The First Day Of The Rest Of My Life

"Different things ... " If I'd told the truth, I would have said, "I'm doing nothing." For the first time since college, I have no work. I've always been overscheduled--writing TV scripts in the bleachers at Little League games--but at 57, I'm at home with no kids and no work. After 24 years and several award nominations, I can't get hired to write for television. In Hollywood jargon, I can't get arrested. At the same time, my partner of seven years takes off with no discussion, and my children, who've occupied my first thoughts on waking and my last before falling asleep, are off at college. As long as they lived with me, I got up at 7 and made pancakes, drove them to school, soccer, music lessons, helped them write papers and carve pumpkins for Halloween. No more. My kids, my lover and my livelihood are being yanked from me at once and there's nothing I can do. When I tell this to a friend, the photographer Peter Simon, he says, "Oh, honey, you've got money problems and no sex. That's not good."

Not good at all. I can't sleep either. I fall asleep but wake at 2 a.m., shaking with fear. What am I supposed to do for the next 30 years? I've raised my kids, written best sellers, had deep love ... Why am I still here?

This was the beginning of a period I later came to call "the narrows," the rough passage to the next part of life. In the narrows, you're in the dark, stripped of what you thought was your identity, and must grapple with questions like: What do you really want to do with the time left? What will make you feel most alive? That your being here has mattered?

I found, after several years of research, that everyone--no matter how much money or achievement you've attained or not attained--must go through the narrows. You may do it in your late 40s, you may not do it till your 70s, but if you don't do it voluntarily, the world or your body will force you to. Maybe your hips or knees wear down, or you can't drink as much and stay out as late without paying. You're compelled to shift gears, and you won't come out unchanged.

Every person goes through the narrows according to character. Those addicted to gloom will see no hope. Those who put a rosy slant on everything will see it as an "opportunity." My way was to assume the fetal position and cry, berating myself for failing at work, failing at love, with my kids--at everything. This is what the Buddhists call the second arrow. The first is the bad thing that happens. The second is what you do to yourself because of the bad thing that happened.

I began looking for contemporaries who were going through some kind of stripping, because I needed to see that people could survive, find a way through. I decided to turn my predicament into research for a book, LEAP! What Will We Do With the Rest of Our Lives. I interviewed icons like Tom Hayden, Dr. Andrew Weil, Ram Dass and Bebe Moore Campbell, along with 150 others from all walks of life.