Middle-aged women in crisis

This month I found myself gravitating to stories about middle-aged women in crisis--or, if you don't like this particular phrasing--middle-aged women at a crossroads in their lives. Either they've gotten divorced or a significant relationship has ended, and they are moving into a scary new reality, an abyss of sorts in which they're completely unanchored.

Under the Tuscan Sun (the movie)

Eat, Pray, Love (the movie based on Elizabeth Gilbert's bestselling memoir)

Confessions of a Forty-Something F**k Up, by Alexandra Potter

In Under the Tuscan Sun, one of my all-time favorite films, successful author Frances (played by the luminous Diane Lane) discovers that her husband is having an affair with a much younger woman, who also happens to be pregnant with their child. Despite the fact that Frances supported her husband financially throughout their marriage, he sues her for alimony and ultimately ends up taking the house that they purchased with her inheritance money from her deceased mother.

Frances moves into a temporary apartment building that is riddled with sad divorcees, which doesn't exactly help to lift her mood. When her best friend Patti and her partner offer Frances a free ticket to Italy, Frances balks at the idea--that is, until Patti serves her with some tough love:

"I think you're in danger of never recovering. . . . You know when you come across one of those empty shell people and you think, What the hell happened to you? Well, there came a time in each of those lives where they were standing at a crossroads . . . someplace where they had to turn left or right. This is no time to be a chicken-shit, Frances!"

Similarly, in the movie Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert's character (played by Julia Roberts) is going through a torturous divorce, so she decides to leave it all behind and go on a voyage around the world. She will eat her way through Italy, pray at an ashram in India, and (spoiler alert!) find love in Bali. In my opinion, this is where the first element of fantasy comes into play: the exotic location. What recently uncoupled person wouldn’t love to be able to purchase an around-the-world ticket or a ticket to Italy and get the hell out of town?? Most of us, however, do not have the financial resources for something like this. Or we have children who would be quite surprised to find out that mom has gotten on a plane and won’t be coming back until her heart has healed.

The second element of fantasy that appears in both of these films is the prize of true love. Yes, both of these women have been through hell, but by the end of the story, they’ve met the loves of their lives. Julia Roberts meets and falls in love with “Felipe,” played by swoony Javier Bardem, and at the very end of Under the Tuscan Sun, a hunky young American writer seeks Frances out at her villa in Tuscany; it’s love at first sight. 

The fact that both of these movies are tied up with a bright red bow at the very end is what makes them problematic for me. I don’t know whether I love them for this reason–wish fulfillment–or whether I hate them for being just “too tidy,” a little too perfect and unlike real life. It is interesting that Elizabeth’s Gilbert’s real-life marriage to “Felipe” (José Nunes) did not have a “happily ever after.” They divorced after she fell in love with her female best friend. (But we’ll leave that story to the tabloids.)

Alexandra Potter’s international bestseller, Confessions of a Forty-Something F**k Up, follows a similar story arc: The main character, Nell, a forty-something Brit, has just broken up with her Californian fiancé, so she returns to London to nurse her wounds. Unfortunately, most of her close friends are now married with children, so she has a hard time relating to them and their seemingly perfect lives, homes, and children. To vent her feelings of frustration and unworthiness, she creates a podcast, 

“the podcast for any woman who wonders how the hell she got here, and why life isn’t quite how she imagined it was going to be. . . . It’s for anyone who has ever looked around at their life and thought this was never part of The Plan. Who has ever felt like they dropped a ball, or missed a boat, and is still desperately trying to figure it all out while everyone around them is making gluten-free brownies” (110). 

Perhaps it’s simply the form of the novel, which allows for greater depth and space, but one thing I loved about Potter’s novel was her ability to fully explore the darker emotions of a character who is not only single in a predominantly coupled world, but also a woman over 40 who is both single and childless. Tough stuff, but Nell maintains a stiff upper lip, keeping her daily gratitude journal and continuing to see the humor in even the worst situations.

Key takeaways: Having the courage to launch oneself into the unknown, having the patience to rebuild, and remaining hopeful that beautiful adventures are still possible.