Finding It: And Finally Satisfying My Hunger for Life (12 page)

I couldn’t imagine what she would have said about Botox, eye-lifts, and face pulls. Maybe people were better off before they had all those options. Jessica Tandy was gorgeous in her seventies and eighties. As her face changed, she only got more beautiful and interesting. Likewise, Meryl Streep and Frances McDormand, who have shunned the pressure to have work done.

Maybe they heard designer Isaac Mizrahi say, “Do you want to look seventy? Get a facelift.” I couldn’t agree more. I liked the quote, “Laugh a lot, and when you’re older all your wrinkles will be in the right places.”

Although I wouldn’t stop any woman who hits forty, hears an alarm, and calls Dr. 90210, I would warn her that a nip/tuck won’t pacify the demons in her head. At the same time, some problems should be fixed. I faced an issue early in my life. I was barely twenty years old when my hair began to turn gray. At first I thought it was kind of cool, like I was getting more mature. Back then, I was eager to be treated like an adult, not a child. I don’t know how I thought gray hair would get me there.

Then a cinematographer pointed out my gray hairs. First it was only one that kept popping up. Then he complained about a whole handful of strands. For some reason, they really annoyed him. He also pointed out a bump on my nose that he had trouble lighting properly. Again, it annoyed him.

What an odd thing to be upset about, I thought. And when I questioned him about it, he said, “I just want to make you beautiful.” I remember thinking, How are gray hair and a bump on my nose going to make me ugly?

However, as more gray hairs appeared, I became bothered and self-conscious. I finally made an appointment with my hairdresser to get it colored—I’m talking more than highlights—and ever since, I have had to have my hair colored. At this point, I get it done every twelve days. As a young actress, though, I couldn’t have had a career with gray hair, and my self-confidence would’ve suffered. But I have wondered at times how I might have coped if I hadn’t been able to cover it up.

Then again, I deal with that imperfection every twelve days.
It’s not like I have ever run away from that issue. Maybe some day I will let myself go natural. Hopefully I will carry it off as elegantly as singer Emmylou Harris, who let herself go gray early and has only become more and more beautiful.

I got hung up on age from talking to women in business meetings or to my friends, many of whom were about to turn fifty or had already passed that milestone. A number of them were rattled by it. Some were open, and others quietly disturbed. But their disappointment wasn’t about how they looked or how they had aged or any of the superficial things that magazines would have women believe are important. All were bothered by the same thing— regrets about things they hadn’t done or hadn’t tried or hadn’t accomplished. They felt like they had let too many hopes and dreams go unfulfilled. And I think this is key.

I was like, Hey, stop! It’s not too late to change. It’s never too late to find the real you.

I realized something about growing up. It takes time. I needed forty-seven years to see that I was, as the Bible says, made “fearfully and wonderfully.” As I lost weight, I was excited by the version of me that emerged. I was glad the process had happened gradually. Too fast and I might have been shocked. I certainly would have been unprepared. Although, like everyone else starting a diet, I had dreamed about losing twenty pounds in a week—I mean, why not get it over with quickly—I couldn’t have handled more than two or three pounds a week. It wouldn’t have stuck. I think my diet worked because of the additional work I did on myself. I needed time to think, cry, talk, sweat, celebrate, and constantly replenish the faith I needed every day to stay focused and strong.

Many of the women I dealt with talked about time as if it were
the enemy, which it can be if you get to the end and wish you had more time, or wish you had used it more wisely. But one of the biggest yet most subtle changes I noticed after I began maintenance was in my attitude about time. Time is no longer my enemy. I cherish it more, try to use it wisely, and try to share it with the sense that I am giving away something valuable.

Somehow God has figured this out for us. I’m sure that’s why it takes almost ten months for a woman to have a child. You need time to prepare. As thrilled as I was when I got pregnant, I would have been in major trouble without time to get ready. In retrospect, my first three months of morning sickness was a little test. It was God saying, Take a crack at this and let’s reassess your attitudes and readiness. If I couldn’t handle a few months of nausea, how was I going to handle adolescence?

I used to sneer at all the experts who advised living in the moment. Then I came to realize that a moment is about all I can handle—or want to handle. The past and the future as concepts are way too big to grasp. But within the span of a moment I can usually manage cravings, exercise, doubts, worries, arguments, guilt, a sputtering self-image, and a crisis of faith.

A case in point: One night, Tom and I sparred over Wolfie and his girlfriend. He was on tour and still blinded by Liv. Most of our conversations were about his desire to visit her or arrange for her to visit him. I laughed off his social activity of long-distance play dates, but Tom thought I was too lenient and not paying enough attention. He thought I was setting Wolfie up for trouble by not cautioning him to slow down. He also worried that I paid more attention to his travel bills than the possibility he might make me a grandma ten years before I was ready.

I leaned back on the sofa and shook my head in quiet amazement
at the way the two of us had changed sides in this matter. We hadn’t articulated it quite this clearly before, but it was pretty apparent that at some point I had given up worrying about where Wolfie was sleeping and what might happen if, yikes, something unplanned happened.

To be honest, I had made sure Wolfie was informed. He knew I didn’t want him to be a parent anytime soon, at least not until he learned to keep his bedroom clean (that’s a joke, said nervously). I felt like I couldn’t do anything else. I knew how I had been at his age. I didn’t want to worry myself into five unwanted pounds.

In the meantime, Tom, who had no concerns about weight gain, worried freely and openly. He only seemed to think about condoms and unwanted pregnancies.

“It’s because I have two daughters and you have one son,” he said. “I worry about a million penises, and you just worry about one.”

“Apparently not enough for you,” I said.

“I’m just saying,” he scoffed.

“And I’m just saying I can’t worry about what I can’t control,” I explained. “It’s like my age. I am getting older. I can’t do anything about it. Instead of worrying, I’m planning the party I want when I turn fifty.”

“Oh?” Tom asked.

“Think Italy.”

“But what about Wolfie?”

“He can come if he’s not at home taking care of my grandchild.”

“Seriously.”

“I am serious,” I said. “Like I said, I don’t have any way of controlling him. So I’m hoping that he won’t get anyone pregnant. I’m
hoping he will be responsible. I’m hoping that if he gets married it will work out. I’m hoping that if he gets his heart broken, it won’t last too long. I’m hoping that all of his good qualities only get better when he’s an adult. I’m hoping and praying that things work out. And for some reason, I think they will.”

About a week later, Tom and I hit New York City for my birthday. We arrived from Cincinnati, where I had stopped for a book signing, and checked into our hotel. I woke up the next day to a happy-birthday kiss. After a workout in the hotel gym, I taped a segment on the
Rachael Ray
show. My parents surprised me by flying in and joining us for dinner at an Italian restaurant (big surprise), where we ordered my favorite champagne and clinked glasses.

“The only thing that bugs me about my age is that my knees ache when I get out of bed in the morning,” I said.

“Then you get to be my age and you’re delighted to be able to get out of bed in the morning,” my mom cracked.

I asked my mom how old she was.

“Thirty-nine,” she said.

“Good, that makes me about twelve,” I said.

We reminisced about my previous birthdays. For my sixteenth, my mom got me a cake with pink elephant candleholders that I thought were cool. My eighteenth birthday had been a surprise party. I got married less than two weeks before my twenty-first birthday and spent my actual birthday ignoring the voice in my head that asked, “What the hell did you just do?”

At thirty, I was pregnant with Wolfie. Then I celebrated my fortieth with an all-girls party in Las Vegas, my least favorite city. But my marriage was winding down and I wanted to have some fun. I drove there in my new convertible, my “oh-my-God-I’m-
forty car,” as I called it. I’d bought it to satisfy a desire for more options in my life. I needed a change. I didn’t find it in that car. It took a few more years to find those new options for change.

We were talking about cars when the waiter brought our starters. I ate half of my yummy pasta, then gave the rest to Tom. Within seconds, the waiter returned to the table to ask if everything was all right with my dish, offering to bring me another if I didn’t like it. I explained that the pasta had been heavenly, but those few bites were all I needed.

I couldn’t believe those words came from me. But I had a different outlook these days, whether talking about age or pappardelle alla buttera. For the most part, I took what I needed, not all that I wanted—except at the end of the meal when the waiter came to the table with a birthday cake. As I told everybody, not only did I need a slice of cake, I
wanted
a big one.

The next time Tom and I were in New York City, I was already sick when we landed at the airport. I got even sicker as we drove into the city and went straight to the hotel, where I thought about crawling into bed but instead realized I had fifteen minutes to freshen up and go attend a lunch for UNICEF at Michael’s, a star-packed restaurant where the beautiful people dined while I coughed into my napkin for ninety minutes.

“Are you going to see a doctor?” someone at the table asked.

“No, I’m fine,” I said. “It’ll clear up.”

The following afternoon I taped a segment for Rachael Ray, and the next day
Ladies Home Journal
hosted a lunch in my honor. Around that time, something had happened in the ongoing saga about New York Attorney General Elliot Spitzer, and everyone was talking about the latest development, including me. Between coughs and sneezes, I offered an opinion to anyone who
would listen. At one point, I sneezed right on columnist Michael Musto.

“You should see a doctor,” a publicist said.

“I’m okay,” I said, wiping my nose.

I really wasn’t. I knew the best thing to do whenever I begin to feel run down or sick is to stop for a couple of days and rest. But I didn’t have time—or so I told myself.

My body didn’t care about my appointment book, though. After dinner, we went back to the hotel and I took a bath to see if I could steam some of the crud out of me. I came out of the bathroom and told Tom it hadn’t worked and he should probably call a doctor. He was ecstatic. He had been urging me to see a doctor for a week or more, long before we left L.A.; and as much as he hated to see me sick, he loved feeling like he had been right all along.

I swear, he was almost gloating as he dialed the doctor recommended by the hotel’s concierge.

“Take the smile off your face,” I said.

“I’m just saying,” he muttered, turning away so I couldn’t see him.