I've Still Got It...I Just Can't Remember Where I Put It: Awkwardly True Tales from the Far Side of Forty

by Jenna McCarthy

  These conversations, of course, are the beginning of the end. The end of the innocence, the simple times, the baby days. “Time makes you bolder, children get older, and I’m getting older, too.” Damn you, Stevie Nicks. You sure knew what you were talking about.*

  My children are getting older, and it’s a little bittersweet. The good parts are easy to catalog: They can shower on their own and brush their own teeth, halleluiah praise the high heavens. We have deep and meaningful conversations about books and bugs and bullying and boys and life in general. They teach me new things, beyond song lyrics even, like how many sides a heptagon has (seven) and the fact that pterodactyls weren’t in fact dinosaurs (they were flying reptiles, duh). They can pack and carry their own bags when we go on a trip, which is a major game changer if you ask me. They help around the house, give killer massages, and the things that come out of their mouths make me belly laugh on a daily basis. But still, I miss my babies.

  I’m not going to do anything extreme like beg my husband to have his vasectomy reversed and try to get myself knocked up again, but I can see how some women get to that point. (And I’m nowhere near ready for grandchildren, so zip your lip or I will hurt you.) I’d never have believed it when I was in the thick of nursing and butt wiping and midnight wake-up calls and avocado mashing, but relatively speaking at least, babies are easy. They’re soft and cuddly, and when they stick their tongues out at you, it’s adorable. They can wear belly-baring T-shirts and ruffled underpants to the grocery store or the mall, and you don’t have to worry about condescending stares or arrest warrants. You never have to watch their little spirits get crushed when a bitchy “friend” cuts them to the core with the cruelest insult she can fling, or worry about them being scared and lonely at a sleepover. They don’t ask you about death and God and plane crashes and terrorism and other things you’d rather not talk about, if it’s all the same. You don’t stay up at night tossing and turning with the realization that your sister was right because someday in the not-too-distant future you’re going to have to let them go.

  Just last week our neighbor’s daughter left for college.

  “I wonder how she’s doing,” Joe said the other day, gesturing toward their house.

  “I think she’s a wreck,” I told him. “I’ve seen her standing in the driveway a few times, looking completely lost.”

  “I was talking about the daughter,” Joe said.

  “Betta? Oh, she’s fine! She’s off at college, having the time of her life. It’s the poor mom you should feel sorry for.”

  Joe looked at me like I was nuts, which, well, ahem. But it’s not that far away, you guys, the day I’m standing in my driveway looking lost and worrying the neighbors. I don’t want my nest to be empty. Not even a little bit. How can this even be a concern, I wonder. I just had these babies yesterday.

  But of course I didn’t. I’ve been a mom for more than a decade, almost a quarter of my life. And while obviously I’m glad that my daughters are strong and independent and becoming more so every day—that’s the goal of this crazy ride, right?—I’d be lying if I said it didn’t rip a tiny piece of my heart out when I reach for one of their hands to cross a street and they refuse to take it, or I see them making the my-mom’s-crazy gesture (index finger twirling around the temple) to their friends when they think I’m not looking. My babies would never have done that.

  My babies also would never do a naked-shimmy dance across the bathroom floor, and when I asked them what they were doing, reply, “Oh, I’m just trying to make my hiney jiggle like yours.” (My tween children, however, apparently have no problem doing this.) They wouldn’t beg me daily for iPhones (“I didn’t get an iPhone until I was thirty-seven,” I like to remind them) or nuzzle up to me in bed first thing in the morning and then promptly push me away shrieking “Gross, Mom, it smells like poo is coming out of your mouth!” They wouldn’t ask me why I have stripes on my forehead (“Because of you, kid. Because of you.”) or why my boobs point down instead of out (See “the stripes on my forehead”). They certainly would never ask if they could borrow my favorite shirt—a baby! In a grown woman’s shirt! Can you imagine?—and then rock that shirt so hard that I would be forced to relinquish it on the spot, because it’s not like I could ever wear it again after seeing that. My babies wanted to be with me 24/7, a fact that I found stifling at the time but now secretly sort of miss.

  Recently I decided to undertake the not-insignificant task of converting all of our home movie tapes to DVDs. If you are considering doing this, I recommend not embarking on the project while you are PMSing or otherwise hormonally imbalanced, as I have found that the sight of your diapered babes sitting on your young lap can bring you to sobbing, heaving tears. There we are running in the sprinklers and reading a book and baking cupcakes and reading another book. We’re opening Christmas presents and blowing out candles and stacking blocks for the express purpose of knocking them down so we can stack them again. We sure have a lot of energy invested in these kids, I think as I watch clip after clip. And the whole point is hopefully to do such a good job that they don’t need us at all.

  I look at the way other people parent their kids, and I try not to judge. Fine, I totally judge. Because honestly, you guys, when you get your kid her very own iPad or a brand-new electric scooter or take her to see Katy Perry, I have to hear about it, okay? And I do not think you’re doing your children any favors when you hand them everything they want the nanosecond they think about wanting it, even if it’s in an Amazon .com box and not on a silver platter. Me? I’m sort of a bitch mom. My kids have to do daily chores (the whining!), and they don’t get an allowance (the moaning!), because I want them to understand that they have responsibilities to this family simply by virtue of being a member of it. I’ll pay them to unload the dishwasher and make their beds and put away their toys the day somebody starts compensating me to grocery shop, fold laundry, cook dinner, pull eleven miles of hair out of the shower drain every month, chisel petrified toothpaste out of multiple sink bowls, wipe the dogs’ nose prints off the French doors a dozen times a week, and perform all of the other countless housekeeping tasks I do daily (mostly) without complaint. Not that I’m bitter.

  “But Madison gets an allowance!” my woefully deprived daughters pout.

  “Madison’s mom must be nicer than I am,” I reply.

  “You can say that again,” they mutter under their collective breath.

  “Well, I was going to get you guys a pony,” I lie, “but maybe you should ask Madison’s mom to get it for you instead, since she’s so flipping nice.”

  I remember being in college and hearing the infamous Mark Twain quote on parenting for the first time: “When I was a boy of fourteen,” Twain wrote, “my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.” This exact epiphany happened to me. Fast-forward another twenty years and put me on the other side of the equation with children of my own, however, and I had an equally surprising newsflash: My parents had no idea what they were doing, either! We’re all just winging it, figuring it out as we go, and doing the best we can. Sometimes we’ll screw up (see bit about Mandatory Pregnancy Permits for Unwed Mothers™, sorry Cori), and in all likelihood we’ll be so desperate to do things differently than our parents did that we’ll swing dangerously far in the opposite direction. My parents swore like sailors (I know, you’re shocked) and didn’t lay down much in the way of rules or boundaries; in my house “stupid” is a bad word,* and we have rules about how we’ll implement our rules.

  Am I screwing up my kids irreparably? Only time will tell. Good thing I’m probably only halfway dead, because I really can’t wait to find out.

  CHAPTER 20

  When Did Construction Workers Become So Civilized?

  As a builder’s kid, I grew up around scores of dirty, sweaty, crude men whose oth
er job, when they weren’t swinging their hammers, was to objectify women—loudly and often. Most of the time when I was on a construction site, I was with my dad (their boss), so even the most boorish of his employees knew not to comment on my boobs or my ass or suggest we jump in his truck and do something unmentionable. But occasionally, like the time I stopped by one of his houses when I was riding my bike home from the beach—in a bikini, can you imagine?—these shirtless cauldrons of testosterone would unleash a string of X-rated catcalls in my direction before my dad showed up and their brains had a chance to register the words BOSS’S DAUGHTER. Dad would go ballistic, the rest of us would be mortified, and eventually, I was prohibited from flaunting my half-naked body within a five-mile radius of any of his jobs.

  In case you missed the point of that story, my half-naked body elicited an excited reaction from young, strapping men!

  Ah, those were the days.

  Listen, Gloria Steinem disciples, I know your underarm hair is going to get all bunched when I say this, but I’d pay good money to get an unsolicited wolf whistle these days. A head turn as I’m sitting at a stoplight would be heavenly. Hell, when the cute Whole Foods cashier asks “How’s your day going?” and not “How’s your day going, ma’am?” I trot out to my car with a visible spring in my step.

  It’s ridiculous, I realize, to pine for supplementary opposite-gender attention for any number of reasons. For one thing, my husband tells me constantly that he thinks I’m hot. But as I’ve mentioned, seeing as my increasingly shapeless ass is the only one he gets to spoon for basically the rest of ever, complimenting me in this way serves two very important purposes: the first obviously is foreplay, and the second is probably a subconscious manifestation of “if I say it enough, I’ll believe it, too!” I don’t mean to belittle his words or imply that he isn’t attracted to me. But my husband is a smart guy, and if a daily “hey, hottie” seems to increase his odds of getting laid even infinitesimally, he’ll put it in the permanent rotation.

  The other reason it’s ridiculous to wish male strangers would publically declare their physical attraction to me is because, well, consider the source. With all due respect, the dudes crooning “ow, ow, ow, baby’s on fire, gotta get me summa that” from the rooftops probably aren’t that discriminating (and frankly, rarely look like the infamous Diet Coke Break commercial guy*). In fact, as often as not they have more back hair than my Labrador and are missing several key front teeth. Still, sometimes a slightly stale leftover cupcake is better than no dessert at all, if you know what I mean.

  There’s a saying that people in relationships use to justify what they consider harmless flirting: “Just because you’re on a diet doesn’t mean you can’t look at the menu.” Well, my happily married, utterly-content-but-maybe-just-a-tiny-bit-needy midlife version of that saying goes like this: “Just because you don’t want the job doesn’t mean you wouldn’t enjoy repeatedly turning down the offer.”

  “But catcalling is derogatory, demeaning, and disrespectful!” you cry. I completely agree. Really, I do. And if we could stop it altogether, across the board, I’d be out there campaigning with you. But it does exist and it always will. And I don’t know about you, but I’d rather not have to think of myself as someone no stranger would ever, if even for a fleeting drunken second in a mostly darkened room, want to (much less publically announce that he would like to) have sex with or even see naked.

  (Unfortunately related aside: Just recently I was saying something about my “birthday suit” when it became apparent that my eight-year-old had never heard the term. When I explained what it was, she replied, “Oh! I thought you were talking about your birthday dress,” referring to a sequin number I’d worn for my birthday party and which she had already decided was going to be hers when she grew up. After we laughed about the confusion, she hugged me sweetly and leaned in really close, cupping her hands around my ear. “No offense, Mom,” she whispered, “but your birthday dress is way cuter than your birthday suit.” Sadly, she’s right.)

  It doesn’t seem all that terribly long ago that I was single and bar-trolling and being hit on with remarkable frequency. With my unlined face and perky boobs and without a guy on my arm or a ring on my finger, men would buy me drinks, pay me compliments, and often, drop really bad pickup lines on me. (My favorite: “Those jeans look great on you . . . but they’d look even better in a puddle on my floor.”) When I shot these guys down, they’d move down to the next bar stool, and I’d sigh heavily at the inconvenience of being interrupted from the very important task of drinking with my girlfriends and hoping to get hit on. The last time a guy bought me a drink in a bar was on a girls’ trip to Palm Springs, when my friends and I met a party of very fun, very wealthy, very old, very gay men who were clearly in the market for some middle-aged fruit flies.*

  I have countless newly single pals who bemoan the miserable reality of having to jump back into the midlife dating pool—the one where you’re swimming alongside Megan Fox lookalikes in itty-bitty bikinis who are hoping to catch the eye of the same fifty-year-old lifeguard as you are. Sure, my fabulous friends are infinitely smarter, significantly more accomplished, radically better traveled, substantially more solvent, profoundly more confident, doubtless better in bed,* and a thousand times sexier and more comfortable in their respective skin than their barely legal poolmates. Tragically, this particular contest doesn’t have talent, evening wear, onstage question, or personal interview portions. It’s a swimsuit competition all the way, and guess who’s going to win pretty much every time? No really, guess.

  [Calls husband, begs him to swear on bottomless cases of beer and a lifetime of blowjobs that he will never, ever leave her. Mercifully, he agrees.]

  It’s probably not as bad as I think it is. Surely there are at least a handful of not-disgusting guys out there, as the epic Leslie Mann character so awkwardly put it in the hilarious movie This Is Forty, who would gladly do sex with me, even though I’m pretty sure I’ve made it clear that I do not want to do sex with any of them. Or maybe there aren’t. That is why sometimes I worry, when I lie in bed at night and mentally script my future only-slightly-fictionalized life movie,* that this scene will have to be included:

  EXT.—CUTE SUBURBAN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA NEIGHBORHOOD WITH MOSTLY QUAINT, OLDER HOMES BUT ONE IN THE VERY EARLY STAGES OF NEW CONSTRUCTION—DAY.

  JENNA, a modestly attractive woman in her mid-forties exits her front door with a dog on a leash and walks up her driveway to the sidewalk.* She stops, looks around as if deciding which way to go, spots the house under construction. She squares her shoulders, sucks in her stomach, reaches down into her blouse to shift her breasts up higher and closer together, and starts marching toward the house, trying to look cute and casual.

  Despite the fact that there are no fewer than a dozen men working on the house, not a single one of them notices JENNA. She slows her gait, still nothing. She clears her throat. One guy looks up then immediately back down. JENNA is walking so slowly she’s barely even moving.

  JENNA

  A-a-a-chooo!

  A few more sawdust-speckled heads peek up, briefly, before returning to their tasks.

  JENNA makes it to the end of the street, turns around, and begins the painful, slow death march past the workers again. This time she tries swinging her hips and whistling. Nothing. Now back in front of her own home, JENNA unbuttons the top button on her blouse, then the next one. She does the up-and-in boob thing again, rolls up her shorts a few times, twists her car’s side-view mirror down to see what this looks like, and quickly rolls them back down. Again, JENNA crawl-strolls past the house, willing her adorable dog to take a poop so she can linger. The little bastard refuses. Completely out of ideas, JENNA begins whistling an AC/DC tune, softly at first and then louder and louder. (She lived in New York City for a while and learned how to whistle really well, as it was the only reliable way to catch a cab during rush hour.) Finally, she manages to catch the attentio
n of one of the construction workers, who is staring at her with his mouth agape. Bingo!

  HOT CONSTRUCTION WORKER 1

  Um, ma’am?

  JENNA tries to flip her hair seductively, but her watch gets stuck in it. She flails and pulls at it for several seconds, looking as if a spider has landed on her or perhaps she is having some sort of seizure.

  HOT CONSTRUCTION WORKER 2

  [whispering to HOT CONSTRUCTION WORKER 1]

  Dude, what the fuck are you doing?

  HOT CONSTRUCTION WORKER 1

  [whispering back]

  Maybe she’s hurt. Or sick.

  HOT CONSTRUCTION WORKER 2

  Or she just escaped from the loony bin.

  HOT CONSTRUCTION WORKER 1

  [Ignoring him and cupping his hands around his mouth to call to Jenna]

  Ma’am? Ma’am, are you okay? Are you lost? Do you need some help? Should we call someone for you?

  JENNA looks around and behind her, trying to figure out who these men could be talking to. She spins around in circles several times, looking for an old lady who appears to be lost or hurt; the men start to look more concerned. Finally, JENNA realizes what’s happening. She’s the ma’am. Horror washes over her face as she runs like a Kenyan sprinter, dragging her dog down the sidewalk, up her driveway, and straight into her front door, which she slams behind her.

  HOT CONSTRUCTION WORKER 2

  Dude, that was gnarly. I mean, I hope she’s okay.

  HOT CONSTRUCTION WORKER 1

  Same shit happened to my mom when she got old. It’s really sad.

  CUT TO:

  JENNA is lying in bed sobbing; her husband JOE is trying to console her.

  JOE