The Grass is Always Greener

    The Grass Is Always Greener

Suzanne Marsh

“The grass is always green on the other side of the fence.” How many times have I heard that expression over the years? I never really thought about the “green eyed” monster when I was younger. Then middle age began to hit home. I began to gain weight. The gray hair was beginning to streak the dark brown hair. I looked in a mirror one day and wondered who was that in the mirror? It can’t be me! It was me; no doubt about that. I began looking at pictures of models and wondering where my hour glass figure had gone. I remember back in the day a girl’s figure was everything...including a flat chest. I began to wonder if the creams for wrinkles would work; that seemed to be a good place to start. I purchased jars upon jars of creams for the face. Several weeks and four jars of cream later; I still had the same face...damn!

No woman is happy with what she has; she wants to be either a Twiggy, or Gina Lollobrigida okay so now I am dating myself. I went from Twiggy to a full figured woman before my very eyes. I looked in mirror and groaned: “oh no, my thighs are getting bigger, my belly is not flat any longer and I can barely see my feet.” Time to exercise. I went to a gym near us and began to do that horrible exercise that I had dread since early adulthood. The young woman that designed the routine was not ready for a flabby, chubby woman with no will power. One part of the floor exercise was an ordeal I think we would both like to forget. The exercise was a stretching one with a rope. Then came the push ups. The rope stretching was bad enough but the push ups almost did both of us in. I just could not get my butt off the ground. I pushed upward and came right back down flat. After several attempts we both decided this was simply not going to work. The tread mill proved safer for both of us.

This was about the time the “green eyed monster” within me began to stir. There was a woman about my age, or so I thought, with muscles galore, the boobs of Jayne Mansfield and the figure of Marilyn Monroe. I almost fainted as I stared: how could she look so great and here I was my short flabby middle aged housewife; what was wrong with this scenario? I went home from the gym and began to work out on my tread mill. Then I discovered “wall” push ups; these were great at least when I pushed from the wall my butt came with me! I figured a few weeks and I would look like that other woman. The green eyed monster had no idea how mistaken she was. Once again at the gym I watched her do a floor routine, why was she so flexible, I wondered. I decided to talk to her, see if I could discover her secrets. Her name was Alice she said. She had been working on that body for most of her adult life, she was forty five and looked twenty five. She told me to change my diet.

Changing my diet was a challenge and definitely not for the feint of heart. I went home, flopped down on the couch and ate an entire pizza. I thought it would be easier if I eat the foods that I was not supposed to, to get them out of my sight. I just did not realize that food would add an extra five pounds before I could even begin to take off weight. I was not the best beginning. I went shopping and bought celery and carrots, for munching. I bought chicken and fish. I always enjoyed meals with chicken but I hate fish. Fish is fishy, the kitchen smells horrible. My list about fish is long and varied. I was determined however that I was going to lose weight, gain my figure back. There is also the “sweet tooth” factor. I love cakes, pies, cookies and fudge. I was in the midst of making cookies when my husband came home:

“I smell cookies, I thought you were on a diet.”

“Oh, I am. The diet I am following says I can have two cookies per day.”

“How many have you had?”

“Oh, I guess about four or five.”

So much for my diet; I was right back to envying those young women in string bikinis with figures that won’t quit; comparing myself to them just depressed me more. I wanted my youthful figure back; my husband kept saying:

“honey it is only a number”

“yes but my number is bigger than yours.”

So much for male logic. Female logic said I wanted to return to the days when I could where a size three now I was lucky if I could fit into a size 12. I suppose three children and a mortgage had a lot to do with it. Time does eventually takes its toll on a human body. I wanted simply what I could not have.

The extremes that I went were almost comical. I bought a string bikini; my husband thought he was in the wrong house...the flabby thighs were bad enough but the butt hanging out of the bikini was just to much for him to grasp. He laughed so hard he had tears in his eyes. My middle daughter came home to find her Dad rolling on the floor in a fit of laughter and her Mom dressed in a string bikini:

“what is going on here?”

“Mom, why is Dad rolling around on the floor, the bikini can’t be that funny.”

“oh yes it can. I look like a beached whale.”

That was to much for her; the next thing I knew she was on the floor in a fit of hilarity. I assumed it was back on the lemon diet for me.

I did survive middle age, at seventy two I guess that says something, although I still would like to fit into a string bikini! No the grass is not green on the other side of the fence...that was difficult lesson to learn but I did.