Jaunty

Keith and I spent the weekend in New Orleans with my good friend Karen and her husband. Karen and I go way back, back to Chicago and grad school, back to the Time Before Tenure, the era before House-and-Spouse. We've each moved the other; we've celebrated each other's victories and mourned each other's failures, and now we're both facing 50. (Actually, she hit 50 last month; I still have a few weeks left of my 40s. Just to, you know, be precise.)

Karen is facing her 50s with, well, glee. She's jumped into the research for a new book and thoroughly ensconced in academic life; she's thrilled with her husband and house and dogs; she has a couple of stepkids who are "done and dusted"--out and about and living fine adult lives; she's where she wants to be and doing what she wants to do. She's downright jaunty.

Jaunty. I don't think I've ever been jaunty. I'd like to be jaunty. But jauntiness seems to require energy and ambition, and I have neither. I blame menopause. Menopause is great. It's like teething with babies. "He's so fussy--he must be teething." "He feels hot--I think he's teething." "He's so clingy lately--I bet he's teething." "He's all congested--gotta be teething." Doesn't matter what it is, really, you just blame teething. Menopause works the same, but for middle-aged women rather than babies, obviously.

Except the thing is, I'm not sure I ever actually had energy and ambition. I used to think I was an energetic and ambitious up-and-comer but honestly, I think I was simply petrified. Scared shitless. Utterly, absolutely, existentially terrified. All that supposed energy and ambition, all the emphasis on achievement was, simply a way of shoring up the barricades, of constructing a fortress behind which I could shelter from the demons of depression and debilitating anxiety. By racking up points, coming out on top, winning the prizes, I kept the monsters at bay.

And then I had kids. And they didn't conform to schedules or slip neatly into file folders or abide by deadlines. My achievements dwindled.

And now I'm supposed to say--jauntily--that I learned of course that other things--motherhood and family, for example--were far more important and that I discovered that I was fine without the prizes, that I had no need of such defences because the demons never existed and the monsters were really cuddly toys.

Bullshit (she says politely).

With the barricades down, in hurtled the monsters. Depression rampaged through my life--slicing, slashing, gouging, biting-- and left me, my kids, my husband bleeding and scarred.

But the point is, as any fan of Doctor Who knows, monsters must be faced. You can't just cower behind the defenses you've erected and wait for the gnashing gashing hordes to go away. Because they don't. They just hunker down out there and eat a whole bunch and exercise a lot and get really strong. So you've got to go on the offensive; you have to fight. And here's where Doctor Who actually lets me down (hard to believe, but true). The Doctor makes the fight seem exciting, damn, even sexy. And it's not at least not when the monsters are depression and anxiety rather than space aliens. It's a fight that's boring and exhausting and goddamned fucking disillusioning and discouraging and just plain difficult. Much more like an episode from The Pacific.

So. Umm. I am not jaunty as I face 50. But I am, actually, hopeful. I mean, if you're hunkered down with the enemy all around you and yet you refuse to admit there's a fight going on, you haven't much chance of winning, do you? Oh, I know I'll probably lose all the same. Still, it's not so bad to go down fighting, is it? (she says, just a wee bit jauntily).