54 – Like the Studio

 

I have officially entered my mid-fifties. My early mid-fifties, but still.

And I have to say, a lot of the clichés are true:

I am more self-aware than ever.
I care more about my skin and cholesterol.
I’m getting hot flashes.
I’m having better orgasms than ever before.

But there are surprises. Like a sudden onset of osteoarthritis in my right knee and left thumb. And a recently discovered penchant for pretty dancing dresses – and ballroom dancing with my pilot boyfriend. And a boyfriend who's a pilot!

On balance, I’d say midlife is good so far. I am supporting myself through writing, I live comfortably though frugally in a pleasant two-bedroom apartment, and I have a few close friends I can count on. Plus, my mother is still alive, with-it mentally and one of my closest friends.

I’ve lost a few people: my dad, a good friend, my ex-girlfriend. And another friend is dying as I write this, wasting away in a hospice bed, bereft of hope, slipping in and out of a morphine-induced fog.

Death takes on a different hue in midlife. It no longer holds the cherry-red attraction it did in my youth, the lure of danger and excitement daring me to skid along the edge of the reaper’s blade with the abandon of one who thinks she’s immune to it.

Now it’s just there all the time, waiting. It blends in with the wallpaper, the overflowing laundry basket, the endless stream of cars and dog-walkers and bicycles and strangers and neighbors and lovers and others moving through their lives, carelessly breathing, flippantly wasting moments on apps and vids and bytes and gifs and other so-called “content.”

The content of my life matters more than a gif of cute puppies – though I admit, they are ridiculously cute.

My life is made up of 54 rotations around the sun, 648 lunar cycles, approximately 6,480 gallons of tears, more love than I ever thought possible, and millions of tiny, shiny, indelible moments.

My 54^th year of life is dedicated to my health. I have already started making and keeping doctor appointments, and I’ve launched a course of physical therapy to finally address the hip injury I sustained in France in 2010 and never followed up on. I’ve started meditating every day, stopped drinking to blackout and recommitted to strenuous daily walks.

Death has no rhythm, so I skirt it on the dancefloor at least once a week. This week affords three nights of dancing, so it resounds with joy so loudly that death steers clear, lest he lose his cold focus in the heat of breathless abandon – the very abandon I once flaunted in his bony face.

I’m 54 this month, and I’m just as wild, weird and winsome as that infamous studio in NYC, but without all the coke and celebrities.