 Today I went to the store not wearing something that 10 years ago I swore I never would…no makeup. And I paid for it dearly just like I thought I would during all these many years of not venturing out the door without, at the very least, a good coat of mascara. As far as I was concerned my lack of an encounter with the sales girls confirmed my suspicions that no makeup=no service. So I just stood there at the counter while two young sales clerks had a gossip fest that would make Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons proud. Finally, I started to get annoyed. But here is the thing. It wasn’t so much that the girls were ignoring me that upset me but it was the fact that I was all but invisible to them. HUH? Since when did this cloak of inconspicuousness begin to envelop me? I mean it seems like just yesterday that I was twenty-five and men would whistle and sales women couldn’t wait to give me the time of day. So when did I become invisible?
I wish I could pinpoint a time that I began to disappear. A day or an event that I could look back on and blame would be nice. A moment at which I could say “Ah ha. It was the day you stopped dying your hair,” or something significant like that. Yet, if the truth is told, I do have a vague idea of when this slide into nothingness began. It was around my 40th birthday when I gained twenty-five pounds and crows feet all in the same day. It was the year the Dow dropped precipitously and so did my boobs. And it was the year my collagen supply diminished and my shoe size increased as everything in my body suddenly let go and “loosened” up. Instantly, I was no longer youthful nor desirable to Madison Avenue or the man on the street. Society began to dictate no more cute low cut dresses, open toe shoes or fishnet hose for me. In fact, the sales girls in some sort of giggly, jiggly, conspiracy started steering me towards the matronly woman department. You know the place. It’s where they sell swimsuits with huge explosive pink flowers with aprons to cover your “older but wiser” big ass. Here you can find shoes without heels and interchangeable inserts for shoes and bras. It’s the one place on earth where the minute hands are removed from watches so as to not remind you of your impending demise. And it’s where White Shoulders perfume strangles the air. Come to think of it, after turning forty I never again received free samples of tanning lotion, sculpting gel or feminine deodorant spray in the mail. Now its just, AARP news, denture cream and life insurance spokesman Ed McMann that clutters my mailbox.
This invisibleness I have taken on is not of my choosing and somehow it doesn’t seem fair nor does it suit me. I mean, come on, when my mother was forty she was OLD. I on the other hand, well, I am hip, sassy and can still have a decent conversation with “the girls” about sex that would make even Oprah squirm. In fact, I almost jumped into the sales girls conversation when it started venturing towards men’s body parts. But instead I laughed out loud thinking about how young, inexperienced and naive they were. It was then that they turned, and gave me “THE LOOK” that told me they thought that dementia was settling in and making a permanent home in my soon-to-be grandma brain.
“May I help you?” shouted a nineteen year-old bleached blondie named Brittany who had a permanent Botox IV drip inserted under her skin. She sashayed over to where I stood in her perfect size 00 hipsters; her perky boobs still able to arrive at my side of the counter five minutes before the rest of her.
“I believe you can. I want the biggest jar of anti-wrinkle cream you have,” I said. I remembered to smile while trying standing a little straighter in a futile effort to raise my boobs an inch higher so I would not inadvertently knock the samples to the floor.
She gave me the “poor pitiful you there is nothing that can help” look as she placed my purchase in the bag with her set of perfectly polished two inch nails.
“Oh, I threw in some free samples of the newest and most technologically advanced firming creams on the market,” Brittany said patting me on the hand. “They guarantee that it will make you look ten years younger. It really helps women YOUR age.”
It was at that precise moment a miracle occurred and I grew comfortable in my aging skin. For in that second, I knew without a doubt, that invisible and fifty-five was a thousand times better than insecure and nineteen. Sure she may have the world by the tail but give it a few years and Brittany would soon be directed to the matrons department by girls just like her. But there would be one big difference. She would arrive scared, not confident. She would be feeling dread, not optimism. Instead of my BRING IT ON attitude she would the type who would cut, lipo, shape, tweeze and pilate her way into middle age. Eventually, she would begin to develop a flat head as she engaged in twenty minute headstand marathons trying to get her breasts somewhere up near her shoulders again. Then she would discover gravity doesn’t work that way and it would be all downhill from there.
Luckily, I am one of those that “Age” has been speaking with for a while now. I have slowly gotten used to having her around. Sometimes she speaks softly to me offering encouragement. At other times “Age’ becomes loud and brassy with a “Take A Look At Me Now” attitude; daring the world to see what I see when I look in the mirror…naked. She gives me a comforting yet gentle push to the future even as I resist her intrusion into my life. We have a love/hate relationship going on. Yet,I am fortunate because for others “Age” is not so kind. She digs her stilettos in, fighting to remain in the past, fearful of what’s to come. It was obvious Blondie would be one of those.
I took pity on the nineteen year-old. I reached into my bag and placed the new miracle of science back into her hand.
“Darling you take it,” I said with a laugh. “In fact, take all of it,” I laughed shoving the samples back into her hands. “Believe it or not someday you will need it.”
And with that, I turned and headed over to the hat department. There I found a vibrant scarlet red one; it’s upturned brim spotted with leopard material. It sits in my closet waiting as I bridge the gap between young and old, wise and wishful, content and always searching. Every once in awhile I put it on to remind myself that I am not invisible even if the youth of society and Madison Avenue wants me to be. It reinforces the fact don’t intend on bowing out quickly and quietly as a nearly invisible shadow of my former self. Instead, I have chosen to live my life celebrating my age, my lines, my sense of humor , the wisdom I have acquired, my many accomplishments to date, and my verve. I’ll be the one to decide if and when I will cease to exist, not some blonde bimbo at Bloomingdales. I may be older and grayer than the ME generation but I still have my power and I‘m still feeling pretty damn groovy.
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Month: October 2015
Transracial Adoption And Old Age
Our three youngest are transracially adopted. This makes for good times and bad times especially when in concerns being out in public together.
When our children were young we saw a lot of what we now refer to as “ping-pong” eyes. As I was pushing the stroller someone would look at me, then down at the baby, then back at me and back down at the baby with a quizzical look on their face.
We often get the “are you their mother/is she your mother” type of questions. When we’ve had enough I sometimes reply, “No, I’m their Nanny.” Cracks my kids up every time.
Today Gracie and I were at Target when we noticed a young Asian girl about ten years of age staring at us…BLANTENTLY AND FOR A PROLONGED PERIOD OF TIME.
Gracie said, “I just want to smack people when they stare at me like that.”
” I know it is uncomfortable to be seen with a slightly overweight middle-aged white woman, I replied with a laugh. “Maybe she was just thinking you are a pretty girl,” I replied trying to lighten the mood and knowing full well that was not the case.
“No she was staring at me because I look different from you,” Gracie said.
“Well, you are probably right but since her family is Asian, and you’re Asian, maybe she hasn’t seen a combination like ours before. Cut her some slack. Or did you ever consider that maybe she was staring at me because I am a beautiful woman?” I said switching tactics.” You know when I was younger people did look at me once in a while.”
“Why, were you wearing funny clothes?” Gracie asked.
“Did your hair look weird?”
“Were you wearing hippie earrings?”
“Were you smoking cigarettes?”
“No, honey, its just that I wasn’t hard on the eyes,” I said with a smile.
To which Gracie replied, “so what happened?” (stab me with an icepick again my sweet child)
“Life, baby, just life”
“So are you telling me that it is all downhill for me? Is that what you are saying? That all I have to look forward to in life is growing up, growing old and getting (sorry mom) out of shape?” (yep, she did it again)
“No baby. You can look forward to getting wiser, becoming stronger, being bolder, forging your own path, finding yourself, doing what makes you happy, learning to be true to yourself, falling in love, learning about what real love is, teaching your children, teaching your grandchildren, learning to look at the world and realizing it is not just black and white, practicing tolerance, having great sex with your partner, making a difference in this world is some small way, finding your spirit,practicing perseverance, learning to be content with what you have, following your dreams, laughing in the face of adversity, being more honest, and loving, loving and loving some more even when you are not sure you have it in you. And if you are lucky you will get to discover all of this and participate in some much that you hadn’t even considered. And you will appreciate and be grateful for this life that you have been given which so many people are denied. Hopefully, you will live your life to the best of your ability and when you will die secure in the knowledge that you made a difference. Yes, it’s all something you have to look forward to, everything except saggy boobs, you don’t have to look forward to that.”
The High Price Of Being A Temptress…298 Days To Fix This
This four-day holiday weekend is all ours. Today we pack up the car, wave good-bye to the kiddos and head due west towards the ocean. By ourselves. All alone. A time meant to revive this marriage to its fullest, a time to be ourselves and put away the parent mode and ramp up the “I’m too sexy for my shirt” one.
As I mentioned earlier my husband informed me that he misses the days when I would act like a temptress and seduce him while wearing sexy barely nothing there lingerie. I know that this week-end he is getting more than he bargained for.
I bought this beautiful corset dress. Here is it.
Sexy isn’t it? Paired with a pair of black stilettos it is definitely titillating to the max. If this doesn’t get him he is already seven feet under. The only issue with this particular item of non-clothing is that the bust was about five sizes too big and stuck out 8 inches in front of were my boobs should have been filling it up. This is what happens when you order on-line instead trying on in-store…things you think will fit here end up fitting there. I was bummed.
I mentioned my problem to my walking buddy L who told me to come on over and she would stitch it to fit. Thank goodness for good friends!
“No problem,” she assured me, “You will look beautiful when I am done with you.”
Today I arrived. I stuffed myself into the dress trying not to turn crimson as I stood in front of L who has never seen me in a bathing suit before much less a seducing suit. She fussed, she mussed, she pinned and grinned while I stood there completely flustered. But hey, I was doing this for my man I reasoned; so what’s a little lack of modesty amongst friends?
As we sat down in her perfect powder white chairs at the dining table so she could begin sewing I was horrified to suddenly see purple/black fingerprints all over her lovely pristine chairs. We both looked down at our hands to discover that they were entirely black from the dyed lace overlaying the corset. At that moment I wanted to die.
We bleached, used the Magic Eraser and we scrubbed with every cleanser known to man. Nothing worked to remove the awful purple fingerprints. By this time I was nearly in tears. Thank goodness I have a gracious, calm friend who kept reassuring me that “it is only a chair.”
But to me it isn’t just a chair. It’s two chairs. And they belong to my friend who was doing me a favor. And they are ruined.
Today I discovered that there is a high price to being a Temptress. It costs exactly $414.97.
One sexy corset $59.00
One pair of silk thigh high stockings $19.00
One tube of red lipstick $10.99
One tube radiant makeup overlay $19.99
One spool of black thread $5.99
Two white dining room chairs $300.00
Total $414.97
B is definitely getting more than he ever bargained for. I pray he thinks its worth it.
A Marriage Of Stone
Recently, I have started hand sanding rocks as a hobby. These are not ordinary rocks mind you, but Petoskey Stones direct from Lake Michigan. The Petoskey also has the distinction of being the state rock. These prehistoric fossil rocks were created long before dinosaurs roamed the earth and comprised of six-sided corallites. I love them.
The interesting thing about these rocks are that they are pretty ugly until given the care that they need. They often look like deeply pitted gray blobs while laying under the cold water but upon close inspection you can often just make out the outline of something more wonderful to come. My kids and I love scooping them out of the lake and lining our pockets, heavy with the weight of promise, as we make our way home.
Once home I begin the sanding process. Professionals use special tumblers as the rock can disintegrate if care is not taken. I just sand with ordinary sand paper. I start with 80 grit and move upwards until I reach a grit so fine it almost feels smooth as glass. Ever so slowly I sand away the imperfections of the rock, moving in a circular motion, like water carrying particles down the drain. As I remove layer upon layer the picture of what’s to come gets clearer and I can begin to see the exquisite beauty of each stone. Sometimes it takes days or weeks to get that kind of clarity.
Marriage is a little like those rocks. Marriages are held together with layers of our personal marital history melded with the fossils of our past. Often a long-lived marriage looks like it has come right out of the water…cold, wet, pockmarked and oftentimes so ugly and plain you think about just throwing it back. But then you remember that with a little patience, effort, time and care you will begin to see each small component of the whole looking shiny and bright. Finally, after much polishing and nurturing the beauty of your stone/marriage comes to life and you can see what all that hard work has brought you…something precious, lovely and beautiful to look at..a showpiece that the two of you have created from something that came before.
And all it took to see such beauty was a little elbow grease and a lot of faith that there was something better underneath.
Cornell Study Finds Key To Happy Marriages…299 Days To Fix This
According to researcher, Karl Pillemer, author of 30 Lessons for Loving: Advice from the Wisest Americans on Love, Relationships, and Marriage there are five key elements that make for successful long-term relationships.
Pillemer interviewed over 400 Americans who had been married from thirty to over 50 years. What he discovered was this:
- Couples who saw marriage as a “We’re In This Love Forever” type of life-long committed relationship were the ones that made it. While they had rough patches and times of stress these couples fought to get through their troubles and ultimately succeeded by not giving into the temptation to leave. These folks just refused to give up!
- The couples interviewed beleived that it was important to pick a person who had smiliar interests, views and background. If these commonalities were observed contentious issues regarding money, religion and how to raise the children would be minimized because the core values were the same according to the happy couples.
- Talk, talk, talk said these long wedded couples. According to them problems are solved through constant open dialouge and that they felt that marriages ultimately fall apart due to lack of communication.
- Team work tells the story according to Pillemer. Marriage is not always a 50-50 proposition. When illness or setbacks sidelines your partner the other has to step up and step into the game. A winning couple acts as a team in all facets of their lives and problems are not an individual issue but one that the team faces and works on together.
- Know your potential spouse well before marrying them. Shared experiences over time tell you how you will handle issues and problems in the future. These long time lover advised making sure you like your partner in all types of situations because you can’t go into marriage thinking that you will change them. You won’t.
Oh yeah, one more thing…those long term forever marriages…well they have a lot of sex even in their advanced years. Now that is about the best news I have heard in a long time…Maybe there is hope for us yet!
Rollercoaster..300 Days To Fix This
Its amazing to me
How fast our marriage is unwinding
Like a rollercoaster starting its rapid descent
Twisting and turning
As we zoom towards the bottom
Twenty nine years
Quickly becoming undone in one month
Even though we’ve been on this ride longer than that
And I just didn’t know it
I reach blindly… desperate to find the brake
To stop this madness
To stop the momentum of this swift decline
Knowing that when we reach the bottom
We will no longer have the energy to make another loop
Doomed to crash
Our marriage mangled in the wreckage
And there is left nothing to save us
Not time, not money, not great sex
Not memories, not dreams, not children
Not even grandchildren
Nothing but love
Which acts as the brake
I cannot grab it with my hand
To stop the madness of this ride
That has left us undone
And sitting on opposite ends of the car
That carries us swiftly to our demise
The Princess Returns…301 Days To Fix This
Last week was poignant. The baby of our brood headed off to Science Camp for five days. It is a rite of passage in this neck of the woods and she didn’t want to go. She has never been able to spend the night at friends houses because she would get “homesick” and end up back at home at 3 a.m. Obviously, this was a big deal.
Sometimes it is interesting what people are afraid of. Gracie is a champion diver. She falls from dizzying heights and lands in water that can be sharp and chill you to the bone. She has the courage of Spider Man and flies higher than a squirrel; yet nothing was scarier for her than leaving her Mommy and Daddy behind.
We tried many things to convince her that she would have a wonderful time up in the woods and that she wouldn’t miss us one iota. We bought tons of “girly girl” hair accessories so she could perform magic on her cabin mates hair. We bought a disposable camera for her to take pictures of all the fun she would be having. I stuck “love notes” in her suitcase that she could open one day at a time.
And finally the big day arrived. In the morning she sniffled a bit in protest but by the time she arrived at school she was talking with her friends like she had everything under control. A few minutes later she rode away on that big yellow school bus, hand out the window, waving goodbye with a big smile on her face. The last thing I saw of her was the back of her head while she giggled away with a friend. Then she was gone for five long days.
Yesterday, the big yellow school bus returned and with it a more confident and secure young woman. We hugged (Oh Mom, do we HAVE to!)and Gracie related a few choice camp facts. Then she went off to claim her luggage while I called B.
“We’re screwed,” I told him.
“Why’s that?” B replied.
“Because she now knows she can make it without us. We are no longer the people who keep her safe and secure in her mind. We are now officially relegated to accessory mode. ”
It was then I heard Gracie’s sweet voice.
“Come on mom, I need your help carrying my suitcase.”
And it was then that I realized that although I may be regulated to accessory status, my little girl still needs me a little bit even if it is just to carry a portion of her load.
Date Night…302 Days To Fix This
Ever since B’s declaration that he was considering D.I.V.O.R.C.E. we have been making it a point to have a date night once a week. I can say it is the best thing we have done for ourselves in years.
Under the soft lights over dinner when I am on a date with him, once more I notice:
The soft sea foam blue/green of his eyes as they shine when he looks at me
His laugh, not too-loud, not too-soft, but just right. The kind that warms your heart.
How his smile starts in the left corner of his lip which curls slightly as the smile spreads out over his face.
How easy he is to be around. He brightens my world.
His butt, or lack there of. It still turns me on to watch him walk away from me.
Date night is serious, flirty (which my adult children would say was gross) and full of opportunity. It is a chance to explore the future both with and without each other and in doing so we are coming to think that perhaps the agony of being apart would be much greater than the thought of staying together.
I also notice:
How much time we spend laughing together. B has a sense of humor that slays me.
How B opens up more and shares at least a small part of himself
How much this man still turns me on
All I know for now is that I really enjoy Date Night..it sizzles…I just hope I don’t get burned.
The Place of Mysteries…303 Days To Fix This
Recently my therapist introduced me to The Place of Mysteries. It’s a place I have come to cherish and love. It’s a place to hold all the unanswered questions I have been carrying around from the past. It’s a place I can come back to when I have more information and either remove the questions/issues completely from The Place of Mysteries or put them back into holding for scrutinization at a different time.
As my therapist explains it, The Place Of Mysteries is kind of like a closet in your mind. Sometimes it is a fully organized place and sometimes it is packed to the brim with haphazard stuff. Occasionally you have to go into it and take everything out and separate it into three piles: the trash, the giveaway and the keep.
The trash pile is for those things that are resolved and you just don’t need them anymore. Off they go, forever hauled away from your psyche in a big rubbish truck never to be seen again.
The giveaway pile exists to allow yourself to let go of an issue/s and give the issue/s back to the person with whom they really belong. Since I tend to carry around everyone else’s shit I am looking to give it back to the rightful owners by refusing to put it in my closet in the first place or refusing to put it back. If I can accomplish this I suspect I will have a lot of room in this previously overused and cramped space of The Place of Mysteries.
The keep pile is for those still unresolved issues/situations. Gwenniffer has made herself at home in here. I’ll know she is there but I will not look at her unless another piece of information arrives and which time I may compare both pieces and see if they fit together or not. If they do not fit they will go into the trash pile but if they do I can then make an intelligent decision about what I will do with this newly obtained information and how it relates to what I know from before. It is nice to have a place for Gwenniffer rather than having her riding around on my back or inhabiting my head at the most inopportune times.
While The Place Of Mysteries doesn’t begin to answer my all questions it does hold the information in a place away from constant viewing. And while I may have picked up on something concerning Gwenniffer, I do not yet know for sure what that is, so… into The Place Of Mysteries she goes; the holding place for mysteries until they are solved.
Maybe the Gwenniffer issue will never be solved. That is possible. Or maybe at some point I will take Gwenniffer out and just throw her away on my own. But until that day comes, she is sitting in The Place Of Mysteries, out-of-the-way, in the dark, right where she belongs probably sitting next to my missing black patent leather stiletto.
Losing It
As you know I am desperately trying to curb my yelling habit and for the most part I am succeeding. I had only yelled once in over eight weeks which in itself is amazing but this weekend I lost it.
It isn’t easy raising teenagers especially those with autism. Andre does everything he can to push my buttons. While incredibly smart he also uses that keen intelligence of his to manipulate those around him and it is draining. This weekend after repeatedly asking him to hang up his clothes he told me, “I don’t have hangers.” I responded by going to his closet and started throwing every hanger he had out saying repeatedly “Here’s a hanger, here’s a hanger” until I had thrown at least 30 into the middle of his room. Then I decided that he could go through all the shirts and get rid of those that no longer fit him and took all those shirts off their hangers and threw them in the middle of his room until his closet was bare. During this time he was intentionally saying “push your button” things that just fueled the fire; the embers rising swift and hot like my temper.
I hate when I lose it with my kids. It makes me feel so small. It makes me beat myself up about not being a parent that my children deserve and certainly not one whose behavior I want them to emulate to their own brood when they become adults. Losing it with my children feels like it diminishes my capacity to be a fully functional human being and that in losing it I also sacrifice part of my own humanity in the process; something I can ill afford. I hate it.
Mindfulness has helped change many of my reactions to situations but what do you do when mindfulness dissipates in the heat of the moment?
I am learning to apologize and pray that the others involved grant me grace. Then I sit in the moment of shame, observe it, then let it go. For they tell me that the only way we can feel diminished is through self-talk in which we berate ourselves for our numerous failures. Frankly, that kind of talk doesn’t get you very far in life and I’ve done enough of it to know. Dispassionate observation of what occurred and pausing to recognize what happened and then letting it go is my only option. Then I just forge ahead with the belief that I can and will try to do better.Truly it is the only thing I can do.
Gardy Loo Pismire 