In the Pink

by Susan McBride

  IN THE PINK

  How I Met the Perfect (Younger) Man,

  Survived Breast Cancer,

  and Found True Happiness After 40

  SUSAN MCBRIDE

  Dedication

  To Ed and Emily.

  I love you more than words can say!

  Contents

  Dedication

  Introduction

  Books & Boys . . .

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Boobs . . .

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  . . . And a Baby

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Q&A with Susan McBride

  Susan’s Tips on Dating After Forty

  What I Learned from My Diagnosis

  Additional Information

  An Excerpt from The Truth About Love and Lightning

  Prologue

  The Twister

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  About the Author

  Also by Susan McBride

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Introduction

  WHEN MY WONDERFUL editor, Lucia Macro, asked if I’d be interested in writing about my experience with breast cancer, I leaped at the chance. Since my diagnosis in December of 2006 at age forty-two, I’ve openly talked about my “boobal trauma,” often speaking to women’s groups and at fund-raising events for nonprofits that support research, diagnosis, prevention, and the well-being of survivors. I figure that, the more we know and share, the better off we all are . . . and the more we realize we’re not in this alone. My experience made me part of a big Pink Army, and whenever I’m around fellow survivors I feel such a rush of energy and positivity. There is nothing like pressing past what frightens us most to make us appreciate the simple things. We suddenly reevaluate everything we thought was necessary, realize what’s important, and rid our time of people and things that drag us down. It’s no wonder survivors are so upbeat. We don’t take anything for granted, least of all our health. We don’t take crap anymore either. That’s one side effect I wish I could bottle and sell!

  But the tale of “me, my boob, and I” goes beyond my diagnosis. The journey to discovering my true self—my better self—started a few years before that. The big turning point for me came when I hit forty, an age when our society seems to think a woman’s shelf life has met its expiration date. So many advertisements tell us that to be viable beyond our thirties we must turn into middle-aged Barbies, Botoxing away our lines (and expressions!) and Spanxing away unsightly bulges. Why the heck we’d want to aspire to fakeness boggles my brain! I say, forty is when we should kick convention in the ass. It’s the perfect time to enjoy life full-throttle and accept the skin we’re in, wrinkles and all.

  In the past seven years since crossing the big 4–0, I’ve experienced so much more than I had in all the years before: more meaningful friendships, deeper love, greater self-acceptance, and true fulfillment in my career. This “second act” has been eye-opening, transformative, and glorious in so many ways. So I can’t help but wish the same for every woman out there. I want to spread the word that getting older can be the most amazing time in our lives. We don’t need to relive our youth. We just need to hold on to that childlike sense of wonder, ever-curious about the world around us, eager to laugh, our hearts wide open.

  What I hope my story conveys is precisely what I look forward to telling my daughter someday: it is never too late to find happiness. You are never too old to do what you want to do or be who you want to be. Life is a ladder, each rung a step toward our best selves and our greatest accomplishments. Surprises await us the higher we climb, some good and some bad, but each teaching us a bit about ourselves that we needed to learn; showing us a part of the world we’d never seen before; and opening our souls so that every emotion we feel is all the more intense.

  Here’s to love, whenever we find it; to celebrating success, big and small; and to slogging through the crap so we can come out the other side stronger . . . and remain “in the pink” for the rest of our lives.

  Susan McBride

  June 14, 2012

  Books & Boys . . .

  Chapter One

  •

  Please, find a man for my daughter so she doesn’t end up a Crazy Cat Lady.

  •

  TURNING FORTY DIDN’T faze me.

  Reaching twenty and leaving my teens behind felt far more unsettling. Even thirty seemed more pivotal, since that’s the age when we’re supposed to get our act together, be invested, own property, and leave singlehood behind for suburbia, procreation, and minivans.

  Still, I wasn’t at all sad at bidding adieu to my thirties. They’d been a great learning curve, a chance to see some major goals accomplished; namely, getting published and beginning my professional writing career after more than a decade filled with hard work and rejection. Being able to support myself doing something I love was a gift, and I treasured it all the more because it had not come without great sacrifice. In the years I’d spent working to get my foot in the door, I’d endured lots of rejection from the publishing world and plenty of digs from less than true believers inside and outside my family, like the jerk at my grandmother’s funeral who strongly suggested I “hang it up.” (Somehow, I refrained from punching him in the nose.)

  My odd jobs had kept my bills paid, and I had saved enough to buy a condo that I filled with furniture and doodads I’d been collecting in anticipation of finally jumping into the wonderful world of thirty-year mortgages. Finally, at forty, I felt settled, like a bird who’d built a really cool nest, and it didn’t bother me that I hadn’t met Mr. Right to share it with.

  Heck, I hadn’t even met Mr. Maybe. But I had good friends and a good life. I was downright content and didn’t feel incomplete in any sense. Not until I got a kick in the pants in the form of a less than stellar physical exam. My cholesterol was too high (who knew that Snickers wasn’t a vegetable?) and I had palpitations due to anxiety. My maternal grandfather had died after multiple heart attacks, and it unnerved me to think that I could be heading down that path.

  My internist at the time suggested I find some way to better deal with stress. “Why don’t you start drinking?” she suggested (she was totally serious). Since I’m not fond of alcohol, I went cold turkey on junk food, eating lots of fruits and vegetables and no red meat. I began to work out with a vengeance. Within six weeks, I’d toned up, dropped several sizes, gained strength and stamina, and lowered my total cholesterol from the mid–200s to 187. An added benefit: my heart rate quit accelerating like a Lamborghini on crack whenever I found myself worrying (which was often enough—I’m a natural-born Type A).

  Fueled by renewed energy and a surge of confidence, I set up a shoot for a new author photo, meeting with a renowned photographer in St. Louis who initially deemed me “too skinny” and advised I “eat some steak” to prepare for the appointment. (Definitely the first time in my life I’d been called “too skinny” by anyone.) The makeup artist flipped out my “anchorwoman hair” in a very cool, messy style that I ended up adopting postshoot. Not only did I get some great photos out of that session (which I’ll be using until I’m ninety-three and on a walker), but I felt reborn, like the new, improved me!

  That photo session occurred in July of 2005, four months shy of my forty-first birthday; yet I felt younger than ever, both inside and out. Inspired by the positive changes in my heal
th and body—and the forward trajectory of my writing career, sparked by surprisingly good sales of Blue Blood and the release of my second series mystery, The Good Girl’s Guide to Murder—I had a newfound desire to step out of my comfort zone. I would carve out precious time to try new restaurants, see exhibits at local museums, and expand my social circle as well as my horizons.

  That included a conscious decision to be more open about the men I met and not shut anyone down just because he didn’t look a particular way or wore funny shoes (my mom likes to remind me of a brilliant guy I dumped in high school because of his fondness for desert boots). To be honest, I’d spent a lot of time in my adult life avoiding the dating scene, preferring to be alone—say, reading a good book—rather than waste my time with some random dude just for the sake of going out. Not being much of a drinker, I was never big on the bar or club scene.

  But as forty-one came and went, and I was still single—albeit happily—I figured it wouldn’t hurt to change my list of “must-haves” regarding men, which hadn’t altered much since high school. I needed to look less at the physical package and more at what was inside. My new and improved ideals basically came down to this:

  Does he make me laugh?

  Do we have plenty to talk about?

  Does he keep me on my toes?

  Does he smell good?

  Does he eat with utensils?

  Does he drive his own car and not live with his mother?

  These new criteria certainly opened up a brave, new dating world.

  It inspired me to say yes more often than no, and my social life blossomed. Still I didn’t seem to meet anyone who floated my boat. Perhaps I was meant to be a modern-day Amelia Earhart, albeit flying without a copilot (minus the disappearing-from-the-face-of-the-earth part).

  My boyfriendless state concerned my family far more than it did me, as one of my male cousins approached me privately during the weekend of my brother’s wedding and asked, “Are you a lesbian? Because if you are that’s okay.”

  I told him that, while I wasn’t a lesbian, I appreciated that he was so open-minded.

  “I just can’t find the right guy,” I confessed, thinking surely I couldn’t be the only single woman over forty on the planet who hadn’t yet met her Prince Charming.

  Call me Pollyanna, but I didn’t dwell on my state of singlehood often. My days were filled with writing the books I loved, my weekends were often spent traveling, and my friends and family filled any space between. Yet no matter how I expressed my satisfaction with my life, my mother feared that I was destined to become a Crazy Cat Lady (though I had only two cats!), shuffling around in bathrobe and slippers, cleaning litter boxes in between book deadlines.

  I think it made her even more nervous that I wasn’t afraid of being alone for the rest of my life. My philosophy: if that was how it worked out, that was how it worked out. It wasn’t like I was going to mail-order a groom from Russia or Thailand. I didn’t feel like I was missing out, even when I got cards and e-mails from friends with photos of their spouses and children. Not everyone is meant to go the marriage-with-two-point-five-kids route.

  Surely I wasn’t the only female who didn’t obsess over weddings or buy bridal magazines and pore through them, picking out wedding dresses well before finding my mate and falling madly in love.

  Perhaps I was just being practical, having read a study that insisted a woman over forty had a better chance of being killed by a terrorist than she did getting hitched. Or else I was too set in my ways, content with doing things on my own terms, never having to compromise (not a bad thing!).

  Yes, there were times when I pondered how lovely it would be to have a committed hand to hold and adoring eyes to gaze at over candlelight, a best friend slash lover who understood me like no one else.

  “So you’d get married if you found the right man?” my mom would ask now and then, just to reassure herself.

  “I would certainly consider it,” I’d say. “So long as I was really in love and we could live in a duplex so I could lock myself inside my half when I needed privacy.”

  “I’m sure that would be just fine,” she’d reply, and pat my hand, a hopeful—or was it delusional?—smile on her face.

  I realized quickly enough that Mom’s deep-seated need to marry me off was bound tightly to her desire to have a grandchild. Though my younger brother was newly married, he and his bride seemed in no hurry to pop out the rug rats. So I think my mother was putting all my eggs in her basket.

  What happened next is something straight out of a TV sitcom: my enterprising mom took it upon herself to send an e-mail to St. Louis Magazine, at the time searching for a new crop of “top singles” for their November 2005 issue. If I had the e-mail right now, I’d share it; but, unfortunately, I don’t. All I know is that she said something akin to “Please, find a man for my daughter so she doesn’t end up a Crazy Cat Lady.”

  The magazine took the bait and sent me a questionnaire as they narrowed down likely candidates. It wasn’t but a few months later that I learned I was one of ten women selected (only two of us over forty). They chose ten men as well (one over forty). Reminding myself of my promise to broaden my dating horizons—and the fact that I had a third mystery coming out, The Lone Star Lonely Hearts Club, appropriately enough—I figured, “What have I got to lose?” And I jumped in wholeheartedly.

  At the September photo shoot with the other nineteen singles, I met a handful who would become friends throughout the process. One of them, Jeremy Nolle, was a software applications engineer. Not only was he smart, but he was very good-looking (I hadn’t realized they made computer geeks who appeared to have leaped off the pages of GQ!). He was also twentysomething, too young for me. But there were no rules against having younger male friends, right?

  The party to debut the 2005 “top singles” issue on November 3, 2005, was held at the Contemporary Art Museum in downtown St. Louis. Somehow, I managed to find Jeremy amidst the three hundred or so people in attendance. I wanted to set him up with my older sister, who happened to be (um, still happens to be!) a serial dater of younger men. I was chatting with Jeremy when several of his coworkers showed up. One was tall and slim with dark hair, a shy smile, and warm brown eyes. “This is Ed,” Jeremy said, and we aimlessly babbled over the very loud music.

  Though I had no idea at the time, meeting Ed that night would change my life.

  Chapter Two

  •

  If he knocks you up and leaves you, I’ll help take care of the baby.

  •

  TALKING TO ED at the magazine’s release party was difficult with so many people around and the DJ playing every eighties rock song he had in his cache. So Ed gave me his card, which I promptly lost. I wasn’t even sure I’d ever see him again. He had such a baby face that I wondered about his age. One of the other top singles who knew his family told me he was twenty-five or twenty-six. Despite his cuteness factor, a fifteen-year age difference seemed a lot to digest. The only other time I’d dated a younger guy was back in high school, and our age difference was about one year.

  I didn’t have to wonder “would I or wouldn’t I” for long. That next week Ed e-mailed me through St. Louis Magazine, asking me to my first-ever hockey game.

  What the heck? I thought, and quickly accepted. It would give me a chance to find out exactly how old he was and to see if we had anything in common. If we couldn’t carry on a conversation, it wouldn’t matter if he was five years younger or fifteen.

  Not only did I take my first ride on the MetroLink that night—and witness more than a few bruising hockey fights—but I learned some vital information: Ed was thirty-one, about to turn thirty-two in a couple of months. Even better, he and I had a lot in common, including our wacky sense of humor. I could tell he was generally a quiet guy, but we managed to find endless things to talk about. Oh yeah, and I realized that hockey arenas are incredibly cold, p
articularly in November. So much for dressing like a fashionista—I nearly froze my tush off!

  I didn’t kiss him when he took me home. As attractive as he was, I wasn’t sure if what I felt was true chemistry or a meeting of like minds, but I was anxious to see where things went. I had a good feeling about him, along the lines of “Even if this doesn’t turn into a great love story, I could hang out with this dude now and then.”

  In the meantime, like a diligent mystery author, I Googled Ed’s name and found several facts he’d been too modest to share. First, Ed held his doctorate in computer science, which I knew would thrill my mother. She’d always hoped I’d find a doctor, and I was pretty sure she wouldn’t care if he was a doctor of computers rather than people. I also learned that his father was a well-respected professor at Washington University. And, most fun of all, that Ed was the “parent” to a tiger at the St. Louis Zoo. I figured that meant he liked cats, which was a plus since I had two.

  Not long after the hockey game, we had our second date, although technically it wasn’t really a date. Instead, Ed attended a bachelor/bachelorette auction at a downtown bar. Lots of local celebrity types were participating along with a handful of the St. Louis Magazine top singles. We were “sold” to the highest bidders in the name of charity, and Ed showed up after being out of town for a few days, pocketing a roll of cash, ready to pay whatever was necessary to “buy” me. I know, I know. Sweet, huh? And it was a great relief when he outbid a creepy guy in a green shirt.