fortysomething

As winter slowly warms into spring, I've spent my evenings watching the first two seasons of thirtysomething and thought about this blog that I wrote back in 2013.  In the five years since, I've met my own version of Michael Steadman and am not surprised that Steve also has elements of Elliot, Gary, and even Miles Drentell.  Go figure.  It gives new meaning to the cliché “Be careful what you wish for.”  What a miracle that I met Steve while minding my own business, writing a novel in my home office.  He walked by the open window on a sunny day two years ago...and the rest, as they say, is history.

Thirtysomething recently turned thirty and I’m heartened to realize that some of the best television writing can stand the test of time.  Now that I’m fiftysomething, I can look back and be infinitely thankful that I have, too.  To everyone who looked forward to spending Tuesday nights with Hope, Michael, Elliot, Nancy, Melissa, Ellyn, and Gary...this one's for you.

fortysomething

Originally published on May 24, 2013

When I was twentysomething, I taped nearly every episode of thirtysomething.  When I was thirtysomething, I watched them over and over again.  Now that I'm fortysomething, thirtysomething has taken on new meaning in ways that it couldn't have twentysomething years ago.

Following me so far?

Debuting during my last year of college, thirtysomething was an articulate template of how I wanted to live as an adult.  I would be some version of "Hope," and hopefully a "Michael" would magically make his way into my life, perhaps as a blind date on New Year's Eve.   But as Michael eventually revealed, "I keep forgetting that college and reality are not compatible." 

Even though I've had a few slightly neurotic men in my life (both with and without suspenders), how could I have known then that twenty-five years later, I would experience a single life like Michael's cousin, Melissa, leaving behind the illusions of the past?

It's great fun to look back at the clothing and hair styles of the late 80's and early 90's.  To watch characters use pay phones and typewriters.  To be the proverbial fly on the wall as they make their way through the circumstances and responsibilities that come with being, as they say, "a grown up".  I watch the show most often during times of transition and when I'm feeling lonely for real conversation, longing to connect with people like me.  Hope and Michael, Gary and Melissa, Nancy and Elliot and Ellyn keep me company and fill that void when my own friends are preoccupied with their husbands and children, their own busy lives.

I still laugh when watching Michael's nightmare of being visited by very human versions of his inner fear, dread, and anxiety.  I feel sentimental when the soundtrack plays a song from the seventies and still cry when watching the episode "Second Look."  Now I see their stories through different eyes, ones that have lived through my own thirties and have come to find I really resonate much more with Melissa's personality than Hope's.

Last Thanksgiving I was spending time with friends.  We were having a typical thirtysomething moment, sitting around the dining room table talking about life and relationships.  One of the twentysomething men asked me why I'd never been married. 

I shrugged, "Haven't found the right guy yet...and the men I meet don't typically want a woman my age." 

He frowned.  "What's that mean?"

"If you were to look at me on paper, it's not what most guys would consider desirable."

"Try me," he smiled.

"Okay, here you go...," I deadpanned.  "I'm forty-six years old, single, never-been-married, no kids, live alone with my cats, and love to read.  Oh yeah, and I knit."  I shot him a sly smile.

"Yeah, on paper you don't look too good," he had to admit, albeit through laughter.  "But that's not all of who you are....there's a lot that can't be seen on paper."

As a writer, don't I know it.

Independent and artistic photographer Melissa Steadman endured a thirtysomething single life full of bad dates, wobbly relationships, and people constantly asking her, "Where's your other earring?"  Richard Kramer wrote many of the episodes that feature this incredibly dynamic and unpredictable woman trying to find her way alone in a sea of married couples.  He's said that of all the characters, Melissa is his favorite because she's the only one who's really free. 

She's the maverick who lives by her own rules.

I spend a lot of time alone writing in my home office, away from opportunities to meet and mingle.  But at fortysomething, I prefer it that way.  Perhaps I always have.  In my twenties and thirties when I did venture out, blind dates were a nightmare or I chose the wrong men who treated me badly.  By the time I turned forty, the idea of dating was so tainted, I decided to simply stop.       

I struggled mightily for a long time to make peace with my inner damsel who wanted to be rescued by her "Michael in Shining Suspenders."  I've been infatuated with many versions of him and there was in fact, one New Year's Eve spent with a man whose behavior shattered my heart and blew all of my Pollyanna illusions out of the water. 

Thank God.

Once I got it through my head that there other choices, I had an incredible dream that allowed me to re-frame the past and move forward.  I was standing in a turret built in my front yard.  The sun was bright.  Birds chirped in the treetops.  Not a cloud in the cornflower blue sky.  As I looked out of the arched window, I saw men of all ages, shapes, and sizes walk past the tower, oblivious to my existence. 

“Hey!” I called down to them.  “Hey, don’t you see me up here?  Are none of you going to save me?”

Not one of them paid any attention.  It was as if I was invisible. 

After watching a dozen or more pass by, I leaned out of the window and realized the tower was only five feet off of the ground.  I quickly made up my mind to save myself.  No one would do for me that which I most needed to do for myself.  And so, I leapt from the window, landed on the grass and quickly got to my feet.

There's an superbly written line in "Gentlemen's Agreement" in which one of the women says, "Sometimes when you're troubled and hurt, you pour yourself into things that can't hurt back."  I can certainly relate.  Flowers and yarn and cats and books can't hurt me.  Still, I keep the door open just in case the right man for me is ready to enter my life.  Until then, I'm content to live alone and trust that more will be revealed in time. 

One of my ears is pierced twice, and whenever someone asks me where my other earring is, I think of Melissa Steadman and smile, knowing her eclectic life is a much better fit for this fortysomething gal.

The cast of thirtysomething ... thirty years later.