One.

I never thought I was the kind of person to have a midlife crisis, but my body hit its fourth decade like a bird flying into a building.

I turned forty in May of 2021, and I was mentally prepared. I had a bring it on attitude about this new decade. I was sick of resisting the illness that had taken over all of our lives. I would not resist my age as well. I would embrace my forties.

When my brilliant friend, Jess, used the phrase "aging is a privilege" in an Instagram post, I thought, Woah. She's right. I'm happy to turn forty. I want to be in my forties. Of course I do. What's the alternative? After that, I began thanking my skin for growing old enough to wrinkle as I rubbed retinol cream into it every evening.

I wondered why anyone was caught up on this arbitrary number, but time and again I had conversations with same-aged friends who were facing their birthdays with trepidation and a teaspoon of identity crisis.

Maybe it's because we don't know a lot of forty-year-old women. There's finally many fully realized non-male characters in TV and movies, but few are older than 39. Even my favorite kind of content, books (obviously), spend startlingly few pages on women over forty. Books that star women my age and older almost always spend the most sizable chunk of story in her past. Middle-aged women aren't stars in fiction, and I know plenty who aren't even the stars of their own lives. The most common model I see for how to live as a woman over forty is a slow fade into the background.

But I didn't believe that was accurate. It just meant I had to dig for more content.

I went into my forties with a To Do List:

1. Accept my wrinkles, or at least pretend to

2. Remember that aging is a privilege  

3. Don't fade into the background

4. Watch a lot of, um, I guess Real Housewives

(My mission to dig for more content about middle-aged women has been shockingly unproductive.)

I failed.

I haven't discussed this much, and I've been back-and-forth over whether to make this my first topic, but in 2023 I'm trying to be brave enough to embrace life as it actually is, so this newsletter is about my body's midlife crisis. (And if you hate, you know, guts, you might want to skip the next two paragraphs. Or the rest of the letter.)  

Here's a one-sentence summary: In the nineteen months since I turned forty, I've seen two GIs, one OB, two endocrinologists, one pain specialist, one neurologist, two dermatologists, an ophthalmologist, an otolaryngologist, an orthopedist, a physical therapist, and even (shudder) an acupuncturist who, combined, have administered two CT scans, one endoscopy, one colonoscopy, two ultrasounds, four MRIs, one biopsy, one EKG, four blood tests, a full balance test, some kind of eye test that felt like being in outer space, and a shit ton of x-rays which, together, have ruled out doctors' concerns about colon cancer, crohn's disease, kidney stones, ectopic pregnancy, a brain tumor, a liver tumor, MS, early dementia, skin cancer, a seizure, and nearsightedness.

I have gathered some diagnoses–stomach ulcers, some ruptured ovarian cysts, vestibular migraines, a precancerous spot on my lip, a muscle spasm, and a pinched nerve. They're benign, but when added together, they bit a sizable chunk out of my life.  

The good news is I'm slowly piecing together some answers. The bad news is most of them are some version of Caela, you're getting old.

The doctors' best guesses are that the cysts and vestibular migraines are all due to aging hormonal levels, and the vision, hearing and digestion problems are actually symptoms of the migraines.  The precancerous spot on my lip is the revenge of a youth spent summering on a beach. And the orthopedist summed up the pinched nerve and muscle spasm in my neck with one word: "age".

(The stomach ulcers, it seems, were an added blessing.)

Yet by definition, I'm a healthy forty-one-year-old, so it has felt correct to keep all of this relatively private. Even as I write this, it feels inappropriate to complain about small health problems, even dozens of small health problems, during an international pandemic when so many people are suffering for such concrete reasons. People are powering through grief and loneliness and illness to find each other. I want to be with them, not distracted by a bleeding lip or raging abdominal pain. I shouldn't have trouble being fully present in my life when I'm one of the lucky ones with a life that's relatively unchanged.

So I just live a little more quietly. Not dancing as much as I usually would at a wedding if it feels like my stomach is on fire. Leaving a family beach day early because a migraine has made a towel in the sand feel like a raft in the ocean. I'm doing what I need to–writing and revising and taking care of my kids. But I haven't been reaching out to their friends' moms and connecting with new people like I used to. I've been forgetting to call or text the people I miss. Or I've been avoiding it, maybe, because the answer to How are you has been fraught.

It's hard to figure life out when I can't count on my own self. I end up making plans for my family without knowing if I'll be able to be fully present to enjoy them.

I thought this stage was temporary. Once the scariest diagnoses were ruled out, I thought I didn't have to bother anyone (beyond Greg, sorry babe) with my pain or discomfort. I'd get better. I'd get fixed. In the meantime, I'd stay quiet. Private. Yes, in the background, but just for now.

I’m doing much better overall, but whenever I figure out one health problem, another pops up immediately. Suddenly for now has been almost two years. And what if the reason that we don't hear that much about the lives of women over forty is because they are so constantly busy with concerns that aren't exciting enough to be taboo, but that still feel proper to keep private?

I've learned my lesson. I have to embrace my health annoyances the way I've been embracing my wrinkles: Treat them, but also thank my body that it's been living long enough to acquire so many. It may be that they keep popping up forever, severe enough to require immediate attention, yet benign enough that I could keep them private. I admire people who cherish their privacy that way, but, at this point, privacy is imprisoning me. It's locking me in the place I swore I wouldn't go.

In 2023, I'm stepping out of the background. I'm stepping into transparency and honesty.

I'm stepping out of waiting to get better. I'm stepping into being useful as I am right now.

That's were school fits in.

(More in on school the next letter.)   

FUN STUFF

Book news!

My next middle grade novel has a title! THE WORLD DIVIDED BY PIPER is coming in 2024. Math pun intended. I learned a lot about math for this book…

FAQ: You’re going back to school? Does that mean you’re not gonna write anymore?

A: Nope! Not at all. I’m writing just as much and, as always, planning to write even more. So, basically, I’ll keep writing just as much.

What I’m Looking for:

1. Please give me all the recommendations for TV shows and books that star or heavily feature women over forty! I’d love to have a good, long list going.

   (Movies aren’t my fave, but I’ll take those recs too.)

2. I’m also changing up the structurer of my reading life in 2023 and so I’m looking for a book that takes place in Miami and one that takes place in Ashville, NC. Send recs my way, please!

My recommendations:

Reading: I loved EDUCATED by Tara Westover. (Originally I thought this memoir partially fit my new content-standards, but, alas, Ms. Westover is under 40. Ha.) This is a riveting book, especially if you’re into intense religious commitment and unique family structures like I am.

Listening: I’m obsessed with the Boom Lawyered podcast. It’s an accessible, entertaining and yet very smart take on Supreme Court news. (It’s also relevant to my new studies which has been fun.)

Doing: I finally rearranged my desk with a laptop stand and external keyboard etc etc. I was super resistant but if I hadn’t done it, there’s no way I would have gotten through my latest revision. I feel like I’m definitely the last person over forty to this particular milestone, but if you’re a hold out, I recommend you ergodynamic-up your workspace.

THANK YOU for reading my first newsletter!

:-)

Caela