Note to Self: You for Real?

The hardest part about starting a new life–new work, new friends, new everything–is wondering, every day:  What the hell  am I doing?

Then I say to myself, It’s only been a year. Give it time. Now shut up, put on your sunglasses. This is L.A. and you’re indoors.

OOOOOKAAAY!  I am a resident of Beverly Hills! A juice lady! A health blogger! A public storyteller! This may sound pretty cool, but let me give you the real story. With a story.

SO, I’m at a meeting with my new boss at her gorgeous enormous house: Cathedral ceilings. Beautiful art everywhere, swimming pool in back. The company’s PR team is there.  Everyone is wearing sunglasses. I’m older. Than everyone. Including my boss. No one, including me, knows what I’m doing there.

There’s some animosity in the air; I have no idea what it’s about, and assume it’s got something to do with me. The egoism and paranoia of starting over: I don’t know what I’m doing and everyone is onto my fraudulence. Having had a quick tutoring session with friend Natasha, I try  saying things like “competitive branding” and “price points,” but they come out sounding like “comparing bandaids” and “spice pants.”

When the discussion turns to the subject of blogs for the juice store, everyone is bandying about phrases like “lifestyle rejuvenation,” and “detoxification days.” The words “fresh,” “inspiration,” and “soothing” are repeated over and over.

A year and a half ago, I was saying and writing things like “the author’s codification of consumerism belies his post-modern hermeneutics,” and writing in the margins of essays, “What do you mean by ‘lifestyle’? This is a  lazy, useless word.” (You know you need to leave teaching when your grading comments verge on personal attack.)

The climax of the hour-long meeting in my boss’s shimmering and organic kitchen occurs after I’ve slugged down some kale and lemon juice, and my stomach is making the sounds of an organ going through lifestyle rejuvenation.

“Radiance,” my boss says, “Jenna is about Radiance. Living Radiantly.” Jenna is the other blogger. She’s fifteen years younger than I and she is–if you didn’t guess–radiant. She covers specific tops in her blog. I cover others, like wrinkle treatment,  and “food for menopause.”

“And Kirsten. . .” my boss begins as my intestines spasm. “Kirsten is about. . .”

“AGING!” I burst out in an unpleasant guffaw. I don’t know if I am bragging or complaining, but my tone bristles with the venom of a Kipling scholar surrounded by Post-Colonialists.

There are a few polite laughs, and I look at the youngest members of the PR team thinking, A few years ago I’d have been standing at the head of the classroom discussing ambiguity in the conclusion to The Sun Also Rises. And you’d be slouching in your chairs, taking notes.

Who. Am. I? Is my story about embracing a new life with hard-earned humor and a bit of grace, or is this the narrative of a woman shaking in her (Armani knock-off) boots, a frightened and resentful outsider?

Yesterday I was handing out samples of juice at Kyle’s on Brighton Ave. That’s the clothing store owned by Kyle Real Beverly Hills Housewife. I realized that I really really wanted my picture taken with her. Who Am. I?

Aren’t you impressed, Dear Reader? Don’t worry,  I don’t  actually take too much of this stuff about fashion and youth culture seriously. My mother raised me right; I’m pretty sure Audrey is laughing in her grave, sympathetic to  the ambiguity of this stage of my life.

In the conclusion of The Sun Also Rises, Jake responds to Bret’s delusions of romantic grandeur with a curt, “Wouldn’t it be pretty to think so?” This is Jake’s way of saying “Don’t be a horse’s ass.”  While I might long for the seeming glamour and radiance of Beverly Hills, I know who I am.

I am someone in transition. And I like role play.

(This is not as interesting as you might think: just a 30-second photo moment with a stranger on Halloween.)  Maybe what I  am is this: someone who likes to role play someone who likes to role play.

I don’t know exactly what the hell I’m doing, but I do know I gotta do it. Like aging, certain things are inevitable. And, as with radiance–there is more than one way to glow.

Please share with me, Dear Reader, a time when you took a while to figure out what you were doing–a life stage that was bewildering/frightening/rewarding?