A woman at my synagogue asked me the other day, out of the blue, how old I am, and before I could think I blurted out, “forty.” I had just turned forty three days earlier and it was on the tip of my tongue to say so. And then I got scared. The thing is, I do not look forty. This woman said I looked 20 or 25, and even if she was being nice, I really do look like I could be thirty years old, and I’d rather people think I am younger, because my resume is really short for a forty year old.
We have a lot of expectations about what people will have done by certain ages, and, in an upper middle class, Jewish community on Long Island, these expectations can be unbearably high. Everyone’s kid is successful, and married, and has a nice apartment in the city, or a house in the suburbs. Everyone is very busy, and works out, and has a smart phone glued to their head. I don’t fit in, and I keep thinking, when they realize that I’m not just a ne’er do well thirty year old, but a ne’er do well forty year old, I’ll be kicked out.
In some ways, I feel all forty of those years weighing on me. Everything in my body hurts, and I need naps every day, and some days I feel closer to eighty than to forty. But emotionally, intellectually, I feel like I’m just getting started. There’s so much more that I want to learn and do. There are so many books left to write and left to read. There are so many people to meet and places to go.
I’ve written novels and short stories and essays and poems and drafts and drafts and endless drafts. I’ve taken classes in almost every kind of writing (except journalism, which terrifies me), and earned two masters degrees, and discovered that I will never run out of things to write, or things to learn. I’ve been with the same therapist for twenty years and have been diligent and hard working on every issue. I’m still not done, still not healed, but without all of this work I would be dead, so, thumbs up?
None of this is what I had planned, though. I planned to publish novels. I planned to be on talk shows, and teach writing classes, and meet the president, whoever she happens to be. I planned to drive carpool, and sing my children to sleep, and laugh with my husband every day.
I don’t think Cricket and Butterfly are aware of their ages. Cricket doesn’t look at herself in the mirror and say, Damn, I look good for an eight year old. Butterfly isn’t pacing he floor, worrying that she hasn’t napped enough and time is running out. They don’t judge themselves. They may judge me, but not themselves.
“Hey, skinny dog in the mirror, help me bark for food!”
Butterfly fits in naps whenever she can.
I don’t think Cricket has any concept of getting older. Time passes, sure, but from her point of view, it’s everything outside of herself that’s changing, not something on the inside. She’s the stable center of the world. Just ask her. Butterfly, I think, has a bit more awareness of the changes she’s gone through over time. We celebrate her gotcha day, rather than her birthday, because we don’t know for sure when she was born. She has lumps and bumps on her skin, and diabetes, and a heart murmur to show for her ten years. She gets back spasms when she tries to follow Cricket on her running and jumping sprees. And maybe she can feel in her body how many more years she has left. She’s an intuitive little creature. But actual birthdays? She’s got to be thinking, why would anyone choose to have only one day a year to be celebrated when they could be celebrated every day?
Cricket is always looking for somewhere interesting to go.
And Butterfly does her stretches, so that she can keep up with her sister.
As a child, I felt like I was drowning in failure, even though I did well in school. I couldn’t figure out how to have good friendships, or how to communicate well enough to teachers, or with my parents, to get my needs met. I felt like there was a whole other language that I was supposed to have mastered, but no one was teaching it to me. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to realize that I have to make up that language myself, because most people are in the same boat, unable to articulate the things they most need to say.
Even now, the road forward is anything but clear, and will probably be too slow and take too long and inspire impatience in the people around me. I will hesitate and make mistakes and choose anything but the path they see as being outlined in neon lights, because I can’t see that path at all.
Dogs live much shorter lives than we do, and yet they feel less pressure to achieve great things, or so I assume, because I’ve never seen Cricket at the computer logging on to Kahn Academy. I wonder if, with fewer years to work with, we’d make better choices about how to live them.
For my birthday this year, I want to learn to live more like a dog, to judge myself on who I am first and what my resume says another time, or never. I want to wake up in the morning thinking about what I need, and who I love, and how lovely the snow looks on the pine trees, instead of worrying about all of the milestones I have yet to meet.
I think Cricket and Butterfly are prepared to help me with this.
“What’s next?”
rachelmankowitz 
My mother-in-law always says there more time than life…..we better hurry and figure things out! (I’m 47.)
So much pressure!
No one else can do a better job of being you! Try that! It’s enough.
I’ll try! Thank you!
Why do people wonder how old other people are? such a puzzle to me. I like getting older because I find the older I get, the less a crap I give what other people think. You have accomplished a lot, Rachel! We can learn so much from our pets. You talk with Cricket and Butterfly; I’ll check in with my three and we will compare notes. 😉
Cricket is refusing to talk to me at the moment…there’s dinner in the oven!
haha! Mine are refusing to talk because they just ate dinner and now is nap time. Before actual bed time. 🙂
Totally agree about the older I get the less I care what other people think. I’ve also realized I am what I am 🙂
Happy Belated Birthday! Love your cuties 😀
I’m still working towards that kind of wisdom, but the girls are definitely helping! Thank you!
What a lovely post! I turn 48 tomorrow so this was what I needed to hear.
Thank you! I’m so glad!
Better than always being taken as your daughters grandfather, and wife’s father!
But no one ever thinks I’m my babies’ mother. They say I don’t look a thing like Butterfly!
My twin daughters just turned forty one. I don’t remember being forty…
Not to worry, you may have already met the president, she just hasn’t been elected yet. One day your post will read I knew the president when she was (fill in the blank).
I do have a couple of friends I could see in that role…
You are you. Just as you are meant to be. No comparisons, no competitions. And you are a perceptive, intuitive writer, though I’ve not read much so far I look so forward to every one of your posts. I wish I had your clarity and unassuming sense of humor. And, beyond everything you alone are Cricket’s and Butterfly’s person. And happy birthday, many many more.
Thank you so much!
Dogs are such wonderful teachers at how to celebrate every day. We are lucky to have them for role models.
We are!
The wisdom of animals! IE taking each day as it comes and enjoying simple things. True success is living a happy fulfilled and productive life. Being kind, caring and compassionate. Viewing life with positivity and humour. It is not chasing fame or money to satisfy other peoples vision of what you should be. True success is accepting yourself as you are and allowing yourself to fulfill your life purpose without feeling guilty. We all have something to offer, and sometimes we offer different things at different times of our life. Its all a journey, but I have total faith that we all end up at the exact point we were meant to reach in this lifetime. Its just that some of us take the freeway ie at speed and without enjoying the scenery, and some take the scenic route, stopping along the way at intervals when something takes our attention. Others ramble along the back roads, getting lost occasionally along the way, but they too, get to thier destination eventually. Thats the way of living successfully- just by being you.
Cricket is a huge fan of the winding road!
Lol!
Happy Birthday to you- I did not realize we live near each other! One day I would love to meet you and Cricket & Butterfly! We learn so much for our dogs- follow their lead! 🙂 I loved this post ❤
Thank you!
Beautifully expressed!!!!!!!! I totally can relate. And your dogs are so adorable.
Thank you!
no pressure…. just life…. dogs are smarter than us, they live in the moment…. the past does not define us and the future is an unpromised gift…. live in the glorious NOW… be well and happy my long distance friend.
Terry
Thank you!
Another beautiful post, Rachel (and I can’t say enough times how adorable your dogs are!). Your sentiments about writing and the writing life/career are mine exactly — and I’m 17 years older than you. But as you say, we need to model ourselves after our dogs, who don’t give a whit about success, career, age, time, or anything else but the precious moment. I think we just keep doing what we love to do.
Butterfly is always trying to do what she loves to do, and when I get in the way of it, she lets out such a ruckus! She’s working very hard to teach me this lesson.
You are a good Mom to your babies! That is a great thing.Life is good and thank you for your post!
Thank you!
Don’t sweat the small stuff, chick. As long as there’s still stuff you want to do, there’s still time to do it. Well, most of it. Like others have said, heed the wisdom of your canine babies, and know that those toned, be-phoned neighbors of yours probably envy YOU! 😀 Happy belated birthday – go find yourself a big honking slab of cake and wash it down with some champagne, mkay?
Cake!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Kyla didn’t worry about a legacy. She tried to make others laugh and enjoy life. 100 years from now, what’s gonna matter?
But Kyla DID leave a legacy, she left love and smiles, and a hundred years from now, at least in dog years, I think she will still be remembered.
My forties are a blur.. We must enjoy the moment..and I too consider each day a gift. I used to look young too..lol!
I’m looking over at Butterfly, sleeping next to the computer in her dog bed, and I think this is one of those crystal clear moments. I hope it doesn’t blur by tomorrow.
The surest way to sabotage yourself is to compare yourself to others. But I’m sure your therapist has already conveyed that idea. An achievable goal is to be a better “you” each day, rather than better than, or not quite as bad as, someone else. Oh, and I can’t even remember turning 40. All I know is that the older I get, the happier I am.
“The older I get, the happier I am,” sounds like the best birthday wish I could ever have.
I turned 40 this year too and had a little existential crisis. Riley brought me out of it, so I’m sure Cricket and Butterfly will help you too!
Butterfly has been barking at me a lot lately, I wonder if that’s what she’s been trying to say! “Stop worrying, Mommy. You’re only as old as you feel!”
This is yet another one of your amazing posts that has touched my heart – wishing you many days of celebration ahead, being just who you are and who you are continuing to develop into!
Thank you! Does this mean I can go out and get another birthday cake? I’m thinking, yellow cake with chocolate buttercream, for the first layer…
I love your stories and your kids adventures…look up from your desk, go outside, study the snow on the pines or bird outside the window, breathe the fresh air and sunshine. Enjoy the now.
But it’s not snowing here, and the birds are hiding under the air conditioner…hmm…must talk to Cricket about his dilemma!
Good post.. I hit the 50, and i feel mote liberated than when i hit the 40..
I’ve heard that fifty is the good birthday. Fingers crossed!
Happy Birthday! You are way to hard on yourself. I think you are quite a special person 😊
Thank you so much!
Rachel..I can relate to much of what you wrote. I spent my earlier life trying to fit in at school which was predominantly populated with Jewish American Princesses. I am Jewish as well but found myself lost and uncomfortable with trying to keep up with the newest fashion of the day. I spent the remainder of my life as a wife and mother of special needs children. I am now retired and for the first time in my life I am creating a career. I am 64 years old and try not to think about how many years I have left. I prefer to focus on making each day meaningful for me.
At sixty four you have plenty of years to go, if the ladies at my synagogue are anything to go by. We have some very active ninety year olds, with much more energy than I’ve ever had. But if I did have more energy, I’d want to do what you did.
Are you sure you’re not my long-lost sister? I am a LOT older than you, but I can relate. One can argue that other species are either blessed or cursed with the lack of knowledge of their own mortality and their limited days on earth. They are forced to live in the moment because they have no other frame of reference. Some believe that God created us in the same way and that we subsequently lost the privilege of living in the moment when Adam and Eve disobeyed God in the Garden of Eden and became aware of their “nakedness” (mortality). Even those who don’t believe this story literally are able to take it as an allegory of the passage from the innocence (childhood) to understanding. Dogs (and our other fellow creatures) know of nothing but today. Would it be better for us to strive to live that way as well? I don’t know, but it sure would be easier not having to plan for the future. I learned the story of The Three Little Pigs at a very early age, and I believe it perfectly encapsulates the Protestant work ethic. And hence, we as a society can’t seem to take a lesson from our canine friends.
Cricket, being part poodle, thinks we should be more like the French: drink more wine, take August and long weekends off, and eat an enormous amount of cheese!
The big four-ooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
Abi gezundt, my precious alte kaker.
Forty didn’t bother me. I mean, I’m a guy, and well, you know. Age isn’t as critical a matter.
However:
http://nocturnaladmissions.net/2014/09/02/hitting-sixty-three-and-sixty-three-hits-back/
I have been told I don’t look my age, which is no big thing after having spent basically my first seventeen years being told I didn’t look Jewish.
(“Yeah, and you don’t look Episcopalian, putz.” People didn’t seem to get my point.)
But I put together “Mankowitz”, “Long Island” and “forty” and I feel for you.
First thing that comes to my mind
here’s my friend Brad. Met him when I was about seven, he about eight. Grew up together, he being one of the two big shaigetz brothers I never had.
Click to access Bradford_Morse_-_Curriculum_Vitae_2010.pdf
Not a bad life to this point by any means.
My friend Marty (knew him since I was maybe three, four?):
http://www.weil.com/people/martin-pollack
Dude was the tax consultant who helped put together the Comcast / Universal / Sony / et al. megamerger a while back.
A couple of decades ago I was speaking with Marty’s mom, my beloved Tante (the first woman President of our temple), and mentioned Brad. That he had been a Rhodes Scholar, the chief liaison between the Canadian government and the Indigenous Nations, had spoken before the Parliaments in many countries regarding aboriginal rights ….
The first thing out of Tante Paulie’s mouth? “Imagine what he could have done in Marty’s firm.”
Christ on a kreplach, lady. This guy is flown above the Arctic Circle to meet with tribal elders who have traveled thousands of miles by dogsled to meet with him. To bring him gifts and traditional offerings and to join with him in sacred ceremonies hoping to forge a better life for their people with his guidance, cooperation and assistance.
Her son helps mega-conglomerates become monopolies more powerful than most members of the United Nations.
Me?
Well my Dad was Senior Partner in a prestigious PI/Tort law firm, my cousins were all lawyers, I had a step-brother who (as an Assistant State Attorney General) helped convict Newark Mayor Hugh Addonizio on corruption charges and one who was with the Federal Prosecutors office and worked on the Karen Anne Quinlan case (pre-Kervorkian days).
Me?
I was supposed to be the next Louis Brandeis. I’m sure everyone would have settled for the next Louis Nizer, and I would suppose it was realistically within my maximum grasp, but had I gone that route, I probably would have followed in the footsteps of Bill Kuntsler and, by default I would suppose, Meyer Lansky.
Who I had in mind was Philip Roth maybe, or Lenny Bruce. Back when I was smoking a lot of pot… Mel Brooks. If I had a greater appreciation of poetry, maybe Robert Zimmerman.
Or John Cassavetes.
Turned out I was just meant to be whatever I was actually meant to be, and it was never going to be enough. Could have made six figures a year fresh out of Columbia law school or Yale or Harvard and if it had been in Civil Rights law or Tribal law…
eight figures wouldn’t have made it right.
Dogs fully understand the concept and comprehend the profundity of the fact that they all lick their own tuchais’m one cheek at a time. They don’t berate each other for partaking of the delectable spread that is the cat’s litter box. Sure, they might huff and puff and growl when backed into a corner …
… but they’re too noble to sweat the petty stuff, y’know?
They are just as comfortable sleeping on a pile of fifth-generation hand-me-down towels as they are on a faux-fur-covered memory foam mattress knowing a Bergdorf Goodman price tag won’t support their ass any better than a Salvation Army receipt.
Dogs WILL eat cat shit. People won’t, but if some hack from Le Cordon Bleu marinated a pile of it in eighty-year-old Napoleon brandy for a week, flambeed it for thirty seconds, called it “Le Merde Tartar” and put six ounces of it on a Royal Copenhagen plate with two parsley sprigs and a demitasse spoon of mint jelly and charged $117.50 per serving?
Those Central Park shysters would kill for it. Affirmative defense of justifiable homicide.
They’d give themselves whiplash pulling out the American Express Platinum card to foot the bill for the entire table because THAT’s how legends are made.
All I have to do in the morning to make my dog worship the ground I walk on is to walk on it.
I do something stupid, once it’s all over and done with and all cleaned up, they’ll laugh about it and wait for me to do something like that again.
Dogs don’t care about the thinking behind what you have done only the feelings that drove it. They won’t carry a grudge if you smack their butt for chewing on your antique ottoman nor will they take a delicious goodie from someone who just doesn’t feel right.
And they faithfully ignore politics and religion and the politics of religion as well as the religion of politics.
They’re just goofy little assholes who thrive on honest acceptance and true love.
There’s so much to learn from them.
And reading your post was a trip back for me across many years and many miles.
Your troubles communicating seem to be a thing of the past.
And the same therapist for how long?
The quacks in my Support Group will be making up songs about you.
Have a blessed New Year, shayna meydeleh.
Thank you! And I’m going to have to be careful not to order Le Merde Tartar, because you can bet someone is going to put it on the menu any day now!
Happy Birthday, Rachel! Some of us have passed the 50 mark long ago- 40 sounds like a place I would like to return to and stop at for a few years!
Thank you! Now if we could stop at a chosen age for a while, say twenty years, that would work out very nicely.
“My grandmother is over eighty and still doesn’t need glasses. Drinks right out of the bottle.”
–Henny Youngman
Happy Birthday, Rachel! You’re still young and have lots to look forward to. 🙂
P.S. It was my birthday a week ago, too 🙂
Happy birthday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thank you!
Great post, and I so love Cricket and Butterfly.
As for age, Hubby has is sussed, act your show size, so he’s the biggest kid ever!
My fortieth birthday was far from my best (I lost my Dad the day after), but then any milestone in my human life wasn’t exactly a celebration. Sixty is the next big one in 2016. I’m not even going to plan anything, just take each day until then and who knows?
Happy Holidays and best wishes for the New Year. ❤ ❤ for Cricket and Butterfly. 😀
Thank you! I think we should just decide to celebrate Wednesdays, and give birthdays the boot!
Excellent idea!
You have been successful according to your own abilities. That’s all that matters.
Thank you!
that’s a great idea, I wish I could see some things like a dog too. And to live in the moment is not bad, I think :o) To turn forty wasn’t bad for me, my “doomsday” was to turn thirty :o)
Thirty was scary too. I felt like I was about fifteen at the time and suddenly I was supposed to be a grown up!
I’ve tried to learn, from my dogs, to take each day as it is. Canines are so good about living in the moment. We are, unfortunately, better at living in the moments ahead (today is another day in the progression of getting older, today is another day I have to struggle at work in order to get that promotion that lies ahead, today is another day I have to figure out how I will end up being ). As I get older, I try to balance a lot more carpe diem with command and conquer.
Whoops, looks like special characters characters were excluded from my response! I enclosed “rich, famous, etc.” after “being” in greater than/less than brackets, to signify insertion. Looks like WordPress does not appreciate that, tisk. Learned something (and I applaud you for being clever enough to endure my sentence fragment)!
I asked Butterfly for her help, and she obliged. She is a very good reader!
The beauty of dogs is that they absolutely live in the moment and personally I think their lack of judgment is one of their best features. It’s good to feel you’re not finished, that way you keep growing everyday working toward whatever it is you are destined to accomplish. Keep up the good work!
Thank you! I will try!
Happy Birthday Rachel young lady , we must learn from our doggy friends.
Every day is a wonderful thing , snow on a pine tree lovely.
Your girls are so cute x
Thank you so much!
Celebrate being different and unique and keep on doing so. Happy 40th year!
Thank you!
I can relate everything you say in this post, Rachel – I couldn’t have put it better myself, or even half so well.
Millie is eleven now, but she doesn’t know it and she can still outrun most of the dogs in the area. (Except maybe Pearl.) I think we’d all be better off if we didn’t know how ‘old’ we are.
I love how you bridge the divide between animals and human beings. Happy holidays!
Thank you! Happy holidays!
Happy Birthday! (tail wags and face slobbers) It’s OK to just be yourself. Especially when you’re being yourself with your puppies. Woof!
More face slobbers!!!!!!!!
I feel fortunate that my children are good people and earn a living tjat suppots themselves. Most of all i most grateful that they are with people that love them. Im not a scholar either but am happy and to heck with any opinions to the contrary. I understand that cultures and generations think differently though.
I’m in my mid sixties but frankly don’t look a day over my early sixties.
Love that!!!!!
Happy 40th, Rachel. Long Island is a pressure-filled place. I’m glad I moved away to go to college way back when and now live in Syracuse. Where I’m 57, look 47 (some days with the lighting just so), got waylaid by the journalism industry that you so rightly fear, and write every day like age doesn’t matter. The years go by fast. Follow your heart, your muse, your dogs … and savor every day.
Thank you! I remember the first time I realized that there are places in the world where people don’t fight over parking places at the supermarket; I thought I was hallucinating.
Best wishes for the holidays and a Happy New Year, Rachel, down on crowded LawGuyland.
As someone nearing the big 4 0 myself, (just 6 months away!) I relate to this post completely. I think trying to have the attitude of a dog towards aging sounds exactly right…and also? Happy belated birthday!!!
Thank you! And happy almost birthday to you!
Wonderful piece, Rachel. Usually good advice to listen to the dogs or at least to do as they do. You’ve done a lot of valuable human things in your four decades, such as creating this entire community of voices. Brava!
Thank you! Though there are some things the dogs do that I think I’ll skip. They have some strange ideas about what qualifies as food, for example.
I truly enjoyed your post. Very candid, and also funny. Loved it. Favorite part: “I want to learn to live more like a dog.” Alex, my senior dog, has taught me so much about life and she is the only being that can get me from being mad to pure calmness in a matter of seconds.
They are magical creatures!
Yes, they truly are and we are lucky to have them in our lives.
You are a wonderful and talented person, just like you were meant to be… and that’s really all that matters. We are as old or young as we feel. Birthdays are just extra opportunities to celebrate life, eat some more cup cakes with lots of whipped cream. I have already had countless anniversaries of my 39th birthday and it’s only getting better. Happy belated birthday, Rachel!!
Lots and lots of whipped cream!!!!!!!!!!!
Happy Belated Birthday, Ms. Rachel.
I think we dogs don’t know how to compare ourselves against others’ expectations. And we don’t have many expectations of ourselves.
I sometimes do like to accomplish things like jumping through a hoop, but mainly because it means I get to have a treat afterwards and because it’s something I think is fun to do. I don’t do it to mark off some achievement on a list. Humans seem to like making lists for themselves and comparing their lists with each other.
Being and understanding, to paraphrase a smart human who once spoke on this subject, are constructive; comparing and achieving are destructive.
I wonder if I could develop a taste for chicken treats. Hmm…
Two things:
My sister-in-law once told me when a woman hits 50, it’s no more Ms Nice Gal. She’s come into her own. I’ll be 68 in 9 days, and believe me it’s true.
and
Keep in mind the words of another Long Island native – Billy Joel . “Keep it to yourself, it’s my life.”
You look prettier day by day – but plzzz dont bark… ❤
I loved this – great post!
Thank you!
Just tweeted this and the two previous posts 🙂