From the depths of the psyche to the surface

Never stand in front of a mirror at the gym next to women half your age. As I soaped up my hands at the sink, a dozen fresh young things (I typed "thins" by Freudian accident) were emerging from yoga class. A few came to preen in the mirror. Flushed with apparent health, their smooth, open faces next to my middle aged one made such a contrast that I looked away in shame and shock. Next to theirs, my face seemed almost death-like, with dark circles under the eyes, yellowish pallor, and an overall droopy look that I didn't quite realize was there.

And it was just this morning that I thought to myself, "You, my dear, are a beautiful woman." (This said with a peripheral awareness of flaws, but valuing the package as a whole.)

To make matters worse, a half hour into my aerobic workout the pit of my stomach got cold, and I began to shake. What had I eaten for dinner? A small bowl of soup and tiny piece of cheese. Uh oh, no real protein to speak of, I thought. Low blood sugar. Dashing to my locker, I grabbed my jacket, extracted money and hastily purchased an energy bar at the front desk. The trembling was getting worse, and a cold sweat began to chill me. This was a deeper reaction than usual, and I was a bit worried. "Sit, sit," advised the trainer, bringing me my change.

We chatted about hypoglycemia and exercise, and also diabetes. The latter had been on my mind for some time, considering I've put on 40 pounds in twenty years. Though I had no diagnosis of diabetes, my maternal uncles lost limbs to the disease. My mother's blood glucose has been on the borderline a number of times. So my genetic potential is semi-loaded, and my perimenopausal sluggishness probably has increased the risk. The American Diabetes Association says 57 million adults in the U.S. have pre-diabetes and don't even know it!

When I vent about feeling old, my parents, who both turned 80 this year, just laugh . "You have no idea how young you are," they say. I believe them, I really do. But they've had more time to adjust to the losses. My mom is long past the age of caring that young men will never see her as anything but an old lady. And though my friend Barb, when ogling a handsome twenty-five year old, insists that "women like us" are miles outside his radar screen, I bristle. I am not so ready to feel invisible.

It's the classic midlife dilemma: what to do with the well of vitality that our aging bodies belie. Stumbling around for answers, awkward or pathetic as it may look to others, is about all anyone can do. It's a good time to remember what Rilke said to the young poet:

"Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue... Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer."

Keep the faith, as they say.