Part 4

Too Old for a Mid-Life Crisis; Too Young for Medicare

Part IV

While getting my teeth cleaned, I was talking to my dental hygienist, Betsy, about how my hunt for the perfect hobby with my hubby went.

“I don’t think husbands and wives are meant to play together,” I sighed. “All the way home he just muttered something about never being able to play golf again.”

“You’re going about it all wrong,” Betsy said.

“What do you mean? I’ve tried turning myself inside out to achieve my nirvana. I bought a mantra from an old hippy. I even played ‘Donna Reed’ for a week. What else is there?”

Betsy reached into her cavernous bag and pulled out a book.

“Not another self-help book!” I was skeptical.

“This one is different,” Betsy insisted.

Picking it up, I read the cover. ‘Satisfy Me, Satisfy You’ by Dr. Laura Graham. I opened it up and read the blurb.

‘Are you tired of pleasing everyone but yourself?’ Uh huh, I thought.

‘Are you tired of feeling guilty because your kids are taking PB&J sandwiches to school for lunch while their friends are eating cheeseburgers?’

“It’s like she knows me personally!” I exclaimed.

“I know,” Betsy said. “It’ll change your life!”

That afternoon, I curled up in my favorite chair and proceeded to read how Dr. Graham could help me.

‘To achieve inner peace, it read, you must stop being a doormat.’

I can do that! I was resolved.

From now on, no more baking cookies at ten o’clock at night because our daughter Buffy forgot she’d promised her teacher four dozen chocolate chip cookies for a class trip the next morning!

No more running around like a mad woman in the rain because our son Biff forgot his homework on the dining room table that I’d stayed up till midnight doing (er, helping)!

No more having a pot roast dinner ready on an hour’s notice for a party of eight my husband Derek failed to tell me he’d invited his co-workers to.

NO! From now on, I’ll just be pleasing me, Sandy, right after I mend Buffy’s hem on the skirt she needs tomorrow for a class field trip; wash the grass stains out of Biff’s football pants (How can a boy get grass stains on pants that have never left the bench?), and pick up Derek’s suit from the cleaners. Yep, I’m gonna start . . . tomorrow!

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