What Happens When The Whistles Stop?

August 25, 1991|BY JEAN GONICK

I AM THE KIND OF PERSON WHO continually declares: ``The world is divided into two types of people, those who (fill in the blank) and those who do not (fill in the blank again).`` It`s childish, simplistic ``thinking`` for which I blame the early effects of Catholicism, to wit: ``The world is divided into those who (will go to hell) and those who (will not go to hell).`` My only defense is inconsistency: I update, revise, and reverse my definitions of these global divisions regularly.

When I was in my 20s I divided the world into those who blurted ``What`s your sign?`` to everyone they met, and those who ran screaming from the room just to avoid answering that same question. I recall the former group as being quite tenacious; if the requested sign was not revealed, the inquisitor insisted on guessing until he got it right. When he did get it right, on the eleventh or twelfth guess, he fairly beamed with the cosmic inevitability of it all. The astrology craze served as a kind of idiocy barometer -- one ``What`s your sign?`` and I was gone, seeking either brighter companionship or the solace of drink, whichever I came upon first.

Now that I`m 40 I have a brand-new world division: those who mourn the passing of their youth, and those who do not. I belong to the latter group, which surprises me because the culture at large warned me ever since I was in diapers that I`d find turning 40 absolutely catastrophic: I would be neutered, ridiculed, rendered invisible. Young people would find me absurd, and men would leave me for their youthful secretaries.

ON THE MORNING OF MY FORTIETH birthday I awoke with my first nosebleed since second grade. The powers of somatization are infinite; I`d expected to be crucified by this event for so long that I`d actually conjured up a case of nasal stigmata.

The thing I noticed right away is that the business of living is incalculably more pleasurable in middle age than it ever was in youth. At first I was shocked that no one had ever told me this, and then I was annoyed. Why are the joys of midlife kept so secret? Why does every facet of the media promote age 23 as the zenith of human experience?

Once I realized that midlife was great, I also realized that not every middle-aged person shared my opinion. My friend Clara, for example, turned 40 the same month I did, and she complains bitterly that men on the street don`t look at her anymore. Personally, I am delighted to walk past construction crews without having vulgarians grunt ``Hey, babe`` in my direction. Unlike Clara, I never interpreted ``Hey, babe`` as a compliment, but as a prelude to knocking me down and stealing my purse, or worse.

I`m not saying I`m without vanity -- au contraire! I hated losing my looks, such as they were, and I whined about it all through my thirty-sixth year, which was exactly when I lost them. But -- and I know this sounds crazy -- they`re just, you know, looks. Aren`t they? Am I wrong here? Are they something else I don`t know about?

Maybe Clara resents losing her looks so much because she doesn`t feel she`s getting anything in exchange. Maybe she had a joyful, painless youth, which she must now trade in for pointless decrepitude. If this is the case, she has every reason to be irritated.

I happen to recall youth as a fairly hideous time, except for having looks and the ability to digest deep-fried foods, two advantages that I am convinced nature provides as compensation for being so stupid, deluded and scared. But maybe Clara wasn`t stupid, deluded and scared. And maybe Harold, a man my age who often laments his final touchdown, wasn`t either. Maybe those who mourn the passing of youth do so because they really enjoyed it.

Those of us in the other camp, though, are definitely trading up. Among the more pleasant surprises:

The young are as absurd to the middle-aged as the middle-aged are to the young. I was raised to think I`d always envy the young. Clara does envy them; she won`t sit beside a 20-year-old woman at a dinner party for fear she`ll look older by contrast. I won`t sit beside one either, for fear she will speak endlessly with the loud, baseless confidence of youth that endears for a minute and then bores for an hour. Harold is the only one of us who will sit beside one, and then he`ll want to kill himself after dinner because she won`t go to bed with him.

The middle-aged aren`t running out of time. They`re actually gaining time by finally knowing how to use it. One`s twenties may last a century, but how are they actually spent? Being married to someone you don`t like because your parents wanted to throw a big wedding? Pursuing a career you think you`re suited for because you don`t know what you`re suited for yet? Going everywhere you`re asked with anyone who asks you because you have no concept of options? To quote author J.B. Priestley: ``One of the delights known to age, and beyond the grasp of youth, is that of Not Going.``

While a part of me believes Clara and Harold both enjoyed a glorious youth, a larger part suspects they`re diligently idealizing Then because they`re not so pleased with Now.

Clara, who does aerobics four times a week, recently complained to me that her workouts no longer make her look any better.

``It`s because you`re forty years old,`` I said. ``Do aerobics make you feel any better?``

She admitted they did, but that didn`t lift her mood. She`s stuck some place where only the external has merit, and I envision her performing an eternal, aerobic cheer, while Harold scores touchdown after tiresome touchdown, both eternally petulant because no one in the audience is still applauding.

Well, as the simpleminded often like to say: ``The world is divided into two types of people: those who age, and those who die.`` I just made that up, and while it doesn`t make a whole lot of sense, I figure I`m just not old enough yet to come up with a saying that does.

---- JEAN GONICK is a freelance writer.

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