Love, Loss, and Limping

Dispatch from the other side of young.

me by me

Before dawn on January 7th, before news of the Palisades fire broke, before we heard 14 people we knew lost their homes, my husband flew to Toronto where he’d be working most of 2025. He would also go to South Africa and Morocco; but that fateful day in Los Angeles, he was in the air and I was on the ground, terrified. I sent him photos of the destruction; his hometown, the city I’ve lived for more than half of my life, in flames.

I’m used to my husband working on location for months at a time, I’ve benefited from it materially and I’ve shared the adventures. Thanks (?) to runaway production, most our marriage — and time as parents — we’ve navigated distance, missing each other, and missing out. We’ve been able to stick to our two week rule: never apart more than two weeks, even if that meant him coming home for a quick weekend when our kids were little.

Our children are now adults, and I’ve been able to visit him for long stretches of time, our marriage and lives are in that next chapter: we’re late into our 50’s, have more money and more freedom to be together. We lived in Budapest most of 2024, creating memories not involving parenting, recapturing the spontaneity of childfree days, flitting about like lovebirds. But for me, this chapter is also filled with an angst I was unprepared for.

The trauma of the Los Angeles fires, a dying democracy, his mother ailing here, mine on the east coast, the biological father I found (and love) in 2018 (after 26 years searching) battling cancer, a stalled screenwriting career, my body hosting autoimmune issues with minds of their own, the mundanity of aging. It’s a lot.

I have more days behind me than I do in front of me and that’s a really weird thing to say.

I’d like to say fewer days ahead makes me live in the present, go with gusto, impart hard-earned wisdom to youngsters. Sure, sometimes. But sometimes, I just feel old and tired, longing for a body and youthful optimism I no longer possess.

In February, I visited my husband in Toronto. I braved epic cold for a week of walking in snow, watching it fall, making love on crisp white hotel sheets. The distance from LA and the USA felt good, a needed respite from so much bleak news. But also, Toronto in February is a beast. I was terrified of slipping on black ice and being knocked over by ferocious winds. I’m 57, broken hips are a thing now.

I’m no longer carded at Trader Joe’s, and the other day a young, handsome, tall, olive skinned doctor asked me if I’m retired. Retired? How the hell did I get from ‘are you single’, to ‘are you retired?’ Oh god, I was so sure growing out my gray was right for me. Fuck.

I planned to visit my husband in South Africa for two-weeks in March. Our kids and I would join him at his swanky Cape Town hotel, take in the sights and safari. But a few weeks before I was to leave, his mom’s health took a turn, then my mom’s, then my biological father’s. Suddenly, South Africa was too far away. Home is where I belonged.

In 29 years of marriage and the insanity of our freelance life, we’ve never been apart for more than 2 weeks. This stretch would be two and a half months. It’s not that I was afraid, it’s that when you’re still completely in love with your husband and he’s your best friend, two months apart — separated by oceans and a ten-hour time difference — is a new, more vulnerable, existence.

Loneliness crept in as I knew it would. Winter’s short days and early darkness allowed for wine-in-bed and Masterpiece Theater to start at 6 (lol, 5:30). But as the days lengthened, as 6 o’clock became vibrant and alive, wine-in-bed starting that early felt pathetic and unhealthy. So, long end-of-day walks began, Wilco —loud and on repeat—like Jeff Tweedy was holding my hand.

Also, for months, I’ve struggled to write. Not just because of…*everything*…but also because the voices of doubt and insecurity, the ones saying I have nothing left to say and even if I did, no one cares, have gotten louder and louder. Too loud for Wilco, too loud to overcome. Stuck in the mud, novel stuck in a drawer, a creative quagmire with no end in sight.

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A few weeks ago, I heard this line on a tv show (probably Hacks or The Studio): a Hollywood type dude said, “She’s a runner and it shows.” I knew exactly who he was talking about — the particular type of LA woman he referenced — because I used to be her.

I used to run 20 miles a week, do pilates, spin, hike hills, do sun salutations daily. But running gave me something nothing else did. It cleared my mind, made me strong, and of course, gave me a runner’s body “that showed.” It also gave me shin splints, tendonitis, tight IT bands, and offed a few toe nails, but I digress.

I longed for a time my body worked at full capacity and my creativity fired on all cylinders; the days when my agent called with the latest offer, days when I could say, “so and so optioned my script,” or “we’re writing an original movie for the Disney Channel.” I longed for the days of pushing my kids on a swing, eucalyptus trees swaying in the breeze at Beeman Park, jogging home with them strapped in side-by-side in our behemoth purple running stroller.

But time and reality don’t care what past I’m looking at, they’re just marching on.

In late April, I visited my 92 year old mom in Florida. She no longer drives, hears only with aides, claims no trouble with balance (my eyes saw otherwise), and her heart and lungs are failing. On my first morning there, I suited up for a walk in her retirement community (think Seinfeld), glanced at her scooter parked in her den next to the oxygen machines. Want to scoot alongside me, I asked. What a great idea! she replied, gleefully.

So off we went, one woman imagining she’s still young, the other, well, operating a scooter. How fast does that thing go? Four miles per hour, she replied, turning the knob to maximum speed. Holy shit, I have to jog to keep up. I loved it, we loved it. I hadn’t run in almost a year, and even then, it could hardly have been called running. But that humid day in the swamp, my feet pounded the pavement, heart rate hiked, sweat dripped. It felt so good, we did it again the next day.

My mom and me

And that is how, a few days later, I found myself in the gym of the Toronto hotel where my husband was staying, running hills on a treadmill like I was Jackie Joyner.

I pounded that rotating belt like it was a time machine stuck in neutral. Admiring the bounce of my ponytail in the mirror, I cranked up the speed and the incline. I was back. And then, thirty two minutes in, a sudden sharp continuous knifing pain grabbed the back of my calf and refused to let go.

That is why, today, I’m in a boot, unable to bear weight on my right foot, awaiting MRI results to determine if those torn tendons in my foot and ankle will heal on their own or require a surgeon’s hand. For fuck’s sake, the time machine was supposed to go backwards, not forwards.

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I love watching my kids hustle. Both left college and chose creative fields that require tenacity and grit; I’m awed by their determination, work ethic, and vision. They are thriving — because and in-spite of our mistakes, because and in-spite of our love and support.

My son’s text came in at 5:50 am. Are you awake, want to go watch the sunrise? (Of course I was awake, I’m a 57 year old post-menopausal woman). He lives a few miles away, had dropped his roommate at the airport closest to my house and invited me to watch the sunrise with him. Heart explosion.

Just yesterday, I was exhausted and scared, changing diapers, hopeful, filled with an inconceivable love and the next day, 24 years later, I was sipping hot coffee in the passenger seat while he navigated the winding bends of Mulholland Drive at dawn. He gently parked on rocky terrain, opened my door, and we stood together, grateful to witness another day begin. There was no past or future, only us and now; our healing city and mother nature showing the way.

The closeness I share with both of my children is the gift of a lifetime, and hopefully, a reminder to moms deep in the trenches that indeed, the days are long, the years are short, and sometimes, the love you give equals the love you get.

When my kids were little and my husband on location, I took great pride in doing the “manly” things around the house myself. Clogged drain? Fixed it. Furniture to be moved? Moved it. Throwing baseballs and softballs? Threw them. I learned to rely on myself and my abilities; despite a marriage with traditional gender roles, I grew beyond them.

So imagine my annoyance when over the past few months, I’ve had to call my son and ask him to come over and help with “manly” things. God help me when the day arrives I need assistance with my computer or tv, I’m already embarrassed about it.

These days, I need my kids for reaching, lifting, carrying, schlepping. I can’t stand it. The refusal to live in the now that tore my tendons and landed me in a boot, fuels my irritation about asking my kids for help. I need them in ways I feel too young, too vibrant for. It’s really a mind fuck, this aging thing, this transitioning (reversing) of roles. Me caring for my mother like she cared for me, my kids caring for me like I cared for them.

I know this is the lifecycle. I know. I’m grateful, but I’m also grieving.

And maybe we don’t talk about the grieving part enough. Not the loved ones who die, but the chapters that end. Perhaps my physical body has softened, as it does for most of us, to remind me lean into the softness, the pounding work of youth is done.

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Because I’m stuck in a boot (there’s definitely an old woman who lived in shoe joke in there), I’m forced to be still and dependent in ways I’m not used to nor comfortable with. But something miraculous has happened. You’re reading some words I wrote. Perhaps I didn’t need to run, I just needed to slow down, and write.