Winter in Southern California is a beautiful time of year. Come December, I make the journey into the darkest depths of my closet, dust off my favorite jacket, and air it out to be worn for its brief yet well-appreciated turn in my clothing rotation. I like to comment to my wife that the jacket has shrunk, as it seems to do every year, but by mid-January, my jacket and I are old friends again.
This year, as I made the pilgrimage to find my well-worn friend, I thought about a buddy of mine. We speak every few weeks, and our conversations are usually centred around ball games and what the kids or grandkids are up to. Nothing earth-shattering, just the comfort talk of a well-aged friendship.
However, as I answered the phone, my buddy, Phil, sounded slightly breathless, and his voice had an edge of concern.
“You Ok, Phil?” I asked, his tone piquing my interest.
“Not really, Tony, I am worried about Anna.”
“What’s going on with your wife?” My own concern rose slightly.
“She just pulled out the purple suitcase, you know the one.”
“Oh,” I replied. This was not good.
Every few years, the same thing happened. In the week leading up to New Year’s, Anna dragged out her purple suitcase, and as soon as Phil saw this, he knew his own life was about to change, and not for the better.
In this suitcase were clothes Anna owned 25 years ago, clothes that she adored yet no longer fitted. With her hands moving gently through each treasured item, Anna would lament how time had robbed her of her figure and that this year, she would fit back into her old clothes because then, she would feel better about herself.
This purple suitcase was the harbinger of all things salad and the end to all carbs, meat and, god forbid, something deep-fried even looked at her plate. Anna took her New Year diet to the absolute extreme, and it played havoc with not only her physical and mental well-being but also her relationship.
In Anna’s eyes, if Phil ate something she deemed verboten, he tempted her and, therefore, encouraged her to cheat on her diet.
“So, what did you say?” I asked.
“I told her I love her exactly as she is, and after 25 years, 2 kids and one hell of an abdominal surgery, she should be very proud of her body, not putting herself through this kind of torture. But, you know how she can be.”
I did. Anna, with her lovely middle-aged figure, sweet demeanor, and gentle eyes, was a wonderful friend to my wife and I. However, once she had her mind set on something, she rarely let it go.
In the years past, Anna’s diet had taken a toll on her body. One year, she became very ill; every flu or stomach bug in our zip code found her. If illness didn’t keep her down for weeks, the sheer strain of such a low-calorie diet became too much, and believing she was a failure, she gave up.
This was the hardest part of the process for Phil. He found it heartbreaking to watch his wife berate herself both verbally and with her own inner voice, trying to undo all the years of nurturing and love he had lavished upon her.
Phil struggled to understand why Anna did this. The clothes no longer suited her; the fashion was well and truly past its prime, but to Anna, this was a way to not only regain the feeling she had when she was younger but also her figure, the one that had not yet carried her precious children.
As I got off the phone, I asked myself… Did I see an uptick in fights from January to February? I don’t recall ever putting any thought into this. Still, now I look back, I remember husbands worrying about their wives’ sudden change in eating habits or a wife’s usually sedentary husband now buying fancy running shoes and signing for the delivery of an expensive treadmill.
As a society, we seem to make the change on the first of January. How many people have you heard say, “I better enjoy eating this now because once New Year comes, there will be no more cake for me!”
We are naturally social beings and like to be part of a group, especially if this group is working towards a common goal. Goals are fantastic; however, when you have unrealistic aspirations, such as my friend Anna’s, such ambitions can have teeth.
Striving to reach a goal can be wonderfully motivating, but when the aspiration is entirely out of reach, we can be left feeling despondent, as if we failed and become reluctant to try again. This can also take a toll on our relationship, and we may become irritable with the person we love most.
So, if you are like many people who like the challenge of a New Year’s resolution, remember to be realistic about your goals. Take your age, lifestyle, and work and social commitments into account and ask yourself, “Have I set the goal a little too high for myself?”
I guess I am saying we need to be realistic in our expectations. Be kind to the body we have known all our lives and understand that as we grow older and hopefully a little wiser, we must make accommodations for the physical changes that age brings.
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