The Big Bang: it ain't just about planets anymore

By Mary Helen Gillespie, 12/13/2004

Certain facts of nature are scientifically undisputed: stars collide, souls converge, and, my personal favorite, the poop hits the fan. It comes most often in the cycle of our journeys when personal, professional, emotional, spiritual and physical forces rise to claim what is left our of middle-aged souls. In short, it's our own personal Big Bang Theory. Everything blows up at once. All we can do is sit back down, put our feet up, watch the burnished pieces of our corrupted karma land in the dirt and wonder "Now what?"

It is time for a new job? New spouse? Better job? No spouse? I say mid-career MBA. You say retirement. Say, who are you? Wait a minute. Who am I?

Holidays inevitably engorge the process with more sadness, anger and anxiety. This of course fuels the proverbial "I will fix this after January 1" self-deadline in which we promise ourselves to be compliant about updating resumes, resurrecting networking circles, showing more care and concern for the people we manage and who manage us, and, of course, hopping back on some tortuous gym device to fit into our job hunting clothes.

None-the-less, we wallow now in denial if only to save the remaining sparks of energy for a painfully out of tune junior high school holiday concert, an overcooked turkey dinner with mom's new husband and his whacko kids, or the empty silence of four walls that refuse to bring us tidings of comfort, joy or reduced admission prices before noon.

This special Savvy Manager column speaks to that universal longing we are all having right now despite the endless shopping lists, the unlighted candles and the cranky in-law issues. This is my story, and I share it with you, dear readers, to let you know that you are not alone as you sink into the morass of the Mid-Career Big Bang Meltdown.

My Big Bang Blip came on Halloween Sunday, 2004. At first I thought the steak knife I was using to cut the loaf of French bread (formerly known as the baguette) on the mini-cutting board had slipped inexplicably.

Oh, the pain. How I still shudder. It was no accident. Why? I had become the female half of that Certain Couple From Suburbia (CCFS) that everyone who still lives in town, and is of a certain age demographic, knows all too well. We were not only shamefully early for Sunday brunch, we were the first ones to arrive. And while we remembered the bread, we forgot the hostess gift. We (gasp) left the wine at home. We had devolved. Or at least I had.

M (no names here - why expose the hostess with the mostest to the worse type of reputation risk, aka "has lame suburban friends"?) is one of the dwindling numbers of my social circle: the single, urban galpal (SUG) who is brilliantly funny and supports her one-bedroom apartment with the view of the harbor in a well-loved Boston neighborhood by editing and writing books. And she continues to allow us to grace her famed literary salons that on this lovely Sunday included two versions of The Special Young Couple (SYC1 and SYC2), The Longtime Cambridge Couple (LCC), and The Former Newspaper Editor (FNE) who gave me my first job in daily journalism 25 years ago. This would evolve into the job in which I eventually met my husband, and now other half of the CCFS. Me, I'm a former journalist. More on that later.

I used to be quite the city woman. When my husband and I had our first date to break my self-imposed no-nookie-in-the-newsroom rule with which I was uncharacteristically self-compliant, he took me sailing at the Charles River Yacht Club in Boston. And promptly sank the sailboat, but not before he jumped back onto the dock, staying dry. Suddenly I was doing the dog paddle in the Charles River and wondering, since I could see it from the river, if the emergency room at The General was indeed within walking distance in case I needed a tetanus shot.

So how urban was I? Not too many of you readers out there can claim that you actually swam in the Charles when it really was "Dirty Water" and not the mantra of Red Sox Nation. Unless, of course, your name is Bill Weld and you are the same Bill Weld who used to live in Cambridge. Where I used to live, too. At one time, a long time ago. Note that I also referred to the hospital as "The General," as the natives do, and not as the Mass General as some (fakers) are wont to say. How urban is that?

It was when I first moved to Cambridge that I started to go to grownup (ie, non-college) parties in Boston. There I realized that I had a very useful "people radar" skill that just went into overdrive and served me very well as a girl reporter evolving into a female journalist and especially well as another SUG at these urban home events. I would just know that the older (yep) female (yep) party guest who drove in from her ranch house (yep) 30 miles away (yep) in a station wagon (yep, but it is a Beamer) and was just a tad useless when it comes to urban entertaining guidelines that she once mastered but now is the Queen of the Crock Pot (double yep) was the woman who was reeling about cleaning up dirty dishes in a high, anxious rabble with a brittle laugh that seemed just too forced.

At this party, she would be Me. Or Moi, as we once used to say. Except that those other women would always swill, which was the actual verb we used, just a little too much white wine. And I was on the wagon on this special day because I promised My Shrink that I wouldn't mix the latest round of anti-depressants with alcohol (well there was that little mess at the last black-tie fundraiser but amends all-around). This was so he wouldn't have to worry about the State Police showing up at his office to interrogate him on his prescription-writing practices even though he assured me that he, himself, does not have General Anxiety Disorder.

Back to the brunch. Luckily, the other guests had yet to arrive when I had my evangelical, George W. moment at M's drop-down kitchen table. "Oh, M," I cried. "I've done it. I've become that suburban friend who comes early because she misjudged Sunday traffic into town and forgets the wine." And can't cut on the cutting board that isn't the size of Rhode Island with a knife equally as large. I was in total Williams-Sonoma withdrawal.

M, herself a former newspaper editor as was the old Me, just waved Moi off and suggested I chip in with fruit salad efforts. Her vocal cadence was much like when she would advise her charges on the copy desk that the second edition of the next day's paper was coming out in 20 minutes and perhaps they would like to try to get some real news into at least that edition for our glorious readers. Thus I studied the strawberries with hope in my heart, much like a National League no-hitter coming in from the West Coast.

But then the other guests arrived. And I was in full dis-engorgement mode regarding my ugly personal/professional secrets. Soon I was confessing to the others the self-appointed role that I was to play in M's drama made up of them, her real brilliantly funny friends and Moi. I used to be a journalist. I used to get paid for public speeches. I had a website. Yet, today, my story was so different.

"I am the suburban friend, you know which, the one..." Because they did. They all did. And they didn't want to admit there was a live one standing and breathing before them in their own 617 area code. (We are 781 at the house but my cell phone, which is what really matters, is 617.)

Back to work. Yet once I started cutting up the kiwi, I stopped talking. M fretted. "M," I said. "I can no longer multitask. I am menopausal." That broke her. "You mean you can't cut fruit and talk in the kitchen at the same time?" (Yep) Note that M is a good ten years younger than Moi. Ah, child, what we as women must endure!

Anyway, she passed me the pineapple. And moved the cutting board to the sink. Actually to the edge of the sink because she had to scramble eggs on the stove. The tiny sink was full of big dishes. And she did say, in full fairness, let's just open the can of Dole.

"Tsk-tsk, M," I said, in high CCFS mode. What will you (implied but not stated: A SUG) do with an entire fresh pineapple? "Let's cut it so it won't go to waste." So I start chopping, and cutting, and realizing why I should have gone with the Open The Damn Can Theory. But no, this I can still do. I have to do. I have to be able to cut open this pineapple on the mini-cutting board with the mini-knife on the edge of the sink in the galley kitchen of an urban Boston apartment IF IT IS THE LAST BLOODY SKILL I WILL EVER MASTER. I will not fail. Just as I had never missed a deadline. No, No, No.

And just then, in full view of the other guests, the main section of pineapple became possessed by a Stephen-King-sized demon and did a back flip over the mini-cutting board, landing 12 inches away from the sink but still within the boundaries of the galley kitchen although now one foot closer to the feet of the other guests.

How suburban am I? "Oh, that wasn't M. That was me," I shrieked as the others stared in silence. We served the fruit salad on time but with a warning advisory that it would be okay to pick out the pineapple because of the cutlery malfunction.

As we ate, I was quiet. And then I noticed the other guests were all looking at me and seeing what they could become, in the young couples' case, and what the others could still become even though they avoided it up to now. It was one cruel, true thing.

It was Moi of that Certain Couple From Suburbia.

Someone, I think it was M, turned the conversation to the holiday du jour, Halloween. "So," she said brightly. "How many people get trick or treaters?"

How suburban am I? We were the only ones. I lost this one without even opening my mouth. Just a nod of the head. I think. But then again those new pills...never mind...unlike the last time, this time I just think I get amnesia.

Despite my Valley of the Suburban Dolls/Stepford Wives patina, the husband of the OCC politely engaged me in conversation and it turns out that he recently retired after many years as an administrator with a staid Boston nonprofit that defines "landmark institution."

"But," he said with great gusto. "I accepted early retirement once they brought those management consultants in. Everything was mission statement this, and mission statement that. It was taking months to write the mission statement. And those management consultants, they spin everything you say. 'Good, write that down.' I said that with all the time people were spending in meetings, they couldn't do their jobs and the management consultants could only say 'Good, write that down.' Thanks to those management consultants, I took early retirement.

"So," he said brightly. "What do you do?"

How suburban am I?

Ka-boom.

"Oh," I whispered with a gulp. "I am a management consultant."

Now, dear readers, as much as I would like to end this teary tale right here we must have closure for this to be a real learning experience of suburban personal and professional blight, especially in your favorite schmancy, all-news-is-now-local career web site. Thus if you accompanied my paranoid panic this far, let's just go for the gold.

In the end, the brunch was superb. M is such a fabulous weaver of people and tales that even the faux pas by Moi could not transcend her powers of perfect parties, these free-spirited affairs of heart and soul and fruit salad that make us all yearn for more moments with our own families of choice - most of the time. She did seem to have a rather robust element of wistfulness in her voice when she saw that I was standing next to her to say my actual and appreciative goodbyes. She remarked "You are in a vertical position. I hope that is not because you are leaving."

Yep.

It was time to leave, and oh so much more. I would not, could not, be that female half of the CCFS for another minute. I was DONE with this, as Carrie so brightly told Big in the series finale of the ultimate SUG story, "Sex and the City." Meet the new Moi. Much like the old Moi. Only better. Honey, we are reversing this curse. And moving on right now even though it is still only 2004.

I will never be that woman with the mini-knife ever again (and granted, due to shrinking inventories of friends who still speak to us, it will be a while). There will be hefty lead time to creating and executing these deliverables as we management consultants say. I shall be the Cool Suburban One (CSO), the only one who despite 15 years in suburbia is still brilliant and even funnier, shows up fashionably late to all home events and goes home early while the crowd is still roaring over her last bon mot about the shameful secrets, deepest dirt, and plethora of billable hours that exist right here in our fair metropolis.

Yes, that's me: the new CSO.

How urban is that?