Happily Ali After

To all my girlfriends . . .

The names and identifying characteristics of
some of the individuals featured throughout this
book have been changed to protect their privacy.
However, if you meet me on the street I will tell
you their real names and e-mails.

I
’m forty-nine years old. God, that hurts. I want to lie, I really do. Please, can’t we all shave off a decade? Well, not you teenagers—unless you want to go through puberty again? Now, I know if I were a Pilgrim I would already be dead (their life expectancy in the early 1600s was forty years old). And I have no reason to believe I’ll be taken down by scurvy. So, the glass is half full, right? No, the glass is empty and cracked. I’m not concerned about living until I’m a hundred years old; in fact, I’d rather NOT live that
long. I don’t want to go any deeper on the timeline. I don’t want to lose the last few moments of what an elderly person would consider my youth. You see, my prime is behind me and she’s laughing at my sagging tush.

How did this happen? Why didn’t anyone tell me? I mean, I had a sense about the weather-beaten skin and osteoporosis, but what about the emotional toll? My night sweats are over a loss of bloom, not estrogen depletion. My salad days are over. The greens are wilted and soggy. And who wants leftover salad?

I thought I would delicately leap from forty-nine to fifty the way I have the other stepping-stones of life—with a large slice of bittersweet chocolate cake and some dirty dancing. But not this time. I have lost my balance and fallen into the river of senior despair. Yesterday I peed a little when I laughed.

So now, in my pre-fifty spiral, I decided that instead of succumbing further, I would endeavor to improve myself. I would start training for my second childhood, the winter of my life. And vent. And try to understand exactly what is happening to my abdominal region. This will be difficult because I am losing my memory. Sometimes I stare blankly at one of my daughters because I honestly can’t remember what we named her.

But maybe turning fifty is a wake-up call! A chance to stave off decrepitude and better myself in all areas!
I know, I’m not going for the gold in gymnastics . . . but I might get out of bed before noon?

W
hen I started writing my last book, I created a Twitter account, as writers are encouraged to do—it is the modern-day way to rise from obscurity and create a fan base (a better fit for me than making a sex tape). I loved the challenge of coining humorous thoughts in 140 characters. (In fact, because I know my editor is reading this: how about we knock this book out in 140 characters and call it a day?) I reveled in the excitement of clicking out my thoughts to the Twittersphere and receiving instant reactions. I now follow everything from @VanillaIce to @BenjaminMoorepaint. Maybe it’s because ours is the first generation to have social media. I’m sure it felt the same way in 1876 when the telephone came along: I would have been crank-calling everyone from Grover Cleveland to Sitting Bull. Imagine playing Words with Friends with Emily Dickinson?

A few weeks into my pre-midlife crisis, I stumbled upon an inspirational-quote Twitter feed. I decided to follow it. I’m not that discerning; I also follow @GrilledCheese. The way the feed worked was this: every day at around 9:30
A.M.
, they sent a single inspirational quote. Now, I grew up in the 1970s when the sayings were very clear and simplistic—“Make love, not
war” and “Hang in there, baby”—so at first I felt overwhelmed by some of the deep and intellectual aphorisms. But after a couple of weeks the quotes started to really resonate. They weren’t necessarily motivating or goading me, mind you, but rather were making me feel uncomfortably aware that perhaps I wasn’t “living life to the fullest.” I suddenly felt intense pressure to live a souped-up version of my life based on “Doors of Life” desk calendars and “Sweaty Wisdom” water bottles. What if I did “live today as if it were my last”? Well, I’d be in the Turks and Caicos with a twenty-year-old surfer, a box of Yodels, and a bottle of rosé. No, that sounds superficial and heartless. I would be in Paris with my husband and two daughters. And twenty-year-old surfer—what? I need a babysitter!

The inspirational Twitter feed had me reflecting on my past, as well. I had worked for Oprah Winfrey for a few years as a correspondent and costar on her Friday live show. There was always a “takeaway” from every show and an opportunity for an “aha! moment.” And I saw firsthand how virtually every one of her guests was applying the learned spiritual truths to his or her life. One of Oprah’s favorite sayings was, “Turn your words into wisdom.” But I never said anything that could be remotely construed as enlightened—let alone enlightening. I was still treading water under the “Shit happens” slogan.

I didn’t want to be spiritually impotent, I realized. I yearned to breathe deep and contemplate more metaphysical matters than the going rate for the tooth fairy or which HP printer was on sale. I’m not an avid churchgoer, Buddhist, Scientologist, or vegan; my gurus are the techie who can fix our WiFi and anyone who can create smoky eyes. A daily inspirational tweet was more my speed. It would be my own spiritual movement. Oprah would be proud. Well, not proud; it takes a lot to make her proud. She’s proud of Maya Angelou and Nelson Mandela. But, if all went well, I’d buy some land in upstate New York, a tent, and some chickens, and form a cult.

Now, I realized I faced some obstacles in my path to spiritual enlightenment. I have been accused of being cynical and jaded on this particular subject. I don’t read self-help books, except the ones that guarantee I’ll lose forty pounds in one hour. And I enjoy being codependent. My best life is never going to resemble, say, Angelina Jolie’s; I don’t have the cheekbones, can’t fly my own plane, and refugees make me too sad. But perhaps I could step up the consciousness a notch.

And while I was at it, why not broaden the quest? I keyed in on the four major food groups of life: spirituality, marriage, parenting, and wellness. Maybe, I thought, as with a car, a lady needed to take herself into the shop for a full overhaul every now and then. Yes, I
could use some tinkering under the hood: higher consciousness would definitely give me better road mileage. And exploring marriage would guarantee a cleaner engine and better climate control. Searching for an exceptional navigation system could help steer me through parenting, no? And as for the exterior, well, I wanted a smaller trunk. In other words, I wanted to become Ali 2.0—dynamic, sleeker, and turbocharged. With no money down.

Some might argue that personal growth is a myth—that neither inner nor outer work lasts. But neither do your teeth. Did I emerge from my endeavors a changed person? Yes. Am I thinner? No. Did I decide to start a cult? Well, I have been looking at land in the Catskills. Oprah, you game?