40 something

With my birthday month come and gone, I was wistfully thinking about the past year: another year older, what does that mean? I've always thought as I aged, I'd be the woman I had remembered seeing in some television ad in the 70s. She was healthy, and beautiful in her own way (no make-up of course, it WAS the 70s), her crow's feet were laugh lines; her double chin did not exist (perhaps because of her intake of Special K). She was content, happy AND she had a hunky, man ogling her. What more was there to life?

CLEARLY, that woman didn't have two teenagers, a husband (note the hunky, many ogling her), dogs that throw up on her carpet, a cat that sometimes misses the box NOR did she deal with hormonal changes that turned her into Brenda Bad-Ass or Glenda Good Witch.

The woman I imagined doesn't exist. I came to that conclusion early on in my mid-life journey; all it took was discovering the misplacement of hair on my body. Armpit hair had dropped. I mean it… for weeks - I thought this hormone change thing was great, every time I went to shave, I didn't find any hair… until one morning I discovered the hair I had been missing was still there - it's just that my armpit had dropped to mid-breast area! I also thought when Oprah did that show with some high-fashion mid-aged model about facial hair - she needed new content because obviously the fact that the model shaved her chin hair and Oprah plucked hers was a bit too much. I've tried both ways, and I'm still not sure what the best technique is for those pesky hairs. And then there is gray hair… well what can I say, my salon is making a killing.

Mid-life madness is quite a carnival ride. The eyes can be first to go. Can't see your face in the mirror? Oops! Time to get LASIK, but make sure you get plenty of drugs. My friend didn't (because she lied about her weight) and went through the whole procedure totally awake. Not the best experience.

This whole age thing drives me crazy. Up until I turned 40, I truly felt like I was 17. Now, I’m just hoping to age gracefully, and I’m glad to just be here TO AGE.

But even though I’ve turned another year older, I can still turn a head or two… like the other morning when my son and I stopped for gas. He was too busy with PlayStation to pump my gas… so I hopped out and threw the nozzle into the tank, and started to wash my back windshield… a guy pulled up behind me, rolled his window down and said something. I turned around with squeegee in hand and said, “Pardon, me?” He mumbled again. I stepped closer and said, “Sorry, what did you say?” “Do you wanta go have sex?” he said. I LAUGHED so hard, the 30 something male (who I might add, did not resemble a derelict) quickly drove off.

I’ve decided aging gracefully means never taking yourself too seriously.

Breathe

I was standing in line at the grocery checkout the other day waiting for the lady in front of me to finish stacking her groceries on the moving counter. I found the divider bar absentmindedly, and started removing my groceries from my basket. While placing them on the counter…a short, little, feisty woman ahead of me jolted me back to reality. I had been dreaming of what must have been a spectacular moment when Barack and Michelle arrived at ball number one on inauguration night… courtesy of the proudly displayed People’s magazine issue perched on the stand in front of me. “Ma’am,” she said irritated, “I would NEVER do what you just did to me!” I was aghast – What had I done? What had made her nostril’s flare and the steam come out of one pierced ear? I looked down at her basket and realized she had not finished removing her groceries. I had overstepped or in this case over stacked. I waited. Would God strike me down for this act of terror? Surely Barack and Michelle were shaking their fingers at me from their perch on the magazine stand. A sin, I truly didn’t mean to commit.

I took a breath. REMEMBER THIS STEP. And as I exhaled, I thought, “Okay, this woman is wrapped a bit too tight and I can choose to be catty (my children say I do this well) or I can choose to be nice, even though I really didn’t feel nice. Nice was not exuding through my epidermis nor anywhere else, but I took a breath, and the whole yoga thing took over along with the God moment and I said, “I’m sorry ma’am I didn’t see that your basket wasn’t empty yet.” She rolled her eyes – I removed my groceries and said, “I didn’t mean to upset you.” “You didn’t upset me,” she snapped. “I’m from the NORTH – we don’t get upset.” Whatever that’s supposed to mean… I took another breath… “I have a home in the NORTH too, I know what you mean.” Of course, I really didn’t know what she meant. However, I felt like she needed someone to agree with her.

She finally placed all her groceries on the counter and as she did, she began to tell the checkout clerk about her last three days - days of sorrow and loneliness – her mother had passed away. She had not been out of the house since her death. She shared her feelings of desperation, telling the clerk how difficult it was for her to overcome her loss.

She paid the clerk, turned to me, and said, “I hope you don’t think I was being mean.”
“Not at all,” I said.

Sometimes, we all just need to breathe.