Over The Hill

Feeling Fit. Feeling Flirty.

Yesterday was my birthday. I turned 40. F O R T Y. 40! I mean, what the hell even is that number? That’s middle fucking age! People have children leaving for college at 40! I’m closer in age to getting my goddamn AARP benefits than I am to my 21st birthday. That is insane, and honestly, I’m not ok with it! I’m not. There is something about this specific birthday, this specific age, that has thrown me for a fucking LOOP. I’d like to tell y’all that this is just a midlife crisis, but I think its more of an overall, “I’m hurtling through time and space, with a finite amount of moments left, and what the fuck do I have to show for it all” vibe. Good times. Great oldies.

The upside to a midlife crisis would be that, at least from what pop-culture has taught me, I’d be blowing my wad on an iROC Z and having an affair with my step-son/pool boy before being embroiled in a sexy murder (I watched A LOT of Silk Stalkings during my formative years). Instead, I’ve spent the ramp-up to 40 comparing myself to others. Which, again, kids - do NOT follow my lead in any aspect of my life. Because once you start down that path, especially as a single woman who just threw her career into a food processor, with her the window for childbearing closing like a booby trapped door in an Indiana Jones movie (maybe I’ll be able to grab my fedora before the proverbial stone slams to the ground, but probably not), well lets just say the compare game at this point is a journey into darkness. I mean, I compared myself to E V E R Y O N E. My former bosses. Friends. People I see on Instagram. The dickbag assistant I worked with who I once clocked in his perfectly square jaw with a piece of German Christmas candy from a Wolfgang Petersen gift basket my boss didn’t want, after said assistant asked me with a straight face, “what sort of sick beats” I had been listening to …knowing damn well it was Steve Winwood. Oh yeah, I went down that rabbit hole hard. This same assistant had zero interest in film, but loved making money. He used phrases like, “crushing it” and had the most handsome, fucking punchable face. He had perfect posture. Wore perfectly pressed and crisp dress shirts that were tailored to his very lean, but oddly muscular frame. Once he was lifting something above my head and his shirt rode up and I realized he had those “v” muscles (cumgutters are I believe the scientific term) and that was NOT fucking fair. I wanted to kick him in the dick, but also deeply kiss him. Awful combo. He religiously read the GQ gift guides and would send me gifting suggestions. When a coworker would send out an email with a mistake in it, he would take it upon himself to hit reply all and then give a quick lesson on professionalism and how every!! mistake!! matters!! He once told me that, as he choked back vomit looking at my car, that he couldn’t believe I had the balls to valet my Toyota Camry at CAA. I had to fedex orange Gatorade to South Africa for him to give to our boss because he called me in the middle of the night in the midst of a breakdown because he couldn’t handle said boss complaining about how the South African orange tasted different than the American Orange anymore. Anyway, he just produced something with Zac Efron, so he’s doing great. My journey into the lives of others produced similar results. It felt like everyone I came up with in the industry were thriving. They had produced their own shit. Had blurbs about their successes posted on Deadline. They own homes in the Hollywood Hills like a fucking Bob Seger song. They got married. Had kids. They’re in that midlife that people dream about. They’re the characters in This Is 40. Folks from where I grew up? Fuck, I mean they seem to be on their 3rd or 4th McMansion. With kids getting close to graduating High School. They sling Beauty Counter products and spend their time crafting signs that say shit like, “Wine a little, Laugh a lot” and shit. They go to church. Don’t seem to be having an existential crisis and live what I call a blissfully unaware existence. For example, the Trump presidency/Impeachment/Global Warming? None of that seems to worry them. They go about their day to day routines, losing their shit over Pumpkin Spice Latte season and craft deals at Hobby Lobby and life seems, if not amazing, fine.

Once I had exhausted all the research on people I actually knew, I went and did something REALLY fucked up. When my middle of the night insomnia would hit (2am on the dot, nightly) I would google how old the actors playing the parents were on my favorite shows growing up. I am warning you now, stop reading if you don’t want to be absolutely SHOOK. Meredith Baxter Birney, the mom from Family Ties? THIRTY FIVE when the show started. Michael Gross, the father from Family Ties and who every man in Vermont slowly finds himself morphing into, also THIRTY FIVE. Judith Light from Who’s The Boss? 35! I’d google how old Henry was from Punky Brewster, but with my luck it would say the dude was like, 34 but “playing older”. Sure, Alan Thicke was 38 when Growing Pains started, but homeboy was supposed to be a successful Psychiatrist and also have three kids and that big ass house. BY 38?! I STILL EAT TOP RAMEN! Once I didn’t want to clean my room, so I just started sleeping in the guest room! For months! That’s where I’m at mentally right now. And these folks were supposed to be settled! Settled enough that they could worry with precocious kids and not about the meaning of life/how they were going to pay their heating bills? Fuck me.

So yeah, I went into my 40th birthday with all those comparisons rattling around in the back of my head, reminding me that I’m behind the 8 ball as far as career and family goes, not to mention feeling a little bit adrift out here in Maple Syrup land. It’s a weird thing to hit what society deems “the big one” and not have a bunch of really close people to celebrate with - it feels indulgent. Like, “hi I know you peripherally from the farmers market and we enjoy grabbing drinks sometime, would you please come and celebrate ME!?”. It just feels…off. And while these people are my friends, they haven’t known me for years. Which for me feels strange. And, I’m just going to say it - I don’t like planning shit for myself. Again, it feels indulgent and presumptuous. But seemed like all of my friends who hit 40 did big shit. They took incredible trips. Had surprise parties thrown where people from all over came together to celebrate them. Some had multiple events! Everyone seemed happy. In good head-spaces! Excited to celebrate! As embarrassing and self-centered as it sounds, I wanted that too. I wanted someone in my life to basically take the reigns so we could celebrate what a fucking trip it is that my sorry-ass has somehow made it to 40. Despite the vendetta Vermont has against me. Despite the stress and woe and my overall bad luck. Despite that, I’m still here. And I wanted that to be worth celebrating. But, that wasn’t exactly the case. Life happens. People have their own shit going on - understandably. And my woes are my own. So I spent my 40th birthday eating a salad and having a glass of wine by myself. I had some birthday texts and very funny well wishes that warmed my Grinch heart. I came home to a snowblower that some friends pitched in to get me so that I’d hopefully make it out of 2020 in one piece. I’m extremely excited to create snow crop-circles with that beast. Another friend tracked down my favorite flower lady in Vermont, off-season, and had her deliver an arrangement and some wine to my door. And another friend sent me a print of a woman walking serenely though the wood, based on a Mary Oliver poem. I know I’m loved, but the isolation out here is tough. And spending my birthday with all that other shit weighing me down has been a lot to process. It’s been a bit of a bummer. Though, it could always be worse.

While working with the beefcake assistant, our boss at the time decided he would like to treat me by sending me to set since I was the one coordinating EVERYTHING. Mind you, the majority of the that film shoot had been in Hawaii. Just tropical waters. Sexy actors. Sun-kissed bodies and the joy of film-making. That would not be my gift. Instead, I got to go to the stage/green-screen portion of the shoot. Which was being done in November in a weird facility outside Baton Rouge. During this time, my flying anxiety was still VERY real and I had to be VERY medicated to get on a plane without losing my shit. My travel was set for my actual birthday, and the plan was once I landed in Baton Rouge, I’d go with the hunky assistant out to a nice dinner on the boss. Some real wine and dine shit. And as much as I LOATHED that prick, spending the evening looking at his 80s movie villain mug, wouldn’t be all that bad. Yeah, that wouldn’t be the case. After being filled to the gills with anxiety meds that could knock-out a Rhino, boarding the plane and preparing to depart, we learned that somehow the cockpit door had become jammed after a pilot had walked out to get something, and he couldn’t get back in and the other fella couldn’t get out. So, we sat on the tarmac for about 5 hours. My meds slowly wearing off so that by the time we did make it airborne, long after we should’ve arrived in Louisiana, I could feel every fucking emotion. Just pure fear and adrenaline ratcheting through my body. The birthday gift I never wanted. The real icing on this shit-cake was that due to the delay, it meant I missed my connection and instead had to grab the last tic-tac from Atlanta to Baton Rouge. Which, was my actual nightmare. Un-drugged and flying on what are known to have the highest commercial crash numbers. Oh, I also spent a lot of time feeding this fear on websites dedicated to compiling the last words of pilots from black box recordings, so just know I was truly freaked. I will not go into the details of the mental break I had on that small plane, but lets just say I won’t show my face on that leg ever again. I finally landed in Baton Rouge around 11pm. Dinner was obviously a no go. My luggage was lost. So I spent that birthday eating a lunch-able I purchased from one of those weird concession rooms at a Courtyard Marriott. And that wasn’t even close to being my worst birthday! In college a couple friends decided to throw a few of us a joint surprise party. Two of us being celebrated figured out the surprise, and in the process learned that they had invited almost everyone in the Oregon Greek System. The entire bar area of a restaurant had been reserved to handle the amount of attendees!! Reader, you see where this is going right? We arrived to find that out of a couple hundred invited, maybe 12-15 people showed up? I’m not even exaggerating. It was a letdown to say the least. The girl who hadn’t figure out about the party prior to the event had a fucking great time, though. See what I’m saying about being blissfully unaware? Live your life like that girl - ignore the blatant signs around you that a party is being planned, and just go with the fucking flow. But still, STILL, that’s not even close to the birthday I celebrated while working for Harvey.

On my birthday while working for HW, it landed on a Saturday when he was coming back from some trip and had a small window before leaving again. And that meant I had this one shot to get checks signed. So, I got up early and met his plane at JFK, and hitched a ride with him back to the city. The plan was that on the drive back, I’d get him to sign checks, and some other documents, and when we got to his house, I would get out, take an uber to the office, drop that shit off and spend the rest of the afternoon day-drinking like I was an extra in Sex in the City. Instead, like most situations with Harvey, shit went sideways. I ended up spending the entire day with him, going from meeting to meeting, sitting in his house helping to take dictations, while he ruined everyone’s weekend, inventing work that needed to be done RIGHT NOW! At one point, late in the afternoon he went to a meeting at Monkey Bar, or one of those places, and we had been stuck in Times Square traffic for a long time. The car was stuffy, and he had been traveling overnight which meant he was farting up a fucking storm. And I’m sitting in the back seat of a too warm Lexus SUV, while this goblin farts all around me. Attempting to type dictations and not get car sick. The smell of car leather, farts and his chocolate protein shake that I had to make a pit-stop to make for him, was a terrible, terrible combination. I couldn’t tell if I was about to barf on him or have an asthma attack - but the asthma attack won. So as were sitting in traffic, I rummage through my bag to find my rescue inhaler, pull it out and go to take a puff, and the second I’m done shooting that medicine down my gullet, I feel his hand fucking whoosh past my face and swat the inhaler out of my grip and it ricochets up to the driver’s seat, as he screams, “WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT!!!!” I do not know what scared him about the inhaler….maybe it just startled him? Maybe he doesn’t like aerosol shit? I don’t know, but I do know is that he was VERY freaked and angry. So I start laughing, which makes him angrier. When we pulled up to the curb for him to get out, he said for me to never do that again (breathe? not sure). Then I got to twiddle my thumbs for another hour or so, waiting for him to finish his meeting. After spending the entire day, from dawn till dusk, trapped in the back of the car with him, around 8pm he finally told me I was done for the day. His driver, being braver than most, hollered after him as he shuffled to his house, “Aren’t you going to wish her a happy birthday?” and Harvey just laughed and kept walking. I rescheduled my birthday drinks for the next morning at some hipster dining on the Lower East Side. I was ready to go BIG! My first birthday living in NYC. I was Working Girl! I was Party Girl! I was a hip, hip lady with a wild ass Hollywood job and I was ready to cut loose! We hadn’t even gotten the first round of mimosas before my phone started ringing off the hook. First was my mom. I hit ignore. Then was my estranged dad. I hit ignore. Then my mom again. And then my dad. And then a cousin. It was around then I realized something was wrong. Oh, no biggie - just my family calling to say my fucking Grandma had died the night before, on my goddamn birthday. So, yes, I am well aware, spending an evening alone with a glass of wine and locally sourced butter lettuce salad with tamari roasted seeds is not the worst it can be. I’ve already experienced that. But its all relative, and in a certain head space it can not feel great.

I woke up this morning feeling a little better about the whole thing, well if not better, resigned I suppose? And I have Nancy Meyers to thank for that. No, seriously. Last night, I put on BABY BOOM as I fell asleep. I guess I’m hoping that somehow leaving it on while I sleep will cause me to absorb JC Wiatt’s trajectory, thus causing me to SECRET a handsome vet and a Jeep Grand Wagoneer into my life. But instead, when I awoke, as usual, at 2am this morning - I decided to google someone else. I googled Diane Keaton’s age when she made Baby Boom….Forty ONE! FORTY ONE! Ok! Now we’re fucking getting somewhere. Sure, that character was a corporate bigwig -a wall street dynamo with a very cold, very 80s modern apartment that she shared with Harold Ramis (lol), and yes, she bought her house in Vermont outright….BUT! That baby? She didn’t have it with her 41 year old womb. She inherited her! And It didn’t matter if she owned the house or had a corporate background, she still lost her absolute mind and ended up spending her days making applesauce. Mental breakdowns for women trying to live their best life can happen at any age! But as Diane proved, you can really hit your meltdown sweet spot at 41. And the vet? I haven’t met him yet, but there is still time! I’m only 40! Diane Keaton was 41! And don’t come to me saying, “Morgan that is a fictional character living fictional events” - do you think common sense has ever stopped me from basing my entire life on a stupid movie I watched as a child? No fucking way! Baby, I moved to Vermont based on this nonsense, its way too late to stop now. So I’ve got a year. One year to really just figure my shit out. One year….seems tough. Seems like an uphill battle. But ya know what was tough? JC Wiatt playing at a man’s game in the battlefield that is the boardroom. You know what’s an uphill battle? Making fucking applesauce from scratch and selling it to yuppies coming to weekend in Stowe! And saying no to a big box store payout and your corporate life back in NYC? THAT’S HARD! But bitch, COUNTRY BABY AIN’T FOR SALE. So for the next year, instead of wallowing in my woes and my lacking, I’m gonna nut-the-fuck-up, embrace my inner Keaton, and use this time. THIS IS MY NANCY MEYERS JESUS YEAR. And I’m going to figure my shit out.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go put my snowblower together and see about some canning supplies.