Finding It: And Finally Satisfying My Hunger for Life (17 page)

My brief setback had been more than a warning sign about my eating habits. It had also reminded me that I needed to continue dealing with a lifetime of insecurity and self-doubt, feelings that I was “less than” and undeserving of all the fortunate things that had happened to me. Those were the creepy crawlers that could undermine
the hard work, denial, and self-discipline that had produced all the changes I was proud of. I was at a crossroads that many women know but few talk about: after working up the courage to make a profound life change, then mustering the faith and determination to accomplish it, I had to decide whether I believed that I deserved this slimmer, smarter, healthier version of myself, especially in the wake of slips and setbacks.

I thought it was important to keep moving forward by addressing the roots of those insecurities. For me, one was education. I had always been self-conscious about not having my high school diploma or a college degree. “I’ve always felt behind everyone else,” I told a reporter for
People
magazine in the mid ’90s. More than ten years after that admission, I didn’t feel that I had gained any ground.

In an effort to correct that deficiency, I decided to get my GED and maybe take courses beyond high school. As a first step, I sent for my high school transcripts. As far as I could recall, I had left school only two credits shy of getting my diploma. However, after my transcripts arrived, I discovered I needed an entire semester of classes. How could I have made such a big mistake?

Then again, I had apparently taken a half semester of French. Not only could I not remember how to conjugate a single verb, I couldn’t remember ever taking the class. On the other hand, I did remember taking advanced composition, U.S. government, and drama. My grades were a smattering of A’s and B’s, with one C in typing, which I remember rationalizing at the time as inconsequential since I was going to be an actress. Judging from my transcript, though, my drama teacher disagreed. She had given me a B in advanced drama.

“Look at that!” I exclaimed while showing the transcript to Tom. “What was that about? Is it too late to go back and argue the grade?”

Going back didn’t interest me as much as moving forward. With the presidential campaign on the news every night, everyone seemed to have cast eyes on the future. I was swept up in Obama’s talk of change. He supplied a fresh breath of hope, something I thought we needed, as distressing news increased about a faltering economy and plummeting trust in government, businesses, leaders, CEOs, and other pillars that were supposed to make our country great.

People can get by on a lot less than they think; but they need hope. Experience had taught me that hope comes from doing hard work, facing hard truths, correcting past mistakes, making your own breaks, taking risks, daring yourself to grow, and seeing the progress.

It doesn’t always work out as planned. Ages ago, back when I was pregnant, during another quest to make up for my lack of formal education, I had purchased a set of leather-bound novels, The 100 Greatest Books Ever Written. I had every intention of reading them. I imagined how smart and satisfied I would feel after completing all 100. But after nearly twenty years, I have only read one,
Pride and Prejudice
. Or was it
Sense and Sensibility
? Oh, brother.

Despite that other false start, I was enthusiastic about my new plan for completing my education. As a reminder, I left my transcript in plain view on the dining room table where I kept all my important paperwork and investigated courses. I sent for a catalog from a nearby community college. What could be more inspiring than reading through a catalog of college courses? I sat up in bed at night, paging through the classes and elbowing Tom every time I
found a course that sounded great. I was especially interested in religious studies and art history.

“I would love to have been in the studio when Leonardo da Vinci was painting Mona Lisa. I’d love to know what they were talking about as he worked. And how long it took him to paint that picture.”

“You don’t have to take a class,” said Tom. “You can look up that information now if you really want to.”

Eventually I sat down at the computer and looked up da Vinci’s masterpiece on Wikipedia. I was fascinated. His subject was believed to be Lisa del Giocondo, the wife of wealthy Florentine merchant, Francesco del Giocondo, who commissioned the painting in honor of the birth of their second son, Andrea, although the subject’s actual identity was debated for centuries. Apparently the painting itself didn’t become famous until the nineteenth century.

According to historical records, da Vinci began the painting in 1503, worked on it for four years, then moved to France, where he continued to work on it. Finally, after various stops and starts, he finished the work in 1519, the year he died.

Seeing that he spent sixteen years working on that one painting made me feel much better about my own personal overhaul. I wouldn’t dare compare myself to da Vinci, of course, but if great works of art didn’t follow a time schedule on their way to completion, I didn’t see why the same couldn’t be true of any kind of change or transformation in life, like love, weight loss, maintenance, spiritual enlightenment, and… getting my GED.

For all my enthusiasm about rushing back to school, however, I didn’t end up enrolling in classes as quickly as I had planned. I didn’t enroll, period. The days piled up with other things; weeks
passed, and suddenly I didn’t have enough time for such a big commitment. It would turn out to be one of those things I talked about for the next few months, and still talk about with every intention of following through before the end of 2010. I can get my diploma and AARP card at the same time.

Regardless, I’m prepared to work. I learned that lesson from my high school art teacher, Mr. Hamel. My transcript brought back that memory vividly. He had assigned the class to draw a still life in pencil. He brought in a collection of cereal boxes, paper towel cylinders, oatmeal canisters, tools, fruits, and vegetables for us to use in our composition. Instead, I chose something flat so I wouldn’t have to worry about shading. I wanted to finish quickly but still do well enough to get an A.

Mr. Hamel made me pick something else. He said he knew what I was up to and wouldn’t give me an easy A.

All these years later, I still catch myself occasionally looking for an easy A, except that I now know there aren’t any shortcuts.

After sixteen months of dieting and maintenance, I had seen remarkable results. I had also learned that success couldn’t be measured solely with a scale. In a lesson that many dieters learn too late or not at all, I discovered that the life I want isn’t about reaching a single goal. More than losing 40 pounds, I really want a lightness of being, and now, more often than in the past, I feel it. But I have to keep working on myself to make it last.

My next challenge was to believe that I deserved to feel that good, and to continue to allow myself to get better.

Most women tell similar stories of passing through their twenties, thirties, and forties, but when we hit that special age of fifty, all of a sudden, like my friend Amy, we can think of only one thing—a weekend blowout in Las Vegas. There, Tom and I joined a dozen or so couples for a weekend of partying, hanging out by the pool, a little gambling (we have a $100 limit), and lots of catching up with friends.

Months had passed since some of us had seen each other, while others of us talked all the time, but on the night the entire group got together in a private dining room to fete Amy, it was like everyone wanted to talk all at once about children, relationships, careers, politics. After a round of drinks and some more food, many of us gals ignored our men and got around to the stuff that was really on the minds of a group of women in their late forties and early fifties: our butts and boobs.

At that point, Tom didn’t care who at the table knew how he felt about listening to a group of women talk about bras, eyebrows, and pre-menopausal changes. He blurted it right out: “Awkward!”

Not for me. I felt very lucky to be with women who know each other as intimately as we do in this group. Many of us had been friends since meeting in our kids’ kindergarten class. We had sat together on the sidelines during soccer and Little League games, compared notes as we shepherded our kids through their driver’s license tests, proms, and SATs. We had talked about our sex lives and laughed at the passage of time. We wondered, Where had it gone? Only a short time ago we were trading tips on toilet training. Now we were talking about hot flashes.

I told them about an old photo of Wolfie that I had found recently. The two of us were at the merry-go-round in Central Park. He was cuddled next to me, staring at me with complete adoration. I could see that he loved me unconditionally. That was the Wolfie I remembered. Not the current one who had a girlfriend, shaved, and got impatient when I warned him about abusing his credit card.

“I want
that
Wolfie back,” I said.

Others told similar stories about their children. But we didn’t really want those days back as much as we wanted to appreciate that time again. We wanted to compliment one another on jobs well done and reassure ourselves that we could get through the next stages of our lives without losing our minds, our health, or our friendships. We agreed that we were smarter now, wiser and better in nearly every way—and we looked damn good for our “age.” These were good days, we agreed, and we hoped they would continue to be that way in the future.