WILL I FIND HAPPINESS AS A GUY?

Had my annual visit with my gynecologist yesterday. I'm 54. She told me that as soon as I stopped “the monthly scourge” I would likely grow a mustache. Talk about your good news/bad news. I’m starting to fart more too but in order to avoid breast cancer I have to eat cabbage. There’s a whole ying/yang synchronicity to this getting old stuff. When estrogen depletes, testosterone increases. Dear God, will I start spending a lot of time in the garage?

Welcome to the Earthsuit, that panoply of odd, glorious, and often disgusting events occurring to each of us while zipped inside these things. So, women grow old by getting manly and men grow breasts and emotions, perhaps for the first time. Shoot we all end up in diapers again, sometimes toothless and bald, big babies with a past. Weird, huh?

My body’s a temple, alright - of doom. Left to its own devices, the body will stink, shrivel up, grow hair in odd places, and die. Therefore, we spend an inordinate amount of time trying to keep it clean and fresh-looking, an arduous, endless task to say the least. Body maintenance and hygiene is a full time job, what with all the plucking, exfoliating, scrubbing, combing, shaving, rubbing, tucking and hiding you have to do on a regular basis. Forget about keeping the damn thing healthy. Keeping it from stinking is enough on any given day. Nip and tuck it all you want, honey. Eventually, it’s going down.

But here really is some good news: it’s not the body that’s the problem, it’s just our thoughts about the body that make us crazy. Why do we even buy into our own stinkin’ thinkin’ about aging, our bodies, our boyfriends, pain, pleasure yadda yadda? We torture ourselves with unpleasant thoughts and visions. When my kids used to wake up with nightmares I’d tell them (back in the days of VCRs): Just change the tape. That’s what I’m talking about. Stop clinging to your nightmarish thoughts, let ‘em float away, and replace them with thoughts of love and happiness. Dang, it’s so simple, but we're scared to death of happiness.

So yes, I suppose I’m becoming a guy while shrinking no less, and losing bladder control. Does anyone else just find that freaking hilarious? I saw a picture of Meg Ryan the other day. Remember how adorable she was, just a natural beauty? Well now she’s got those fat-ass lips that look like maybe Dennis Quaid sucker punched her or something. She didn’t need those silly botoxed lips. She’d be a cool old lady just regular-lipped.

If it’s just our PERSPECTIVE that causes suffering, turn it around. Just hold it up to the light and change it, right? Research shows that when you change the WAY you think you can actually alter your neural pathways and ….make yourself peaceful and happy. Apparently this has been available to us forever; the Greeks wrote about it when they wore bedsheets and sat on cold marble, talking philosophy. Just open your eyes, change the way you see things, and bam – it’s all good.

Meditation has also been proven to actually change brain chemistry. Like anything else, if you do it enough and it becomes a habit it also forms a neural pathway that allows for happiness, including the release of those fabulous endorphins and serotonins. So I put my ass on that meditation pillow as much as possible, because I want to be a happy old lady, or man, or whatever.

Try it. Just once today, take one negative thought and get rid of it. Replace it with nothing, or with a different perspective. Let the good ju-ju come into your bones and cells; positive energy is positively healing. Kind of looking forward to my mustachioed old age. Bet I’ll kick your ass at Bingo.