5 Lessons Learned From My 3-Year-Old Self

Just yesterday,it seems, I was three, toddling around my grandparents’ property in Idaho; following my grandfather everywhere and chasing the neighbors chickens from across the road. These were happy, carefree days. I was surrounded by people I loved, in a location I loved, doing the things I loved, whatever that is at three, and nothing in my world was amiss. I looked forward to each moment. In fact, I was too busy enjoying each moment I had no concern for the next. My old mind now recalls those happy times as the endless days of summer. There were no rainy days both literally and figuratively.

Fast forward 50 years and the landscape dramatically shifts. I’m no longer three, no longer quite so carefree. My free-spirited happy-go-lucky three-year-old self morphed into a middle-aged woman with worries. There are wonderful summer days aplenty in my 50-year-old life. There are also many, many overcast and rainy days too.

When did I grow up? When did I take on the responsibilities and cares that fill my days? How and when did I lose that sense of existing only for the moment without worrying about or anticipating the next?

These days, with a birthday around the corner marking the half-century milestone so many love to hate, I’m prone to pondering the reality of my aging and the inevitability of my ultimate death more often than ever before. Will I be okay financially after I can no longer work? Will my physical body age well so that I can remain active, mobile, and self-sufficient for as long as possible? Will my mind and my memories remain intact? Will my children be able to obtain the skills and educations they need in order to live well and take care of themselves as adults? I have replaced my 3-year-old ways of living in the moment with a 50-year-old’s ways of stressing out about the wrong turns in life and the reality that, at 50, I am again in a place of starting over without the benefit of youth, energy, time and a fairly clean slate to work with.

I’m aging. I don’t like it. Unlike being an infant and being unaware in my helplessness, I will someday be helpless again (oh, I do hope not too helpless) only this time, I will be aware of that helplessness and my dependency upon others. I will be aware of days when I was stronger, when I was healthier, when I was better able to cope independently. I think I will not enjoy being in that place. I am working hard now to avoid that by staying as active and mentally alert as possible.

I wonder often, of late, what these days will really be like. Like the fable of the Ant and the Grasshopper, I wonder when it comes to the latter years of my life will I be more like the Grasshopper or the Ant? So often, to date, I’ve foolishly chosen the role of the Grasshopper. I do not choose this path now, but I doubt myself. Can I adequately prepare for the winter years of my life at this late stage of the game. Am I even ready, beyond merely storing away for a rainy day, to weather all that I might encounter in years to come? Aging, especially aging well, is not for the faint of heart.

So, facing the reality of my humanity and my mortality, I pause to consider a few lessons gleaned from my 3-year-old self. These lessons don’t do anything to slow the inevitable ticking of the clock in its relentless march toward the future, but they might help make the the journey into the days ahead something far more enjoyable to look back on than my anxious 49.75 year-old-self is doing now. These ideas are not new, they are not profound, but they are, I think, helpful in creating the kind of perspective that creates the kind of life that leads to the kind of future I hope to live.

Lesson 1: Live in the moment. At 3, I really had no idea that the future existed. I lived in a perpetual state of “now”. I didn’t worry about troubles to come. I knew the big people in my life would take care of everything. In fact I wasn’t even aware that there was anything they needed to take care of for me. I spent all my existence exploring and enjoying the world immediately around me whether it was mucking around in the pasture in my Grandpa’s old galoshes or playing in the hay in the barn or chasing the neighbors chickens to see if they would fly. I enjoyed each and every moment as if it was new even though each and every day was much like the day before and the day to come. As adults we gain greater capacity to remember and learn and anticipate. That’s good, but we often lose the sense of wonder and joy that comes with being in the present without dwelling anxiously about what must be done next. I’m not suggesting we scrap planning or goal-setting. But backing off and focusing on being in the moment and appreciating that moment for what it is, instead of viewing life always in terms of the things that have to happen to get through the week or the month. I’m a planner and a scheduler, so this is always a challenge for me.

Lesson 2: Trust more. Worry less. My 3-year-old self didn’t worry about the future and the potential problems that could befall me. I now know that there were plenty of things that were worried about by the Big People in my life, but I was unaware of any of it. As an adult, I cannot pretend to be unaware or cavalier about challenges I face or business I must tend to. I do, however, need to trust more actively that the Big Person in my life is working out the details. If there is one thing I’ve learned in the last 5 years since my divorce, it is that things always have a way of working out and it is usually in a much better or more manageable way than I imagined, even if it isn’t perfect. I need to step back and trust more that this will continue to be so. Even if things go badly, my worrying about it won’t change anything. It also makes me and those around me miserable.

Lesson 3: Laugh. This needs really no explanation. 3-year-olds laugh enthusiastically and with abandon. As an adult, finding the humor and hilarity in even the most awkward or troublesome situations can often diffuse tension and release stress. Plus, it can be a whole lot of fun.

Lesson 4: Hang out with those you love. At three, I was very fortunate. My mother lived with my grandparents while she worked to save enough money so she could go to college. My grandparents owned a small department store in the rural Pacific Northwest community where we lived. I spent nearly all of my time with my grandparents either on their property or with them at the store. Later, when my mother eventually went back to school, I spent plenty of time in institutionalized daycare and I made good friends there. To this day, though, my best an most enjoyable memories were of the times I hung out with Grandpa while he went about his daily tasks. No fancy “play dates”. No movies. No trips to this or that whatever Funville. Just time together every single regular, ordinary day. These memories are the happiest for me now. I need to make sure I make the time to “just hang” with those who are most important to me. This is very different than rushing to and from planned activities with loved ones.

Lesson 5: Explore and Play. This is what kids do, don’t they? Without the aid of a gaming system, television, or lessons filling every non-school waking hour, Kia create things to do and games to play. They explore ideas, the backyard, the tool shed. As adults, we can too easily fall into the trap of going, doing, being and providing for everyone else that it is no longer fun. We lose our playfulness and our curiosity. We need to take time to just play. One little known fact from Three-Year-Old World? Coloring isn’t just fun, it’s incredibly therapeutic. If you don’t believe me, go get a coloring book and a big box of crayons and try it. Even better, color while hanging out with someone you love.

I wish time weren’t flying by like a madwoman racing Mach 5 with her hair on fire. I wish, in a way, to be three again. Chasing chickens and following grandpa around the yard as he irrigated the property and fed the dogs without a care in the world except to be happy and have fun. I know I can’t make time stand still and it would be foolish to disregard all responsibilities and obligations of adult life, but my 3-year-old self knew how to take each day at at time and live it to the utmost. I can learn from that person I used to be, by following these five lessons.

What lessons would your 3-year-old self teach you?

Anniversaries, Birthdays & Other Musings of A Convalescent

An anniversary is a time to celebrate the joys of today, the memories of yesterday, and the hopes of tomorrow.

~Author Unknown

I’ve recently been thinking about birthdays, anniversaries and other events that commemorate the existence or longevity of relationships, lives, and important activities. This year, as with every year, is filled with several such markers which will recognize the presence of something or someone my life. I will celebrate the birthdays of my children; once again taking time to reflect on how quickly the time has passed since they each decided to depart my womb and enter the world as individuals in their own right. I will celebrate the birthdays of other loved ones as I give thanks for their existence.

In some cases, these anniversaries recognize the time since something ended instead of marking a beginning. This year marks the eleventh year since my first marriage ended and the fifth year since the end of my second one. It will be two years since I gave up dating. I’ll also celebrate one year in my new home, which is also one year since I decided to give up the battle I was fighting trying to keep up an old ranch-style home that I could not maintain nor adequately afford.

In yet other instances, the dates signify transitions rather than births or deaths. For example, it really is inadequate (though it is true) to say that I gave up dating two years ago. I did, but that’s not the whole story. I also met a wonderful man who is somehow able to tolerate and even, most of the time, enjoy my distractedness and my quirks. This year also marks the second year since I realized and began working on some of my own goals and dreams, instead of continually being tied up with making others’ dreams come true. That’s a good thing. I remember the day and the place where I made some pivotal decisions for myself.  Decisions which are just now bearing fruit and taking me through more change. Each transition is just another step along the path I began very intentionally walking in 2010.

This year, as well as hosting some notable anniversaries and birthdays, seems as though it is birthing some events that I might later look back on and recognize each year. I wonder, will I look back in years to come on every Valentine’s Day and think, “Wow, just  (insert number here) years ago, I was diagnosed with cancer.  Will I speculate each year that it’s been this many years since that particular event, or that one, or that one?  I do not yet know these things.

What I do know is this:  events during the first quarter of 2012 have changed my perspective on life.  Before this, I was still facing the big half century birthday, but I was facing it a bit cavalierly.  I thought, “I look young for my age. I feel great. I surely shall live to be 90 or a hundred.”

Life changes on a dime.

The form of cancer I have is entirely curable.  Nobody ever wants to get cancer, but if you have to pull the cancer card in the Game of Life, the kind I have is the one to draw. It is probably one of the most curable especially if caught early, which mine was.  I had to have surgery.  I might have to have radiation (that’s a big might; the fact that radiation might not even be needed tells you how early stage I am). I won’t have to have chemo. I am incredibly blessed and just as grateful. But my odds of getting cancer again, have just increased significantly.  Going through something like a 50th birthday, at the same time as experiencing a cancer diagnosis, when your youngest isn’t even in middle school yet, makes you think.  It makes you think long and hard about the value of life and things and the people in your life.

At the same time, certain things become less important while other things (like getting well and staying strong) become more important. The daily requirements of life morph into this strange place where they are both extremely important and not at all relevant.  This is the most difficult aspect of all.  How to live daily in a way that is relevant and meaningful, when so much of the daily stuff we do doesn’t amount to diddly squat.  It is vitally important that I continue to maintain and do the daily things, but so much of the things we make issues over just don’t matter in the long run.

2012 seems to also be birthing events I might well look back on as markers.  I wonder if Valentine’s Day will now have a new meaning for me each year as the day I was diagnosed with cancer.  Will I look back and say, in years to come, that it was (insert the number of years here) years ago when I found out I had cancer, or I had my first surgery.  Or will I always think of January 6, 2012 (the day of that first biopsy) as significant?  I wonder.

I wonder about these things and I wonder, now, about other things.
Instead of counting the days since certain things have happened, I now begin to wonder how many days until…

Not Just Another Auld Lang Syne

How does one look back on a year such as mine?  Three years ago, I ventured out into one of the scariest places I think I’ve ever been.  Post divorce, 40-something, straddled with debt that wasn’t all mine, looking forward to fewer years to earn back the losses than I had behind me.  While many would say I look good for my age, the fact that they had to add the phrase “for my age” said it all.  I was divorced, single with more children than most, struggling to avoid bankruptcy, and wondering how I was going to pay the bills and put food on the table.  I was frightened.  I was destitute. I was humiliated and ashamed.  I was alone.  To make things better, I blew an engine on one car, and dropped the rear differential out of another.  I had no credit, no cash, no clue what an engine or a rear differential was, and nowhere to turn.  I was terrified.  I wondered, often, how and if I was going to survive.  I was also 40-something and it was only a matter of time before the aging process we all must eventually succumb to, became no longer disguisable. Further, I still had children at home, lots of them, and would probably retire (if that was still even a possibility for me) with them at home.  Not exactly the formula for finding someone to spend your golden years with before you actually get to your golden years.

2010 dawned much like the years 2007, 2008 and 2009.  Dark, dismal, discouraging. Finances were tight and showed no signs of letting up for a long time to come.  Life in the dating world were disappointing at best, and completely discouraging most of the time.  In fact, online dating resembled something more of a leper colony than a way to meet decent people with whom I might share some common ground.  After just under 3 years of dating, I was ready to take it or leave it.  I mostly left it.  I was in and just as quickly out of three relationships this year.  I was less willing to hang out with someone who declared verbally that they were really into me but announced the opposite with their behavior. 

Sometimes truth dawns slowly like the early light of morning on an overcast day. I’d long been aware that I was capable of going places alone and doing things on my own. One simply doesn’t go through tough times like my last decade without realizing that somehow things will all work out.  The realization that I actually enjoyed being on my own, that I looked forward to those times alone, that I was okay with me, and that I wanted to be able to make my own decisions and chart my own course dawned gradually in my awareness, but it changed my thinking and, I believe, the course of my year. 

As I experienced the year, it seemed I spent most of the year alone even though I was either starting, developing or ending some sort of dating relationship for most of the year.   One would think this would leave a person with some sense of personal failure or inadequacy at worst and at best leave one feeling incredibly lonely.  One might think this would taint one’s overall assessment of the success or failure of a particular passage of time.  Not so, for me.  As I rewind through all the most poignant episodes of my year I am struck by the variation of emotions and experiences we are blessed with as human beings. I cherish these memories and revisit them as one might thumb through the pages of a favorite scrapbook.  There are disappointing and discouraging times to be sure, but there are just as many hopeful, encouraging,  joyous and exhilarating episodes as well.  The happier scenes lend far more color to the collage of my year than do those disappointing junctures.  The thought occurs to me, that in most of these memories I am in the company of those I care deeply about; a son, a daughter, a close friend, a long lost friend or family member, and, yes, those dates that passed through my life on their way to other destinations till finally one decided to walk along the path with me for a while.  I haven’t been lonely nor have I been alone.

From the snapshots of watching Avatar three times to starting an exercise program and fighting the balancing act between kids’ schedules, work schedules and my own personal motivation; from watching the World Cup on a big screen TV in a very crowded sports bar in a nearby town with my oldest daughter to traveling to Portland to see with my older sister and her daughter after losing contact with them over 30 years ago; from a birthday in San Francisco and 4th of July in Portland to front row seats at my daughter’s Seussical production where once again she and all the cast made me cry with their brilliant performances; from walking along the waterfront and across the bridges of Portland dreaming that someday I might own my own bike to a casual meet up over coffee that blossomed to a friendship among bike enthusiasts resulting in me actually purchasing my bike and later one for my daughter for Christmas; from reconnecting with classmates on Facebook to a fantastic 30-year class reunion which reunited me with several dear, dear friends;  from watching my son play a drum in the high school drum line that is almost bigger than he is to trick-or-treating with family;  from Thanksgiving dinners along the Portland waterfront with long lost loved ones to photographing places I once knew when I inhabited a child’s body and crying for all the regrets and lost moments with a beautiful woman I only wish I could have known better over the last 30 years; from starting out the year with more questions than answers to closing out the year with more answers and hope than questions and doubt, this year truly tops them all in terms of  the richness of the experiences I was privileged to partake in. 

The year has been an absolutely blessed one.

When so many of the years of my life have been difficult or painful to look back on, it is a gift to have a year that sneaks in like every other one does but which takes me by complete surprise leaving me with this sense that come what may life is good and confident that, like my mother used to say, “There are better days ahead.”

And though it is now the beginning of a new year, the celebratory champagne cheers long silenced,  I’d like to raise my literary glass and pen one last 2010 toast to the world: At this time next year, may you look back on more that is happy than sad, more hope than despair, more redemption than futility, more health than harm.  May you experience a rich year filled with peace, joy, love and blessings and may you experience it with those in your life that are most precious to you.  Cheers!

Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind ?
Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and old lang syne ?

For auld lang syne, my dear,
for auld lang syne,
we’ll take a cup of kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

~ James Burns, 1788 (English translation, minimalist, from Wikipedia)

Author’s Note:  All photos in this post were taken by the author and will be recognizable and memorable to those who were there.  May our old (and new) acquaintance not be forgotten and may we all (and those not pictured though still very much a part of this author’s year) “take a cup of kindness yet” as we head together into this New Year. 

Facebook, High School Reunions, Birthdays and Aging

Note or disclaimer or preface or something:  I wrote this article, several months ago, long before the class reunion occurred.  I was going to post it, in advance of the reunion, but I hesitated, intending to go back and edit and re-work it. Call me chicken. Now that I’ve actually attended my class reunion, reacquainted myself with people I’d lost contact with, and heard some of their feelings about our 30-year reunion, I’m posting this, even though it is after the fact.  I looked forward to this reunion with hopeful anticipation, but also with a great deal of dread and anxiety.  I now know I wasn’t entirely alone in that experience.

I do know this for certain, after having attended the reunion:  We are no longer in high school anymore.  I also know my classmates and I have grown and matured into respectful, decent, thoughtful people.  Because of that, I know that my thoughts here will be treated respectfully and sensitively.  It is in celebration of all our successes over the last 30 years that I offer this series of posts as a humble treatise of gratitude for the part each of you have played in making me the person I am today.  Thank you.

My 30-year-high school reunion takes place this summer in a small dusty town in eastern Oregon.  Though there is likely more pavement there now than when I packed my bags and hustled out of there without looking back, the place is still rather small and somewhat dusty in comparison to the lush green venues of Western Oregon and other areas in the Pacific Northwest.  This is not to criticize the place where I spent most of my childhood.  The high desert definitely has a solitary rugged beauty all its own. It is just that I am a mountains, rivers, oceans and trees kind of girl.  I’ll take forest over sagebrush, and beaches over buttes, any day of the week.  Though, admittedly, wild antelope effortlessly bounding across the Oregon outback is certainly a breathtaking sight.  Even so, unable to fully appreciate it at the time that I lived there, I did make haste to get out of that part of Oregon as soon as I could do so and, as I mentioned before, I never looked back.  I subsequently lost all contact with friends and classmates from my high school years.

Facebook Reconnected Me With My Past in a Positive Way

I’ve recently reconnected with many of my high school classmates via Facebook, among them one of the very first people I met when at the age of 8, my family relocated from Hood River, Oregon to this tiny town. He ended up being one of my best friends all through the years, and, no, contrary to popular belief, we never once dated!  We walked to and from swim team together each summer, experienced the disco craze together (I can’t even believe we did some of those things now…the hair…the pants…the dances?). We played Kick-The-Can in my oversized backyard and went trick-or-treating until long past the age we should have. He was my marching partner at graduation, and that was the last I’ve seen of him until Facebook reconnected us. I’ve often thought of him over the years.  It’s been wonderful to see how he is doing and what he is doing and what he’s done in the last three decades, though honestly, I never pictured him on a Harley! He hasn’t aged a day and he’s really buff.  He makes me sick. 

Among others, there is the classmate I took Driver’s Ed with.  I was a horrible driver then  and she grew up on a ranch and had some driving experience.  She’ll be interested to note, my driving skills are still pretty bad though far better than they were then. She always amazed me with her daring and her devil-may-care attitude, when I was afraid of just about everything.  She still amazes me with her daring.  I know this because I’ve been privy to glimpses of her life 30 years later via Facebook. It’s been good to catch up and entertaining to see that though she’s changed a great deal in many ways (no, she doesn’t live on a ranch anymore!), she’s still the daring, devil-may-care person I once knew.  She cracks me up on Facebook routinely and if she’s at the reunion, I hope to share a drink with her as well as with my buff friend who makes me sick.

I recently “friended” the guy I hitched a ride with to the University we’d both call home for the next four years after high school. He was a good friend through both high school and college. I last saw him in 1985 when I got married.  I often thought of and wondered about my friend over the years.  After reconnecting with him on Facebook, it is evident that He’s as brilliant as he was when I knew him way back in the day…he  also makes me sick.

There’s the classmate who turned me on to one of the popular boy musical groups of the time. She first helped me develop my writing skill as we often wrote stories together in junior high, tag teaming off one another.  She’d write a page or two and stop then I’d pick up where she left off.  We wrote stuff that would make the authors of the Harlequin Romances blush. Had we kept those stories, I’m certain we’d be very wealthy authors today.  She lives in Spain and is married to the love of her life.  She along with Buff Motorcycle Riding friend, Fearless Driver Ed friend, and Brilliant Friend also makes me sick.

There are others, so many others.  The football and basketball jocks, heroes, I mean who lined both sides of the hallways during lunch forcing all the coeds to pass by while they eyed us.  I know I passed unnoticed, but it was excruciating for me nonetheless.  There were the cheerleaders who somehow always looked put together, when I struggled to even understand what looked good and what worked on my so-not-made-for-the-80’s body. There were my Drama friends, The Debate Team (those Master Debaters), the Band peeps, and there were the upperclassmen then later the incoming freshmen, and all the others who picked their parts and played their roles in what was our own High School Musical. I’ve often thought of and wondered about my high school classmates throughout the years.

And, no, they don’t make me sick, not any of them.  I’m teasing about that. But they do make me proud to know them.

Birthdays and Aging

Just the other day, one of us had a birthday and a Facebook thread developed around the theme of birthdays and aging. 

“Wasn’t it just yesterday,” I queried, “that we were all tossing our graduation caps in the air with shouts of excitement about the lives we anticipated as we looked out hopefully, expectantly, on life from the beginning of our adulthood?”

We anticipated so much then, now, looking back, we are look forward to opening our mail and finding our AARP cards so we can cash in on the discounts!

As one of us commented, “I guess that’s better than having the AARP status assumed without having to show the card.”  Yes, I guess it is.  Aging makes me sick, and, no, I’m not kidding about that!

This summer many of us, hopefully most, will migrate back to our dusty little berg from points near and far to meet face to face in the old tradition called the High School Reunion.  Having not attended any of my high school reunions (I was pregnant every time and easily the size of three of those high school linemen on our football team), I’m not quite sure what to expect.  I’m hoping it will be just as much fun as catching up on Facebook has been.  I’m hoping to enjoy meeting up with these people I used to travel the halls of our rural high school with so many years ago, slamming lockers, attending pep rallies, figuring out who was doing what for lunch and where.  I anticipate hearing their stories, learning of their journeys, meeting their families. It still blows my mind that we have kids, some of us grandkids and graying hair even.  It will be bittersweet experience for me too, since the last time I visited was for the funeral of my mom. There are others in my class who will not be attending.  We honor their memory.  This is also sad.  It puts me in touch with the finite and transient nature of this experience we call life.

Reflections about reunions~After 30 Years Is It Safe To Enter?

Reunions do this to us, though don’t they? The evoke a range of emotions which, for some of us, we thought were safely tucked away behind that closet door marked, “My Distant Past-Do Not Enter”.  Reunions ever so adeptly pry open those doors, memory by memory.  They force us to reflect on our personal past and what we’ve accomplished or failed to do that we wanted to do.  They, hopefully, cause us to celebrate the present and all the gifts we have.  Inevitably, reunions challenge us to consider the future, whatever we can make of it from here on out. If we are fortunate, we still have hopes and dreams to look forward to, only this time around a few more family members or loved ones to share it with that weren’t here three decades earlier.

There’s one other thing the advent of this reunion helped me realize.  As much as I used to think where I came from didn’t matter, I’ve learned that it really doesn’t in some ways, but it really does in other ways.  I’ve learned that even the most insignificant incidents can impact an individual in lasting ways.  While I personally played a supporting role in my high school drama, I learned a great deal from rubbing shoulders with those in my hometown.  Those memories shaped me and contributed to who I am today.  I am the better for it, and I am grateful for those I shared that small stage with during those formative years.

These days, I’m learning that just like I didn’t appreciate the solitary rugged beauty of the Oregon outback and the small farming community I lived in, neither did I fully appreciate the gifts, the talents, the strengths, and the personalities of  the people I grew up with nearly as much as I could have and should have.  It is time for that to change. I, for one, am looking forward to my 30-year-high school reunion. 

What’s Up With The Broken Heart?

So, I posted yesterday’s post and a bunch of peeps contacted me today wondering if and why I had a broken heart. 

Just to clarify…no…I am not currently experiencing Broken Heart Syndrome.

Yes, I have experienced it many times in the course of my life, with 2009 being a record-breaking year in the relationship department since being single. Contrary to popular belief, a broken heart doesn’t get easier to deal with as one gets older.  I think it gets worse. I don’t know why this is.

As for last night’s post, I just wrote and what came out is what came out.  Were there any events that triggered that post?  That’s a great question!

In all honesty, I’d have to say yes there were incidents that led up to me writing a post on the broken hearted, but it wasn’t my broken heart that started me down that path. 

Nor was it the sense of any dying dream that I was coming to grips with having to give up. 

In reality, I was just tired.

I was bone weary tired to be exact.  It’s been a long, grueling, exhilarating six weeks.  The adventure of doing new things, the excitement of opportunity, the hope of what can be possible is both energizing and exhausting.  The most difficult element is that when the demanding pace slows, and the seeds that were planted lay momentarily dormant before bursting into full bloom, there is a season of waiting.  This waiting can be somewhat anticlimactic.

I know this because I’ve been there in that place of let down after a great experience.

I am not there now.  I don’t feel any let down or disappointment or anything other than a sense that something really exciting is just around the corner.  Even if the most exciting thing that is around the corner is Spring Break, I still am feeling nowhere near sad, lovelorn or despairing because things somewhere in my life are less than I desire.

The reality is that some things in my life are less than I desire (except where the scale is concerned and then…well…let’s not go there in this post), but I’m not broken up over them.  Well, at least, not today.  The reality is also that some things in my life are better than I ever could have imagined at this point.  It’s also true that there are many, many things in my life that are still unwritten, untold, unimagined.  These are the things yet to be which are not now. It’s life.  It’s my life.  It’s everyone’s life to some degree, I think.  The good, the bad, the becoming, the yet to be. The happy, the sad, the exciting, the disappointing…the ever so daily.

Life is just moving along and I like it…at least most of it, most of the time.

No broken heart here, though I’ve had my share of experiences with the Broken Heart Syndrome.  No thwarted dreams, though I have a few of those too. The reason I wrote what I wrote yesterday is simply because I sat down to write last night and that post is what came out.

I liked it.

I posted it.

That’s all.   

Soap Operas, Harlequin Romances, and Heavy Drugs

There are some things that have never been a draw for me.  Soap operas, Harlequin romance novels and heavy drugs (or even really mild ones, for that matter) have never posed any particular temptation for me.  Even so, I remember the words from one of the soaps my mother, or maybe it was the babysitter, used to watch: “As sands through the hour glass, so are the Days of Our Lives”. 

Sand, hours, days, lives, soaps, romances and heavy drugs.  It’s an impressive lineup don’t you think? 

Heavy Drugs

Most of my childhood occurred during the seventies when there was a real emphasis on educating children about the dangers of drug use.  Fat lot of good that did any of us!  Sadly, all that well intentioned tax money was wasted on me.  I had, after all, the very best, real life, hands on drug awareness experience a child could have.  I had someone in my own home overdose, get hauled out on a stretcher (yes, picture three wide-eyed children under the age of eight, two bewildered and alarmed parents, large medical emergency vehicles with lights flashing, watching the live-in babysitter get hauled off on a stretcher).  Take one wild guess which of those three children was tasked with trying to awaken the body that had already slipped into a drug induced coma.  That’d be me. 

No. Drugs, even in an effort to satiate my deep seated need to be accepted, approved of, and mostly to belong, never ever posed even the slightest temptation to me. 

Soap Operas

This is easy.  Force something on a child all the years they are growing up and, well, chances are they will either acquiesce and adopt the thing or they will rebel.  I had soap operas and TV and noise going on all throughout my childhood. I think this had something to do with having an aging father and two other siblings and living in a home where conversation and opinions and even dissension were not only tolerated, but welcomed.  I rebelled against the TV and noise but retained a love for all things passionate and articulate especially if they tend toward the nonconformist.  After leaving home, I never watched an episode of any of the daytime or nighttime soaps, I loathe TV except for the express and planned purpose of vegging out because I am so overwhelmed and just need to turn my mind off. If given the choice to stay in and watch a movie or something on television, I will opt to read a book, do something in the yard, surf the net, take my dog for a walk, invent cryptic status updates to annoy all my friends on Facebook (who haven’t yet hidden me) with, or write.  But, lately, I don’t have time for even that. Lies!  I’ll always make time for the status update messages, because, well, now I has iPhone!

Harlequin Romances?

This is a bit more convoluted because I love romance.  I love the idea of it.  I love the feel of it.  I love the hope and passion it can inspire.  But really?  If you’ve read one Harlequin romance novel, you’ve read them all.  Give me something along the lines of Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities, or Dumas’ The Man in the Iron Mask, or even the much more recent and sadly deceased, Stieg Larsson’s The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo trilogy and I’m all in, but a Harlequin romance.  Ugh.  Yawn.  Not a draw for me. 

A Rehabilitated Internet Dating Junkie

In posts past, I’ve alluded to the fact, correction, I point blank declared, that I was an internet dating junkie.  I was.  I admit it.  I was successful with it too, if you consider being able to get dates with attractive, intelligent, employed men by merely posting a profile successful.  If the truth be told, I am still meeting and getting to know people that I “met” and began corresponding with online, over two  years ago.  My social calendar is exceptionally full these days and I haven’t had an online profile anywhere for months.  Okay, I lied, I tried out OKCupid.com and Zoosk on Facebook because I have several friends on Facebook that are dating coaches and, well, curiosity killed the cat. They suggested, I bit.  I’m over it now.  I was on each of those for two weeks, met one person in person who is fabulously interesting, but I could quickly ascertain that I neither have the interest or desire or energy to get back into the online dating thing.  Screening profiles, deleting winks, and wading through thousands of misspelled, poorly punctuated and horribly written profiles is, well, a lot like reading a Harlequin romance.  When you’ve read one…

Temptations and Time~Living Life in Face to Face World

The days of our lives can slip away from us like sand pouring through the narrowest portion of the hourglass.  The sand at the top appears untouched, but the sand at the bottom is fighting desperately to comply with gravity’s demands. Eventually, the entire lot of it cascades into the bottom portion of the hourglass.  This seems an appropriate analogy for much of life. 

For me, spending time in fantasy land like soap opera world, internet dating, drug use or reading Harlequin’s is just not something I want to do.  The false and superficial have never attracted me.  Give me an authentic disagreement (done respectfully, I hope) over a false veneer of cheery friendship any day.  When it comes to internet anything, it is so easy to hide, to disguise, to pretend, to escape.  This,  I’m learning, is a temptation that can be very deceptive.  After all the internet comfortably keeps people at a distance.  You can connect, without really ever having to connect.  Don’t want to talk to someone, just show up in stealth mode or “unfriend” them.  It’s the convenience of digital relationship.  Besides, who wouldn’t love to recreate themselves (if even for a few minutes) into something that only mildly portends a resemblance to the reality, or disappear into a relationship that holds the promise of the upside (fun, flirty, romantic and non-invasive) of relationship without any of the downside (how the heck are we going to decide which side of the bed you’ll be sleeping on? And why do I have to make room in my closet for you?). 

I’m also learning that this kind of relating, while useful for providing some entertainment value and escapist fun, does not really work for me.  I’m not twenty something anymore.  A few years back, I had to renew my driver’s license.  My picture, is awful, as most of them are.  Mine was especially bad, because as I was going through the renewal process I was crying.  I was aging, caught in a nightmare at that time I felt I could not escape and I truly thought my life was over.  My outlook is so different today. 

I’m still aging.  I can’t do much about that.  I ended the nightmare the best way I could, but I ended it.  The fallout from that has not been easy but life is good.  I’m meeting many fabulous new people through the adventures I’m having with the friends I already know in my face-to-face world.  Some of the digital relationships have bridged the gap from being merely digital to actually tangible, and, while romance isn’t running rampant in my life like weedy vines overtaking my garden, some very valuable and wonderful friendships have developed.  I’m busier than ever with work opportunities in an area where people are struggling to hold onto their homes after losing their jobs.  I’m meeting people in my community that I enjoy spending time with and who, while very different from me, are a source of friendship and camaraderie.  I’m healthier than I was at the start of the year, in every sense of that word, and I like it.  I’m busier than I’ve ever been and yet, less stressed and more content.  I find all of this slightly ironic, but I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth by over-analyzing it.  

I’m simply going to ride this horse where ever it will take me.

After all, life is short.  Far too short and far too valuable to allow it to disappear into the meaningless, the shallow, the pain-dulling fantasy escapes that come in so many forms whether, digitally digested, inhaled, injected or imbibed.

Making It Through In Spite of the Flu

Just a short note tonight.  I’m tired.  It’s been a long day.  I have another fairly long day tomorrow and I was sick this weekend.  Flat out, on my back, slept for nearly 24 hours straight except to get up and get drinks of water and go to the bathroom.  Yeah, that kind of sick.  The kind of sick that you hope will pass quickly because to have so many things you need to be doing.  The kind of sick that you worry might never pass because, really?, the common cold does not feel this bad.  Or does it?

After Booty Texter dismissed me in his frustration at my being unwilling to lower my standards and subject myself to his selfish motivations, I went to bed (Friday night) .  For all intents and purposes, I did not awaken and like it, until sometime Sunday morning in the wee hours of the morning.  Oh, I awoke, but only to go to the bathroom and get a drink.  Over 24 hours sick.  Yeah.

I’m grateful that I was well enough to work a 13 hour day today and not keel over. 

I’m grateful that I’m now home and people decades younger than me who didn’t spend the whole weekend flat on their back sick as a dog, and who have fewer children to go home and deal with than I are just as tired as I am if not more so.  This means nothing other than I’m feeling better, my health is certainly not horrible and I am so very glad for that.  One’s health is so important.  In fact, in my list of things I’m grateful for my health tops the list. 

How would you finish this statement?

“If it weren’t for my health I’d _____________________________________________.”

or how about this statement…

“Because of my health I _____________________________________________”.

As for me, it is great to be making it through.  The knowledge that people many years younger than I are experiencing the same, if not more, fatigue is encouraging to me.  Not that I wish them ill, I don’t.  It just means this contraption I call a body isn’t doing so badly after all, and, to me, that is enough to be grateful for.

Questions?

Why is it that some people can so easily find “a relationship” and for others it is the ultimately elusive thing?

Why is it that stupid women can find handsome intelligent men but beautiful intelligent women have a far more difficult time getting past the first date?

Why do mature adult people (supposedly given their chronological age) run off to Vegas to get married after only knowing someone for about six weeks? 

I have a friend who is young, gorgeous, together and intelligent and single.  WTF is up with that? She should not even be single for two seconds.  What is wrong with male America these days?

Why is it that some people make it last the first go round and others of us can’t help but screw it up from the get go?

Why is it that the ones that make it last aren’t even all that put together either…I mean…what?

Why is it that the good looking guys are stupid…mostly… and the ones who are good looking with a brain are married to stupid women…I mean, really, they are married to posts most of the time. 

At what point do you just throw in the towel on love and figure you’re just too old for that shit?

At what point do you just throw in the towel on ever  achieving your dreams because a.) you have too many kids to deal with for too much longer, b.) achieving your dreams would require the energy, optimism and fearlessness of a 20-year-old and you’re simply not 20 any more and have so many obligations to so many…I mean really…at what point does chasing that youthful dream become like the woman in her 50′s who tries to dress like she’s in high school.  Hmmmm….

I have more questions, but if you can answer these  then you’ll be doing well.

Bonus Question:  Why can’t I meet someone and run off to Vegas and get married after knowing them for six weeks and actually have the damn thing work out?  (I already know the answer to this one and, yes, it has something to do with birth order and, well, I’ll just leave it at that!)

Take your pot shots…go ahead!  I dare ya! 

Oh, and don’t give me all this positive attitude crap. If you’ve been single, divorced or any of that for any length of time the inconsistencies and seeming inequities of life have crossed your mind in question form as well.  And the biggest question and the most unanswerable one is “Why?”

Positive is great and I’m all for it.  I’m a recovering “glass half empty” kinda girl.  I want the glass totally freakin’ full so whether it is half empty or half fricken full doesn’t matter….it isn’t where I want it to be and that is just sometimes not good enough.  Playing little mental games doesn’t really convince me that things are better…or worse…than they are.  They simply, currently are not what I want them to be…YET.

Big word, that word, “yet”. 

Bigger question:  When to let go of the “yet” and figure it ain’t ever gonna happen.  I really need to hear from someone in their 80′s or 90′s on this one because seriously, at 40-something, sometimes I’m so deep in the quagmire I can’t even see the map!  And in 40+ world the scales seems weighted to my disadvantage as a female.  Maybe, it’s my own myopic vision that is creating distortion.  What I do know is this:  as you age, especially if you are female, people stop looking at you.  They not only stop admiring you physically, they stop seeing you completely.  This is the demise of the elderly in our country.  They become disrespected, invisibile liabilities.  I’m not there yet.  Just today I had a perfectly red blooded male friend tell me that my jeans totally worked for me and this is a person who would have no problem letting me know he thought I looked like shit, so it was a valid compliment.  But that time of being invisible and unseen is not far away for me and it is certain for us all. I just am not sure I want to be one of those banging my head against an impossible wall if the liklihood and realities of love and dreams are long past.  Maybe at that point, it is time to shift focus and create new, different dreams.  I don’t know. 

Ahhhh!  Life!  Ain’t it great?  It’s the only test you can’t study for and you get only one shot at it.  Sometimes to be honest, I feel like I’m blowing my shot at it. 

Just sayin’.