Life has its ups and downs, but at least I’m not alone
My first column ran in the Arizona Republic on Aug. 9, 2009. It was about going out with girlfriends on a Saturday night to whoop it up, leaving the kids with baby-sitters.
We were all in our mid-40s, still wild, still crazy, we insisted. By 8:30 p.m., we’d wrapped up and gone to Target.
We were girls gone mild.
I got the job after submitting three samples, including one about weigh-in day at Weight Watchers. (Don’t ask.) In the weeks to come, I would write about turning premenopausal just as my prepubescent son started rolling his eyes at me. About Michelle Obama wearing shorts (gasp!) to the Grand Canyon. About philandering politicians, caffeine addiction, mammograms, friendships and family.
Over 10 years, I wrote often about my experiences with others, but sometimes it felt like I was out there by myself.
In 2010, I took up tap dancing but I wasn’t sure I could write about it. Would anyone relate to a middle-aged woman facing her first dance recital in four decades?
After that column, I received dozens of e-mails from people who knew how I felt. They had faced something like it in their own lives, uncertain in what they were doing, in front of an audience if they failed. They had done it anyway.
That was when it hit me that there were few things I would do that someone else hadn’t experienced.
It’s still true after 10 years. I wasn’t the only one letting my hair go silver or scaring myself by diagnosing my ailments on WebMD.
I wasn’t the only one sitting on my hands to keep myself from doing my son’s science project or bracing myself against the dashboard as he learned to drive.
I wasn’t the only one to lose a parent, or worry about a child growing up.
Sometimes it can feel like we’re all alone, in whatever we’re facing. Turns out, we’re not.