Me Me Me

My precious trainer called me “surly” tonight, and I was a tad peeved. He was giving me a backhanded compliment in noting that I had been cordial when the gym manager came over to engage us in chitchat. (I hate interruptions during the hour I spend with my PT.) “You weren’t at all surly,” he said, in the tone I used when praising my preschool children for sharing or being patient. “You were very pleasant.” Hey! I’m plenty pleasant a huge percentage of the time!

The fact is, girls are raised to be people pleasers, and boys are raised to do whatever the hell they want. Do you think most men worry about whether their co-workers like them? They do NOT. Women, on the other hand, attach a huge percentage of our self-worth to other people’s approval and whether everybody ELSE on earth is happy. Our own happiness? It’s hard to make time for that.

The best thing about getting older is that you care less and less about other people’s affirmation. You know whether your work is good, whether you’ve done your best and whether you enjoy someone’s company. It’s easier to cut through life’s nonsense and concentrate on people and activities that really mean something to you. You can be pleasant (not surly!!) because it feels good, not because you crave a pat on the head.

If a list was made of the least likely people to be found in a gym, I would be at the tippy-top. Let’s start with the whole notion of naked women in a locker room. NOOO! I don’t want to see that, even with blinders on. Please, ladies, keep your clothes on! Also, as I have previously noted, I am easily bored. The treadmill? After five minutes, my brain starts screaming, “Get me off of this thing. NOW!” Then there’s the matter of strength and endurance. I don’t have any — at least, I didn’t until I met my precious trainer two years ago. 

My trainer is a young and adorable actor, an extremely hard-working child who designs 45-minute exercise programs for his clients and then spends 15 minutes stretching their limbs in all kinds of disgusting ways. Truly, this dear boy earns his money the hard way. But I am lucky that he has chosen personal training as his survival job, because somehow, under his influence, I find myself exercising (while chatting with him about many fascinating topics) twice a week. And I shower at the gym! Yes! Never mind that I enter the shower stall fully dressed and emerge wrapped in two towels — I’m there, which would have been unimaginable only a few years ago.

I met my precious trainer when I became transfixed by the sight of my ancient-looking arms in the glare of a Bloomingdale’s dressing room. “What are your goals?” this sweet boy asked me when I met him for a “fitness assessment.” I wanted to say, “Fix my nasty arms!” but I think I said something a little less alarming. Alas, there’s nothing he can do about skin made leathery from five decades of excessive tanning. But you know what? Although I will never wear a sleeveless dress again, underneath that saggy skin are a couple of pretttttyyyy nice guns. The area Bette Midler dubbed “underarm dingle-dangle” has firmed up. I’ve come a long way since feeling like I might upchuck the first time I got on the pull-up machine. Now if only I’d started a decade ago, since 40 is the new 30 — but 50 is 50 forever.

I still have my original face. I may well be the only woman my age in New York City (other than my immediate circle of friends) who does. I am eager to do something to “refresh” this face, and according to Vogue, I’ve waited at least a decade too long to start. When it comes to aging, denial is a powerful thing — until somebody snaps a photo and you’re confronted with those pesky pleats running down both cheeks. Who cares?! You’ve got your health! Yeah, and I also want my youth. I don’t want to become just another invisible middle-aged woman whizzing toward the AARP.

None of this would matter, I suppose, if I hadn’t formulated my theory that in order to remain happily married, couples must maintain the same level of attractiveness. The sad fact is that men in their 50s somehow preserve their faces better than women in their 50s. Unfair! But undeniably true. At the beginning of the decade, you’re a matched set. By 60, you’re Poppy and Barb Bush or John and Elizabeth Edwards. 

Women fear this fate, and the sidewalks of Southampton are packed with ladies who have subconsciously embraced my theory and attempted to stop the clock. Unfortunately, many of them have swapped their cheek pleats for an alarming death’s head look, mashed potato-like fillers or Mr. Spock eye lifts. No, no, no.

If only I could sidle up to Susan Lucci or Christie Brinkley or Demi Moore and say, “Okay, what did you do, and who did it?” None of this nonsense celebrities tell More magazine about how they have good genes and get a lot of sleep. But for now, I will concentrate on stuff I can control, like seeing my precious young trainer twice a week — in spite of the fact that Equinox is lined with mirrors that force me to confront my face as it continues its downhill slide.