The X Factor

Do we ever really grow up? I'm not talking about the American obsession with youth that causes thousands of people to go under the knife for a "refresher" (which, BTW, I saw Loni Anderson last night. Yikes!). I'm not even talking about the fact that you don't feel much different than you did at eighteen (alright, maybe twenty-four). I'm talking about those moments when you feel like you did as a kid, that there are some great mysteries that will only be revealed when you hit some magic age like twenty-five, thirty, fifty-two. Like my mom used to say, "You'll understand when you're older." Except, I got to twenty-five and thirty, and there were still some things I didn't have a clue about. And I have a sneaky suspicion that fifty-two won't be all that illuminating either. Which then makes me wonder if I missed something along the way. Like the day you faked a stomachache to get out of Bio Lab, but then you missed Algebra where they explained literal numbers and now you'll never really know how to do trigonometry and you can just forget calculus. That's how I feel sometimes. Like somewhere down the line, I missed a day in school and now I'm irrevocably left behind. X = ...something.




Sometimes, I think X = Significant Other. Maybe that's cultural, too. Woman + Man (or woman, depending on your preference) = satisfying life. "I'll be fulfilled when I find that special someone." Although, every single married person I know basically screams from the bottom of the canyon, that I should not jump off the bridge just because they did. In fact, they assure me that the bridge is pretty terrific. Good view, plenty of space, and you can go at your own pace. Don't leave the bridge. This, however, is a double-edge sword. There are experiences I won't have if I don't leave the bridge, and there are times that I feel like I'm being excluded from canyon experience based on the fact that I'm not married. "I didn't think you would be interested, it was just couples." Or "You can come if you want, its just going to be me and John and this couple we met on our honeymoon." "You are so lucky you don't have a husband, you don't have to put up with his bad habits!" I'm often the third or fifth or, god help me, ninth wheel. Its a tad embarrassing, slightly uncomfortable, but mostly infantilizing feeling. Couples over here, kids and singles over there. "You don't understand. You don't know. Maybe when you're older." I think about the years I spent thinking, "I'm young! I'm only 19 - 22 - 24. There's plenty of time for a boyfriend!" and worry that I lost out on valuable playing-the-field time. Not to see what was out there, but to learn how to flirt, date, be a girl in the company of a boy. Do you know I've never necked in a movie theater?! I can't help to feel that there was a rite of passage that I totally missed and somehow that's screwed me up for about two decades now. "If only I allowed Jim Flanagan to kiss me during The Cutting Edge. I'd totally be married right now!"



This much I know is true. X does not = Career. Woman + Career = worry and fatigue -- which will age a girl. I'm always thinking that there is something more I can be doing in this particular area, and that I've possibly screwed up along the way here, too. "If I just stayed in publishing, I'd be further along." Which is a complete lie as all my publishing friends are pretty much one step up from where they were when I left and not running their own imprints yet. So, I don't know why I keep thinking I'm behind the eight ball on this one. But with the economy being what it is and corporate America downsizing while globalizing, the uneasy feeling that I might not be the heir to the Oprah Winfrey throne has taken root and -- unlike my career -- flourishes in a way that suggests that anxiety is psychic Miracle Grow. Naively, perhaps, I do believe that I'm young enough that this might change. I mean, I don't feel like an adult. So, maybe, right?

In the end, I don't think anyone ever feels truly like an adult. That is, if "adult" means having all the answers. Sure, there's tons of things that I understand now that I wouldn't have had the capacity to understand at 10 - 18 - 23. And, more than likely, the X Factor probably isn't just One Thing. It's an ever changing myriad, different for each person, based on an equation like Woman + X \ Time = Satisfying Life. But I haven't a clue. I either missed that day, or I'm not old enough to know yet. Maybe when I'm fifty-two.

Thanks to craneshot.blogspot.com for the shot of Loni Anderson.