Emily, left, and Evelyn, her mom's best friend, at the book party
When Emily W. Upham was a 20-year-old professional piano student, she fell in love with a man (she refers to him as S) who was almost 60. Their love affair burned strong for almost four decades.
Often separated by distance and circumstances, the friends and lovers wrote passionate letters to each other, some of which Emily includes in her new book “In the Fullness of Time,” a moving and intimate collection of essay on Life After 50 by 32 FOF women. (Atria Paperback, Edited by Emily W. Upham and Linda Gravenson, 2010.)
Reflecting on her relatiomsahip in S. in her essay “After All.” Emily wrote: ”Several years ago, when S. was 93 years old and I was 55, I was gripped by terror at the prospect of living in a world without him. I feared that I would become untethered, unmoored, and that I would drift away, a faint, disembodied being. I imagined myself hovering eerily upside down, neutered and barely visible.
”Now S. is gone. I remember walking gingerly into a field the day he died and, as my foot touched the ground, thinking I am taking a step in this grass, and for the first time in my life I am taking a step when you are not on this planet with me. To my surprise I did not turn upside down. My feel moved. The grass remained green.”
“Some months later, I talk, work, love. But I am askew and dislocated, as if tectonic plates beneath my ground have heaaved and shuddered. Yet there is a gratitude, an astonishment stirring for all that he gave me.”
Author Erica Jong writes about the death of her father, journalist Vivian Gornick writes about the lose of beauty and author Carolyn See on the lose of a beloved home, her second husband and her eyesight.
Despite the seemingly sad subject matter, this book is not about despair. It is a celebration of the journeys these women are taking as they get older. It offers a new perspective on aging that can only come from FOF women. I am proud to be in their company.
I started traveling for business when I was 23 and went to LA for a home furnishings trade show. I’ve taken hundreds of trips since then and I always feel the same way the day of departure: Sad to leave home.
I’m not by nature a homebody. I love seeing new places and meeting new people. But when I think about leaving behind my kids, my husband, my family, my apartment and my beloved, pain-in-the neck Norfolk terrier, an inexplicable melancholy sets in.
I guess part of my sadness has to do with the possibility—albeit long shot—of the plane crashing, because I don’t feel quite as sad when I’m taking a train or a car. But there’s more to it than that. Home is security, coziness and love. Business trips are meetings, nights alone in business-y hotels, and canned wake-up calls.
As I write this, I’m on a flight to Ft. Lauderdale, FL, because I’m being interviewed tomorrow about FOF for a Lifetime TV show called The Balancing Act. After the taping, I’m spending the weekend on Miami Beach with my dear friends, Lois and Eliot. Lois and Eliot’s company handles the public relations for Fab Over Fifty and she’s invited lots of FOF women to a party on Friday night to introduce them to the website.
I plan to get tan (using sunscreen with a 30 SPF), relax (as much as my hyper-personality will let me) and hang out with Lo and El.
The melancholy has already lifted. It always does.
My thirty something friend and colleague attended a wedding recently where most of the other thirty something guests thought they were “ultra cool,” she told me. They weren’t especially friendly and they strutted around the grounds like F. Scott and Zelda might have done back in the day. The bride and groom wanted everything to be “cool,” from the ushers’ suspenders sans jackets to the blues music.
The air at the wedding was thick with nonchalance. Only they weren’t the Fitzgeralds and they weren’t filming The Great Gatsby.
Back in the day, being “cool” was reserved for people who had cool in their souls: The Beatles, Bobby Short, Frank Sinatra, James Dean, JFK and Jackie O, Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly, F. Scott and Julia Child. They didn’t have to affect cool. They were cool. We felt cool when we listened to their music, watched them perform, read their books or tasted their crème brulee. Most of us know we knew we weren’t like them, but that didn’t bother us one bit.
Today, everyone wants to be “cool” and many think they are cool. The requirements aren’t as strict either. Mario Batali is a great chef, but is he cool? And what about George Clooney, Joe Scarborough, Jennifer Lopez, Tyra Banks and Gwyenth Paltrow? Tyra may be successful and smart, but she wouldn’t know cool if she stumbled over it on the runway. But don’t tell her that.
I’m glad I’m not “cool.” I’d rather be calm and collected.
When I was about 13, I started keeping a list called “What to worry about.” I’d write down everything I deemed important that I had to accomplish. Most of my worry list centered around homework deadlines, papers and tests, but I also worried whether I’d get a part in a Youth Group production or whether Neil Maltz liked me in eighth grade.
I felt better every time I crossed something off the list, but invariably added something else that was worry-worthy.
I stopped writing out worry lists when I was in my 20s, and started keeping them in my head. I’m surprised my brain didn’t self-destruct. I worried my way through my thirties, forties and into my fifties. My worries were all over the lot, from whether I’d make my budget when I was a publisher to whether my husband was dead when he didn’t come home on time.
Something miraculous happened in my late fifties: I started to worry a great deal less and finally accepted that it didn’t accomplish—or change—a darn thing. I didn’t stop worrying entirely, and probably never will, but I worry with less intensely and for shorter periods.
I just read in USA Today that I am not alone. “After 50, daily stress and worry take a dive and daily happiness increases, according to an analysis of more than 340,000 adults questioned about the emotions they experienced ‘yesterday,’” the article said.
The research, which will be published online in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, shows that young adults experience more negative emotions more frequently than older adults. Stress and anger consistently decline with age, but worry stays constant until around 50, when it drops precipitously. *
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