A Numbers Game

I spent the better part of my thirty-fourth year dreading my thirty-fifth. It wasn’t that I expected anything to change. I didn’t see thirty-five as some kind of horrific milestone, though now looking back on it, I think subconsciously I knew I’d reached a realistic half-way point.

What I couldn’t get past was the ugliness of the number itself, the overt roundness of it, the slovenly way it sits on its protuberant bellies as though fully sated and content in its rotundity. For twelve months I avoided, at every opportunity, speaking my age. The image invoked by the words disgusted me.

What makes this behavior remarkable is the fact that I assign no importance to age. I couldn’t tell you the age of my siblings, and it takes an appreciable amount of ciphering to determine my father’s. I know the age of my children, but only because I am expected to recite it with some frequency. If you admit to having children, you are expected to know when you had them. I suppose that’s fair…

For a full twelve months, while in my early forties, I aged myself by one year. As my birthday neared, a friend laughingly pointed this out to me, proving her point by counting backwards from my birth-date. She jokingly held forth my lapse as proof of some kind of mental instability, and her jeering bothered me at first, until I realized that my behavior only proved what I already knew; it really didn’t matter. For years, the question “How old are you?” forced me to think. It just wasn’t a number I carried around in my head.

Until now…

I still hesitate when asked my age, but not because I don’t know the answer. I hesitate because being forty-nine means I’ll soon be fifty, and I don’t want to be.

As my birthday nears, I find myself surrounded by two types of people; those who know, and those who don’t. And, it is those who know who have made it difficult to share with the others. For the first time in my life, people seem to feel it acceptable to pronounce me “old”. And, they do so, loudly, and often.

My father was the first to raise the baton. Months ago, as we chatted on the telephone, he mentioned my upcoming birthday, casually asking “How old will you be?”. He’s in his late seventies; the question didn’t surprise me. This was before I’d learned to hedge, and my answer came quickly.

“Fifty.”

“Fifty?” His voice was loud. “You’re going to be fifty?” This time his volume was accented by an accusatory tone. “Do you know how old that makes me feel…to have a daughter who’s going to be fifty?” He laughed as though he’d told a joke. I struggled to see the levity, while chuckling softly so as not to hurt his feelings.

Since that time, my birthday is never mentioned by anyone who doesn’t feel it perfectly appropriate to point out my longevity. Some appear awestruck; as though living fifty years is an accomplishment worth considerable thought and recognition. Some seem to feel as though my age poses a ticklish predicament. They giggle and point as though I’ve caught my heel in a sidewalk grate. And, of course, there are those whose faces fall in sympathy. I prefer not to know what they are thinking.

A dear friend mentioned my birthday the other day, and immediately asked how old I would be. As we’ve known each other only two years, he had no reason to know. Because he is a man, and younger, I really didn’t want him to.

I vacillated between simply ignoring the question and employing my finest southern accent, reminding him how improper it is to ask a lady her age, sure that in his usual manner he would soon turn the conversation in a different direction. While I hesitated he began to throw out numbers, “Fifty-five? Seventy-six? Fifty-two?”, until I could take no more.

“Fifty.” I said it, again.

“Well, why didn’t you just say so?” His response resounded with authenticity, imbuing me with the courage to explain. He listened quietly until I finished.

“I have to admit that while you were talking I imagined myself fifty…and my heart did a little flip.” That one didn’t even hurt.

Last Saturday, my children and several friends celebrated my birthday by coming to my house for a cook-out. My oldest son manned the grill, and everyone else brought plates and plates of my favorite foods. The broccoli casserole my daughter-in-law made was the best I’d ever tasted, and by the time I discovered the potato casserole my daughter had cooked, I had to scrape the sides of the dish just to get a taste. My delight in their cooking skills was enhanced by the feeling that they belonged to me. I hugged them both, telling them how much I appreciated them. They did me proud…

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Despite my warnings, my daughter insisted I have my favorite cake. The raspberry-filled, white-chocolate cake she produced was perfect. As we admired her creativity, in scattering wine-colored cherry blossoms around the perimeter of the plate, she produced the obligatory package of black and white candles; the kind that usually come with a set of gray, plastic headstones.

“Do you like the Emo candles?”, she asked demurely.

“Where are the matching headstones?”, I countered.

“I said they were Emo, Mama.”, she answered with quiet forcefulness. “I’m being sweet.”

I meant to mark this day. Had all gone according to plan, I’d be wearing a jacket against an early chill as I clicked down a neon-lit sidewalk in Times Square. We’d be on our way to dinner, fashionably late of course, in a restaurant requiring reservations be made months in advance. Tomorrow would have been our final day in New York City. Our visit to the fashion district would be a wonderful memory as I laced my sneakers for one last run through Central Park.

As it is, I accept the blessing of over-time with a company hedging its bets against a fragile economy. I’m schlepping my son to football practice, and I’m writing. My gift to myself is my writing. I will document my half-century in words, and feelings, and words, and epiphanies, and words.

Happy Birthday to me…

Knowing

You know I want to…

but I can’t.

The time is wrong;

the air is thick,

with things we say,

and things we don’t say,

and feelings we promise not to feel…

today.

Because, yesterday won’t go away.

Reading Backwards

“Right now, I’m not paying an awful lot of attention to what anyone thinks of me, myself included. I find myself in a state of flux, kind of like I’m trying on new dresses to see which one fits me best. Some I take off right away, and some I wear a few days before trying on something new. I’m having fun, I’m being true to me, and I’m actually looking forward to how I turn out… “

I read this last night as I sifted through over fourteen-hundred posts I have contributed to a social networking site directed at baby-boomers. I can’t remember exactly when I wrote it. I should have included dates when I archived.

The site is closing, and upon a suggestion from one of the administrators, and encouragement from others to do so, I spent several hours this past weekend reading, and saving, and reading, and discarding, and reading, and saving some more.

The quote given is just one among many, that when strung together, actually form a journal I never intended to keep. And, in reading, I learned a lot about me…

The words I wrote were true, at the moment. Life robbed them of their veracity, even if the change is only one of nuance.

For example, it remains true that I care little what others think of me, but the pendulum controlling my “state of flux” seems permanently affixed to one side. I’ve discarded all but the most comfortable of dresses, and my ideas of “fun”, and “me”, have changed so much as to be unrecognizable. All of this became apparent on Day One.

By Day Two, I had slogged through nearly one-half of my posts, and a picture began to emerge. I began to recognize a person I really liked, but had somehow lost inside what is now a well-worn, comfortably baggy dress. Reading, at this point, became uncomfortable, as I not only realized what I had sacrificed, but why. It’s never easy to accept folly in our choices. It’s even harder when you think you have overcome, only to realize that you mistook stagnation for success.

I finished yesterday. As the monitor went dark, I walked away smiling. I intend to use much of the content here, in my blog. But, the most important parts I’ll keep for me.

This morning, I changed my dress…

Lost In Transition

Sometimes…

it takes returning to where you were,

to remember

who you are.

No!

I am given to excess…

Once, when I was fairly young, maybe eleven or twelve, I ate enough chocolate to elicit an allergic reaction. Details of the event are lost in a blessedly selective memory. I know my mother had spent the better part of an afternoon baking what I remember to be cupcakes for someone’s birthday or a school party, or some such. I know she was called away by the telephone, probably to run her leg of a car-pool. And, while she was away I ate. Upon her return, we met each other red-faced; she from anger, while hives competed with embarrassment upon mine. I’m sure she was angry that I had wasted her efforts, but the subject of her tirade focused more on the effect than the cause.

Much later, I worked with a friend who took prescription diet pills, which she generously parsed among her closest friends. Solid food didn’t pass my lips for a solid week. There simply wasn’t any time as I had never perfected the art of eating while smoking, and smoking was really all I was interested in doing. Well, smoking and talking. I talked a lot that week. Understandably, our supply dwindled quickly, forcing us both to go cold turkey. After two days spent sleeping, when I wasn’t standing in front of the refrigerator, I called to tell her my speed-freak days were over.

I never suffered from morning sickness when pregnant. I was sick all day, particularly with my first child. The only food I could stomach was green grapes. Looking back on it, I’m sure this had something to do with the fact that grapes have no odor. You see, it wasn’t so much the sight of food as the smell of it that set my stomach to churning. Most nights, I met my husband at the door. As he fought to free his backpack from an over-ambitious screened door, I took the large, shrink-wrapped package of grapes from his over-burdened hand, consuming most of them before he emerged from the shower.

By my third pregnancy, I had learned to use vitamins and minerals to conquer my nausea, allowing me to eat as I liked. I was pregnant, after all. I was eating for two! Pringles had just introduced a new flavor, cheddar cheese, and after stowing the rest of the groceries away, I settled our girth onto a sagging couch cushion in front of one of my mother’s soap operas, and began to crunch. Immersed as I was in the drama of beautiful people saving the lives of others while seemingly incapable of solving the riddles of their own, I reacted with horror when my fingers were met by the hard, cold, metallic bottom of an empty Pringles can. Hours later, as I pressed my fevered cheek against the putrid coolness of bathroom tile, I silently vowed to never touch another Pringle’s potato chip as long as I lived. And, I never have…

At last count I own over one-hundred pairs of shoes, and those are just the ones I wear in summer. Untallied, the winter shoes were packed away.

Two drawers of my dresser are filled with frilly, feminine, lounge-wear, and yet, I almost always pull an over-sized, well-worn tee-shirt over my head after a bath.

It occurred to me today, that I have fallen under the spell of excess, yet again.

One of the best things about being a “woman of a certain age” is the freedom inherent in the experience we carry on our faces, in our hearts, and on our minds. I read recently that many women first learn to use the word “no”, comfortably, after the age of forty. I can relate to that. I never failed to speak a “no”, but I have spent a considerable amount of time wondering at the wisdom of the word. Time has taught me that most “no’s” are of little, or no, consequence.

And yet, I find myself reveling in the opportunity. I don’t wear make-up, because I don’t have to. I spend little or no time choosing my clothing because it really doesn’t matter. The tiny voice inside my head, who longs to see musculature ripple underneath my increasingly crepey skin, speaks loudest first thing in the morning. Rush and routine quiet her. And my diet remains relatively sensible until lunchtime, when a co-worker routinely waves warm tortillas in front of my face. I admit it…I’m a sucker for fresh salsa.

Many minutes of every day are given over to self-deprecation, to no avail.

On my way home, when much of my very best thinking is done amidst a multitude of carbon footprints, I realized I have taken saying “no” to a new level. “No!”, I don’t care to smear false skin-tone upon my sun-kissed face. “No!”, I really don’t care to spend precious minutes, otherwise spent sleeping, standing in front of a closet filled with the same clothes that hung there the day before. “No!”, I will start a new work-out program tomorrow. And, “No!”, I really don’t want the “Lean Cuisine” I deposited in the break-room freezer this morning.

Mid-life has turned me into a recalcitrant child. The music that inspired the dance I’ve danced since childhood has ceased, only to be replaced by a cacophonic, rebel yell inspired by the word “No!”.

I really can’t abide bratty children…

Pieces of Me

I live in a 70’s era brick ranch which was built in a time when closets and bathrooms were allowed the same amount of square footage, and neither is generous. The only extra closet in the house is filled, year-round, with suit jackets and winter coats which won’t bear folding into plastic storage bins. So twice a year, once in spring and again in the fall, I make the climb up complaining, collapsible stairs, into my attic to retrieve our stored clothes.

“Changing out the closets”, as I’ve come to refer to this laborious task, is not a chore I enjoy, which serves to explain why I’ve worn the same two pairs of sandals for the better part of the last two weeks. But, as April wanes into May, spring has taken hold with plans to hang around for at least a couple of weeks before summer begins, in earnest. I’ve spent two full days in my shirt sleeves, with no need for a jacket or shawl of any kind. The time has come. It’s a solitary task, affording lots of time to think, and lots of open space for memories to fill.

This year I am especially surprised by the number of shirts I possess that carry the University of Florida logo. I have one fleece vest, three sweatshirts, three long sleeved tees, two baseball jerseys, and countless t-shirts. Over the years, Roger has expressed his relief in the knowledge that when his imagination fails him, he can always go to the sporting goods store to buy my gift. Perhaps I should help him with more hints.

I wavered this year over whether or not to keep the brown suede skirt. It’s cut on the bias, western style, and the one time I wore it I felt a little like Annie Oakley. The only acceptable shoe to wear with this skirt is, of course, a western boot. Fortunately, I own three pairs. Unfortunately, the skirt doesn’t quite meet the boots and I find that swath of skin, hosed or not, unsightly. But, it’s a great skirt. I’m keeping it.

I bought a pair of boots last year on Ebay. They were fawn colored, high-heeled, and designed by Tommy Hilfiger. When they arrived, I found the heel to be just a little higher than I’d imagined, but they were beautiful. I wore them this winter to a lunch date with my father. As the host beaconed me follow him to the corner where I saw my father sitting, I surveyed the twenty feet of uneven stone flooring and prayed I wouldn’t land in a heap at someone’s feet. Each step felt like I was walking on tip-toe on a very slick surface. At the time, I made a mental note to wear them more often to accustom my feet while scuffing the slick off the bottoms. I didn’t. But, I might next year.

A red and white sailor’s top went directly from bin to the charity pile. My sailor girl days are long over…

I removed a gauzy black jacket from the hanger while admiring it, yet again. It is one of my favorite pieces of clothing. Sheer black nylon is accented by the pinks and greens of hand painted flowers on splotches of black velvet. Beads of differing sizes hang from the hem, continuing up both sides and around the neck. I realized today that, at first glance, one might think it a piano shawl. Loath to knowingly perch upon glass beads, I have worn the jacket very little. Perhaps with some alterations, I might find a place to drape it.

When I ordered the black and gold, ruffled blouse, I had no idea it was constructed of netting. It has ridden the rail in my closet for almost a year. I can’t imagine wearing it anywhere other than a dark bar. I can’t imagine myself in a dark bar.

I kept the blue turtleneck, though I haven’t worn it in several years. I don’t like the feeling of anything against my neck. But blue is one of Shane’s team colors, and some of those football games are played in frigid weather. I might wear it underneath something else…

It saddened me to find my blue and pink, argyle sweater. I bought it new in the fall, and wore it just once before it got lost amidst the racks. It really is cute. I wish I’d worn it more. There’s always next year…

And, that’s when the thought popped into my head, “What if this is the last time you pack these clothes? What if the next time this bin is opened by someone else who won’t appreciate the style in your gray patent lace-up pumps, or the cuteness of your sweaters? What if the next person who opens this bin just sees you, the memory of you?”

I allowed myself just a moment of sadness, more for the person left to collect my effects than for me, and then just one more, one more moment to lament my loss; the loss of invincibility. Life, now, is finite. The end, whether it be ten, twenty, or even fifty years away is as real as the breath I’m breathing right now. For the rest of the day I’ll be looking for a place to store that.

Missed Opportunities

“Oh, you know how he is…”

And, I do. I do know how he is.

The difference, now, is that I also know how he could be.

And, I think he should be.

Service Sector Sagacity

Our trip was unexpected, unplanned, and unbudgeted, which helps to explain my presence in the drive-thru line at McDonald’s at 11:47 a.m. We rolled to a stop in front of a daunting menu of gastronomic atrocities too crowded to read. I allowed my eleven-year-old to order for both of us.

“Please drive around to the first window.”

A heavy-set girl with long brown hair manned the register, behind a small glass door that seemingly opened and closed of its own accord. I hit the mute button on the stereo as she logged another order. She turned in our direction, and the door opened as she extended her hand, palm up. I laid several bills inside with a smile that went unnoticed as she stashed them before collecting my change while focusing, intently, on the LED display of the register. Her left hand extended again, dropping my change while her right hand hit a button on her head set, and I rolled to the second window.

A hundred miles or so later, my cup was empty, but my bladder wasn’t. I searched large, green, roadside signs for another iconic fast-food restaurant that would offer relief for both. As I rolled into the Krystal’s parking lot, my son sat forward on his seat.

“Are we going to eat again?” Shane’s voice sounded exactly like you would expect it to sound, given his usual diet of whole grains, fish, and fruit.

“No, honey. Just the bathroom and a drink!”

As I entered the bathroom, I was accosted by an odor that said “Turn back!” in a deep, unnerving voice. Shaking it off, I pushed open the painted metal door, expecting the worst. I considered myself lucky in not uncovering the source of the odor and attended to the matter at hand, post-haste. I rinsed my hands hurriedly, and opened the door with my elbow. Shane was waiting outside.

The counter was clear of customers, allowing us to stand, unimpeded, in front of the register. A large woman, whose hairstyle must have cost at least a day’s pay, approached from the back of the restaurant throwing one hand in the direction of another woman as her eyes glazed mine.

“You got customers.”, she said as she walked by, carrying a sheaf of paper cups.

The woman she addressed stood at the other end of the counter, bent at the middle, her face just inches above a laminated paper.

“You really got her worried ‘bout that schedule!”, the female voice came, complete with laughter, from the grill area.

A painfully thin, uniformed young man approached from the dining area.

“Whatchew doin’?” He mimicked her posture so that their visored heads met.

Shane and I stood with necks arched; studying a menu we had no intention of ordering from, until a man wearing a white shirt that said “I Am The Manager” approached, carrying a bundle of bags.

“Can I take your order?” I was relieved to hear self-consciousness in his voice.

Sunlight did nothing to enhance the pallor present on my friend’s skin as we sat around her picnic table. We sipped, and laughed, and talked, and laughed. The telephone rang, and she answered it. I made my decision while she assured our friend I had made the trip safely.

As she pressed “End”, I eased myself off the weathered, wooden bench.

“We’re going to get a room.”

She argued despite my tone of finality.

“It’s just two miles away….” I ended the conversation.

I hit the button, locking my son safely inside the car before walking towards the lobby. A blonde woman who hadn’t yet accepted the reality of her morbidity manned the desk.

Her expression never changed as she managed, “You want a room?”

I leaned both arms on the desk as she typed, wondering if she knew that the boxed-blonde curtain hanging down either side of her haggard face failed to hide the collection of chins the years had provided her.

Tiny cowbells rang, and we both turned. Shane entered, mute. He approached a display of brochures while I felt validation.

“How old is the child?”

“Eleven.”

Several minutes and colorful invectives later, I tapped Shane’s shoulder and left with credit card-shaped “keys”.

“Mom?” I pulled my sweatshirt closed as we walked against a cool breeze.

“Yes.” Shane hurried to catch up to my stride.

“Aren’t there a lot of people looking for jobs?”

“Yes.”, I answered, not sure where he was going.

“Then why does everybody act like they hate their job? Don’t they know they’re lucky to have one?”

From the mouths of babes…

Skin Deep

“What was that?” Hallie’s voice, bristling with indignation, scraped along my ear canal.

“What was what?” Most of our conversations start somewhere in the middle, and usually, I can pick up the thread. This time I had no clue.

“That picture!” Horror replaced indignation, quickly melting into dismay. “I don’t know what you were thinking. You are so photogenic! There are so many good pictures of you!”

I let the inaccuracies in her statement lie, in an effort to discern the source of her distress.

“Honey? I don’t know what you’re talking about. What picture?”

“On the blog! That horrible picture on the blog!”

“Oh, you mean the one in the bathrobe?”

“No! There was no bathrobe! Just your face; your tired, haggard, sick looking face! Why would you do that, honey?”

“You must be talking about the one in the bathrobe. I took it as a favor to a friend. It fit where I placed it in the blog.” My voice reflected the fatigue I felt at having to explain, yet again, why I had taken the picture.

“No! There is no bathrobe!”

“Ok, do you mean the one at the beginning? The one where the little boy is shaking his fist?” I struggled to remember the boy’s face. Could he have resembled me?

“No! There is no little boy, and no bathrobe; just you, looking tired and hurt and ready to die!”

The conversation ended with my friend promising to send me a copy of the offending photo, and it was as I had thought, my early morning picture.

Later that evening, another friend shared his opinion. Where she saw tired and haggard, he saw quiet and pensive. Instead of current illness, he saw tempered strength brought about by obvious wounds. He liked the picture, he said, because he felt it a true reflection.

For a time, I was struck by this difference of opinion between two people who know me as well as anyone, until I realized they both saw the same thing. The difference was acceptance.

Hallie’s view mirrored my own. I am seldom satisfied with a photograph of myself. On a recent occasion in which I was called upon to provide a current photo, I took fifty shots before settling on one I felt was passable. I can always find something wrong. My eyes don’t look right. The lines around my mouth are too obvious. My hair isn’t messy enough.

But it’s really not about physical appearance. It’s about vulnerability. It’s about being stripped down, and allowing the real to show.

The eyes don’t look right because they are sad. The lines around the mouth tend to drift unflatteringly, and messy hair provides a pleasant distraction from the rawness of a well-traveled face. And, all of this is difficult to show and unpleasant to see.

The friend who saw sick and tired, knew the pain first-hand, and couldn’t bear being reminded. The friend who saw quiet and pensive, viewed with accuracy, from a distance.

And, both are right.

Everything…

I left home at age twenty with a nursing degree I never really wanted and no sense of direction. This helps explain why, by the age of twenty-one, I was married and pregnant. Nine years later, my daily routine began with dropping all three of my children at school on my way to work in a midwifery clinic. This is where I met Zan.

Some may call it “luck”, or “fate”; others might invoke “kismet”. But I know that the universe provides, and throughout my life, I have been fortunate to have been blessed by people Zan would refer to as “guides”.

Zan is Native American, and she looks the part. Tall, and lithe, she wore her black hair long and flowing until it got in her way, at which point she clipped it, haphazardly, atop her head. She came to work as a midwife one year after I was hired as office manager, and fortunately, my world has never been the same.

At the time we met, my life was a mess. My marriage to an alcoholic, drug-addicted, philanderer was nearing an end. Listening to Zan’s dulcet-toned words of support and encouragement, I came to believe that I could raise my children in a healthy environment on my own. Later, it was through her suggestion that I found an Adult Children of Alcoholics’ meeting, where I realized it wasn’t just me; there were others like me who had taken what life had served up, and done the best they could with the little they had been given.

When she wasn’t occupied with turning my life right-side-up, Zan taught me about Native American culture, herbology, and bred in me a love for wolves. She introduced me to Bonnie Raitt, fried bread, and the art of healing massage. Most important though, as she taught me to love myself, she demonstrated how that love could, and should, be spread. Zan grew me up.

She returned to her beloved horse farm in Virginia about fifteen years ago, and it has probably been five since I’ve seen her, but if she called right now, we would pick up exactly where we left off. Zan would start by saying “Hello, Beautiful…”

Some may call it “midlife crisis”, or “menopause”; others might just call me “crazy”. But I know that, lately, I’ve gotten off track. The self-esteem I worked so hard to bring to fruition got trampled somewhere, and I forgot to notice. Lost, too, was my sense of direction. But I remembered today that the universe provides, and while I haven’t always gotten what I wanted, I am always provided with what I need.

I realized the presence of another “guide” who, through words of support and encouragement, demanded I be true to myself, while tenaciously prodding me to find my path. For the first time in a very long time, I not only know what I want, I believe I can have it. Simply put, I want everything….

“I want to learn what life is for
I don’t want much, I just want more
Ask what I want and I will sing
I want everything (everything)

I’d cure the cold and the traffic jam
If there were floods, I’d give a dam
I’d never sleep, I’d only sing
Let me do everything (everything)

I’d like to plan a city, play the cello
Play at Monte Carlo, play Othello
Move into the White House, paint it yellow
Speak Portuguese and Dutch
And if it’s not too much
I’d like to have the perfect twin
One who’d go out as I came in
I’ve got to grab the big brass ring
So I’ll have everything (everything)

I’m like a child who’s set free
At the fun fair
Every ride invites me
And it’s unfair
Saying that I only
Get my one share
Doesn’t seem just
I could live as I must
If they’d
Give me the time to turn a tide
Give me the truth if once I lied
Give me the man who’s gonna bring
More of everything
Then I’ll have everything
Everything”