MAY 2020
I HAVE SOME ADVICE FOR anyone who has the urge to get in touch with someone important in their life, be it a parent, an aunt or uncle, your ex, a friend from the past, a former neighbor or teammate, a teacher or colleague: Do it. Listen to your gut and make the call, send the email, or write the DM. There is no time like today.
Your head is not always rational, but your heart is never wrong.
I say this because I am having trouble getting together with Ed. I am frustrated. It shouldn’t be that difficult for us to see each other since we are in regular communication and frequently check in with each other via text. It started last November when I was in New York promoting Valerie’s Home Cooking. While shopping at the Nintendo store, I FaceTimed with Wolfie to show him all the cool Zelda stuff they had, and on the way outside, I saw the big tree at Rockefeller Center and that made me think of Ed.
I call him and he picks up. I tell him where I am and that I am walking around Midtown Manhattan by myself. The last time the three of us were together in New York was on Van Halen’s 2015 tour. We didn’t spend a lot of time together, but we had fun, and Ed and I reminisce about it even though there isn’t a lot to say.
“I just wanted you to know I was thinking about you,” I say.
“Thanks. Have a good time there for me.”
“I will. Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
Over the next few months, we want to get together but can’t seem to make it work other than when Ed is in the hospital in January. Then I start work on my show, Covid hits, and I am too concerned about bringing the virus into his house and getting him sick even though I repeatedly test negative through the spring. We still text. Mostly mundane stuff. “So what shows are you watching?” he asks one day. I send him a few titles. “Thanks Val. ❤” Or else I just check in, no response necessary. “Thinking of you. Hope you’re having a good day.”
Ed and I split twenty years ago. People are always surprised at how close we have remained. I too sometimes marvel at the affection we still have for each other considering how much we hurt each other years ago. But we grew up and grew past our problems, and parenthood and the love we have always had for each other proved to be stronger and more resilient than anything else. We chose to remain friends and family—and worked at it.
Therapy got us through rough patches, but we always knew we didn’t want to go through life without each other. That included second marriages. When Ed tied the knot with publicist Janie Liszewski in 2009, I sat on the groom’s side. At my wedding to Tom the next year, Ed and Janie were there to toast our I dos. Ironically, both of our marriages are now unraveling. I haven’t told him about Tom and me, and while Ed mentioned that his was likely headed for divorce, I wasn’t comfortable pressing him for details. If I had been more inquisitive, I would have gone to his place more frequently these past few months to drop off meals, watch TV, or simply to keep him company.
It pains me to think he might have been alone or lonely. In the meantime, I couldn’t get past whether bringing him pasta or watching a football game with him would be inappropriate. Now, I think, Really Val? How is calling to ask “How ya doin’?” or “Are you hungry? Can I make you something?” inappropriate? I should have learned my lesson that afternoon in 2018 when Ed and I crossed paths at the studio where Wolfie was rehearsing with his band. I was already there when Ed arrived. He gave me a kiss hello and sat down on a nearby sofa. My heart told me to get up and sit down next to him and put my arm around him, so we could be proud parents together.
Just go do it, I told myself.
But I didn’t budge. Not right away. I was hesitant about overstepping boundaries even if I was the only one who saw them. One could say it was a case of me getting in my own way . . . again. Eventually I did move closer to him, and I was glad I did. Not only did Ed appreciate the company, but also when I asked how he was doing, he had news to share: he said that his cancer had spread to his brain. I stared at him, shocked, feeling myself go numb.
What?
“Yeah,” he said, looking down at the floor, as if he couldn’t believe what a huge bummer had been handed to him yet again.
He went on to explain that he had wrecked his motorcycle on Mulholland Drive and that the subsequent examination had turned up the results. As he shared the details, I noticed that I had draped my arm over his knees. It was something I had done automatically, without any thought, as a way of being close, though when I did notice, I immediately thought, Uh-oh, this is kind of intimate. It was kind of intimate—and perfectly appropriate for the situation.
So was the way I wrapped my arms around him and squeezed as hard as I could, trying to express everything that was so hard at that point: love, strength, and hope.
* * *
My notions about what was appropriate were stupid. There is nothing wrong with letting someone know that you love them. Period.
I was thankful that Ed and I had our moment a year later in George Lopez’s car on Thanksgiving, and I was a little more relaxed about seeing him after that, though I still missed opportunities for us to be together. One text exchange is particularly painful. We were going to get together for Thursday night football. I was going to fix us dinner. But that morning I got a text from Ed suggesting that we postpone.
“Let me go through today’s radiation treatment first because I don’t know how I’m going to feel afterward,” he wrote. “Usually it’s pretty shitty.”
I understood, wished him well, and told him that I hadn’t shopped for any ingredients yet so we could reschedule whenever he was up to it.
Late that afternoon, Ed texted me back to say that the machine had broken down and that he wasn’t able to get the treatment so I could come over to watch the game. Because it was late and I was focused on bringing over dinner but hadn’t gone to the store, I suggested picking another date. I wish I hadn’t made seeing him contingent on dinner and had gone over there and just hung out for an hour. In reality, neither of us cared about dinner as much as we did about the time together. Like so many people, we weren’t able to express it clearly.
Since then, he has continued to provide openings to hang out. He has told me that he’s getting back into football. He has asked what shows I am watching. But for some reason, I keep creating roadblocks, worrying about giving the wrong impression, then beating myself up afterward for overthinking things and ultimately wasting precious time we could spend together.
Story of my life. I turned down job interviews because I didn’t want people to see me at a weight that I considered heavy. I stayed in my bedroom for days and weeks because I thought I was fat. I turned down dinner invitations with friends because I was trying to be good. And I wonder why I am crying out for joy and happiness?
How much time did I waste dieting in an effort to lose ten pounds? Time is something we have no business treating as if it were available in an unlimited supply and will always be there, like a half-used jar of pickle relish on a refrigerator shelf. For me, the waste has always come down to those ten pounds. Losing ten pounds was going to make me happy, prettier, content, finished. It consumed my life. Sometimes it still does. But when I look back at pictures of myself at fifty, at forty, at sixteen—at any age, really—I say to myself, What were you thinking? What a waste of time.
And the problem was never those ten pounds.
* * *
So what do those ten pounds really represent?
Even when I lost those ten pounds, I didn’t treat myself any better. The ten pounds weren’t enough. Which begs the question: What will be enough? How about five hundred pounds? Don’t laugh. Everybody who has measured happiness on a scale should think about this: I’ve been trying to lose ten pounds for forty-some years. I’ve lost and I’ve gained. Sometimes more, sometimes less. At a minimum, though, that adds up to four hundred pounds, and that hasn’t been enough, which is absurd. It’s like a dog chasing its tail. There is no end goal. It’s just a dizzying, exhausting, endless circle.
Because it has never been about the weight. Each time I have talked about wanting or needing to lose those ten pounds, they have represented something else going on in my life, something that’s making me sad, causing me pain, or making me anxious. When I was a teenager, it may have been a party I hoped to get invited to or a school test I wanted to ace. Later, I might have been stressing about something at work—clothes I wanted to wear, a part I wanted to get. When I was married to Ed, it was my anger and insecurity. After losing both of my parents within a three-year span, I gained weight, and instead of addressing my grief and sadness, I focused on the food I was eating and all that I said I couldn’t eat.
And now it’s Ed’s health.
It’s the concern I have for my son.
It’s my own fear of losing someone whose life has been so integral to mine that I can’t imagine being without him.
When I ask myself why I can’t lose weight, what I’m really asking is why can’t I get a grip. Why am I not dealing with what’s really bothering me? Instead, the focus always goes to those ten pounds because that number and the weight itself is something I can target and seemingly control through willpower. If I can change the way I eat, I will lose weight. And if I lose weight, I will feel better. I will be able to get rid of the problem or problems that I’m not actually solving.
But that approach is backward. When you think about how the emotions, stress, worries, and anxieties that we carry around with us can feel like weight, you begin not only to understand what those ten pounds really mean, you can also actually feel them. Losing weight is a way of seeming to manage and control things that seem otherwise unmanageable and uncontrollable. But it doesn’t work. I can’t begin to recall how many times I have told myself that I will feel better about everything if I just lose those ten pounds. It seems so tangible, so doable, so easy. It’s just ten pounds. Who can’t lose ten pounds?
My hand is up.
Here’s the problem. Trying to lose ten pounds or any other number of pounds does not address the real problems, and there is always something else, some other problem, and therefore there are another ten pounds that you or I decide we need to lose. Dieting may help us fit into a smaller pair of jeans, but it won’t help us fit into our life. Trust me. Look at me. I know what I am talking about.
The goal is to live in the moment, not on the scale. Remind yourself that it’s not the weight and that it never has been the weight. It’s not those ten pounds. It’s the problems that are attached to those ten pounds. When I look in the mirror these days, I see someone who is a little heavy, but what I really see is pain and sadness that I haven’t dealt with. I can’t diet those away. I have to work through them, and as I do, I believe there’s a great possibility that the weight will follow.
I tell myself to take a deep breath. Muster the courage to confront the real issues, the pain, the grief, the sadness, the regrets, the fear. Talk about them. Allow yourself to cry. Forgive yourself for any mistakes you have made. Then, do your best to move through them and forward, knowing that this is the only way you will get to a better, healthier, and happier place.
And don’t put it off. The time is today.