis of faith and in order to believe in something, anything again, you must first and foremost say goodbye to who you were. 

And there is a ceremony required.  

You must first set yourself metaphorically ablaze on that Viking ship and cast it adrift with dignity and purpose.  

As you watch it slowly disappear into that equally blazing sunset, you must silently memorialize your past self, with all the love that you can muster because you have just spent a lot of years condemning and blaming it for everything that you lost.

And that is when you get you your next big chance.

You see, we are all spring. 

And winter. 

And summer. 

And fall.

But be forewarned.

If you don’t understand how this works and try to find the instant answers and shortcuts, when it comes to finding true love you are in for a massive disappointment. 

Enter the world of internet dating.

Which brings me right back to that pesky car metaphor.

Those dating services are nothing more than used car lots for vehicles that are desperately trying to roll back their mileage and make you believe that you (and them) are in for the fantasy joy ride of your life.  

What few, if any, ever reveal is how much baggage is stuffed in those trunks.  How many head-on relationship collisions they’ve been involved in.  How much work they’ve had done.

I am constantly stunned by all the plastic surgery reconstruction faces that are on display which frankly makes those ladies all look like Gloria Swanson in the last frame of Sunset Boulevard or like they are Lisa Simpson sucking on a pacifier that turns out to be their pumped up lips.

Many women want men who are twenty years younger than their posted age and advertise themselves looking like they are on wine-swilling, daffy face-making, sombrero-wearing, horseback riding,  pet kissing spring break. 

And ignore the first posted picture.  That’s like Stiglitz came back from the dead and somehow, with just the right light, was able to capture who they would ideally like to look like.  

Photo two is the illusion wearing off, Dr. Jecky/Mrs. Hyde style and photo number three is the big reveal: Suddenly they are Asian (flip back to photo one: they look like Gwyneth Paltrow).

Some post long faded Polaroid pictures of themselves which were shot when Jimmy Carter was President and, well, lusting in his heart too.  

And when you meet them for coffee, it’s like seeing Olivia de Havilland being wheeled out for her special Oscar. (Olivia does post pictures of her “Suspicion” on Match).

In seconds you know that you are not about to become Starbuck Crossed Lovers.  And by the time you are driving away, you can see her just getting to her car with the Handicapped sticker dangling from the mirror.

The question is, for we who are living and trying to find love in our Middle Ages, is how much are we willing to love ourselves in order to find someone who will love us just as much?

Because all the hype, wit, charm and shopping at Forever 21 is never ever going to get you what you want.

The truth is, LOVE for me is simply not what it was forty years ago.

Following years of parenting and learning on the relationship job,  I find that love today is more about my need to co-nurture and co-inspire.  

To co-delightfully surprise.  

To be MRI transparent and staggeringly honest.  To be with someone who knows a lot more about a lot of things.

Love for me now is daring to color outside the lines provocatively with my middle finger raised defiantly to the heavens.

Love is taking self-perceived risks which will once and for all obliterate the tormenting dangers that we have invented and believe in like they were vengeful Gods.

Love is in my craving to be blissfully ignorant so that I can fully bask in the next aha moment of learning.

To want to run towards museums like I’m rescuing its art from its burning exhibitions.

To leave NPR or Public Television babbling in the background so the soundtrack of my life is grown up people  discussing viable solutions,

To be seduced by the unimaginable beauty of a tomato red sunset that transforms the shoulders of the Manhattan into a magical silhouette.

To kiss the next dog that I meet, fully on the mouth after greeting them, as I do, like returning war heroes.

To laugh like the baby that I just had a deep conversation with at that nice restaurant with those nice parents.

To travel on impulse like I’m an explorer whose immediate goal is everywhere.

To dance in my bathroom to a long-ago song and enjoy my synchronized partner who is that spastic reflection in the mirror.

Because when you are of a certain age life accelerates, just like in the fast lane.

And there is just too much to do.

There are books to read.  Plays to be seen.   Naps to tumble into like Alice spiraling down the rabbit hole.

For me, there are so many scripts and plays to write. Films to direct.

So many stories and hard-fought wisdom to share with the next soulful, smart women candidate for my heart.

So why waste time pretending?

As Ringo Starr famously said,  ‘Tomorrow Never Knows.”