My “Being There” Moment

Know first that I am not a likely candidate for membership in a governing elite or any other kind of elite. I grew up in southern Louisiana, far closer to thousands of nutria than to DC politicos. I was an escaped swamp rat who ended up in the Washington, DC, area, more or less by chance.

It was sometime late in the last century. I was young—29, working as a publications manager for a small but well-known federal government agency. I was single.

I had been going to the gym regularly for a few years but was frustrated that I had not gained a single pound. I was slim, relatively–150 pounds. One day, I asked a guy who worked there, “I come here three times a week, but I haven’t gained a single pound in two years. What am I doing wrong?”

A look of deep recognition flashed across his face. “What you need,” he said, “is free weights.” He explained what they were, showed me where they were (mostly, in a different room), and walked me through the process.

“You’re gonna want to take some kind of weight-gain formula, something with creatine in it. I like this stuff,” he said, showing me a gallon-size plastic tub of something from Joe Weider, “but any brand should do. You want to work out at least three times a week, alternating areas, so your body has time to heal: Mondays, chest & triceps; Wednesday, back & biceps; Friday, shoulders & legs.”

That week, I entered a whole new world. I decided that for my 30th birthday present I would give myself a Whole New Body. I worked diligently at it, doing as he advised, eating a lot more protein than I ever had before, and taking my creatine supplement powder every day. (It actually tasted really good–probably had a bunch of added sugar in it.)

Come my 30th birthday plus a few months, I had gained 25 pounds, most (but not all) of it, muscle. I had never looked like that before. My dress shirts felt strange, because my new biceps were constricted by the fabric. I felt like a mini-Hercules, capable of say, bending a small piece of metal, if needed, for some random purpose, even when not at the gym.

With a small group of close friends, I had watched the 1990 movie, Metropolitan, about a group of earnest upper-class young people in Manhattan on the cusp of entering a world of high-stepping culture. One character bemoaned that he might somehow fail and lose his status as a privileged-class debutant; another had purchased his own, personal tuxedo, instead of renting them for so many gala events, over and over, claiming that it made more sense financially to do so.

Eyes entranced by the screen, I decided that I, too, would purchase my own tuxedo (for several hundred 1990s dollars), even though I rarely went to formal events... I wanted IN!

I had dated some, mostly women I’d met at a literary event space called, “The Writer’s Center” in Bethesda, where I met the woman who I thought would someday be my wife. I had oddly ended up bringing her along to a party at the home of a cool, very tall comedienne who seemed interested in me.

Later, I attended a holiday gala, and of course, wore my self-issued tuxedo. It was Christmastime, with the lights, and the brisk, cool air, and the celebratory gowns ‘n whatnot. I happened to see my comedienne acquaintance there, along with one of her housemates, a guy around my age.

She introduced us. Taken with the atmosphere, dressed to-the-nines, and in the best physical condition of my life, instead of, “Nice to meet you,” I said to him, in my best Metropolitan accent, “How do you do?” The look on his face was that of aristocrat awe—of someone who had just encountered a Very Famous or a Very Rich person for the first time. Standard party chit-chat ensued, but never did the topic turn to anything that would cast doubt on my patrician “How do you do?”

Weeks passed. I would occasionally visit my friend’s house and happen upon this fellow, and he always behaved as if a Rockefeller-Kennedy-Albert-Schweitzer had just shown up at their shared house.

I never corrected him. I locked away his apparent awe in the selfish compartment of my heart that I knew I could visit periodically to enjoy an aristocracy that I never belonged to, a wealth that I had never earned or been born into, and the esteem that I clearly did not deserve.

No harm was done, I assured myself.

I’ve long since donated that tuxedo to charity, along with dozens of suits and pants whose size I will never likely fit again, such have the adipose layers accumulated in the fatness of time. I lost touch with my comedienne friend, and I suffered a painful, life-changing breakup with the woman whom I had brought with me to that first party. Friends moved on, paired off, relocated far away, and life did what it does to one as one’s thirties surrender to one’s forties and beyond.

I never experienced the Metropolitan life that I pretended to be a part of that December night, but I did live the actual life that I lived, and that, always, is what we take with us.