"When I Grow Up..."

One day I awoke to the realization that what I had playfully said all those years, tossed so lightly over my shoulder...I can't say anymore. That time is over and I am here at this very moment in the last quarter of my life. What an absolutely stunning thought!

I remember sitting on the beach in Southport with a good friend, talking about the years that would eventually come, about what we wanted to do. It was the early sixties. My friend and I were raising children and couldn't imagine managing a family and a job. "Oh, when I grow up I'll....." we tossed lightly into the air like a bridal bouquet. And brides we were. We talked about being able to go to Bloomingdales without the children and maybe having lunch. We talked about husbands and heartaches, movies and the children waking us up during the night protesting there were monsters under their beds. And we talked about therapy, the hot topic at that time: Jung and J.D.Laing.

I doubt if either one of us really had a plan for the future. It seemed so far away then. We didn't exactly feel grown up. Many women of our generation had married and had children because it was expected. Unless their parents had been savvy about opportunities out there in the world, the future was presented in a very narrow format: marriage, children....none of us really thought about the future. We thought far more about how to make ourselves happy in what we considered the fruitless job of homemaking, a job which wasn't respected. We loved our children but we felt incomplete and separated from the real world. The real world was where people went when they were grown up.

My friend and I talked for years about filling the creative need inside us. She did far better than I giving and taking dance class. I puttered, stripping furniture, applying my creativity to my home.

I had forgotten the phrase we used so much back then until one day just a few years ago, when I awoke to the reality that there was, in fact, no more time to grow up. I called my friend. We were simultaneously shocked, like young girls who hadn't understood the rules of the game. "So this is how it all turned out," my friend said "this is what happened to us."

My friend and I have a long history. We have celebrated together and suffered through every possible problem a friendship can face, but in the early morning she is the person I call. In the sixties we went to luncheons together and drank small lovely glasses of sherry. In the seventies she was the person who pressed me to go to a party where I met the man I subsequently married. When we finally faced the fact that the days of our lives were running down, we could have just given up and let our mouths droop at the corners, but we chose love and laughter instead.

Sometimes the slowing down of our bodies causes us to gripe, but that is only until one hears the complaint of the other; we listen and then move on with the day. It is so important to have that ear, that good friend to whom you can say those things. I believe that love and friendship, whether they be family members or not, get us through this time. Love sustains us and enables us to create.

One of the first things my friend and I discussed was the inherent desire to see certain friends and not others. We found ourselves becoming more selective about how we spent our time and with whom. Now that I am all grown up and as in charge of my life as any person can be, I want to spend time with the people I love and who love me. I want to disconnect from the people who used me in whatever form and to open my heart to new friendships that expand, broaden, are reciprocal. In that way, I'll be able to make each day count.


I hope you'll write and tell me about your experience.

All good wishes,

Christina

What Was That Noise?

I was at the physical therapist's the other day and she asked me to do a lunge in order to evaluate the progress of my knee. I did an abbreviated one and she asked: "What was that noise?" "My knee," I said. No demonstration could have given her a better idea of our lack of progress than that crunching sound. We laughed and then proceeded to design a one-month plan to do
everything possible to speed up my recovery. Kind of a one-month blast. Our optimism was so great that it cloaked the ache in my leg as I got into the car.

But this morning when I went to a lecture at my local nursery - "Planting a garden of Ferns" - I found myself standing for a long time as we watched a 60-slide presentation, then went into the plant area and identified fern samples. By the time I walked back to my car, tears were in my eyes. My knee had given up this false optimism and I was once again consumed by pain -- not a complaint just a statement of fact. On the way home, I put the car on cruise so I wouldn't have to engage that leg.

And then I reread Penny's comment -- a wonderful reminder that love and laughter are terrific tonics. So when my grandchild, Lucie, (age 5) called to tell me about her latest soccer achievement, I was relieved and delighted. She told me about kicking the ball and about what she was wearing to a lunchtime party. "Underpants," she said and laughed and laughed. I joined her because I know Luce: if she could go that way she would.

It was so good to laugh. Isn't timing everything?

AND THERE I WAS ON THE FLOOR AT TARGET

There are many things to be grateful "for" but, as I ripen into the season of my life, the many reasons blend into a sacred mystery.  And, most deeply, I realize that living gratefully is its own blessing.  -  Michael Mahoney

Yesterday at a Target checkout, my wallet fell open and the change dropped to the floor. Nickels, dimes, quarters, strewn in a half circle around me. My immediate reaction was to think through how I was going to do this.  OK, the change is down there, now all you have to do is be very careful bending your knee to get to it.

I very slowly dropped to one knee, and was managing to pick up the scattered change when I saw a pair of chubby brown hands beside mine. They were the hands of a lovely Mexican woman who looked at me with a slight smile. Together, we picked up the change and as I thanked her and began to move back to a standing position, I found that my bad leg wouldn't support me. She quickly put her arm around me and helped me to my feet. 

Within the few seconds it took for all of this to happen, my mind filled with negatives -- you're old, you're at "that" point and on and on. But the moment I became conscious of her arm around me, I was flooded with gratitude. What had begun as shame had become something entirely different. The woman looked at me kindly, nodded and went back to her shopping.  It was as though this was just part of her day.  I was humbled by her consideration and respect. And I thought, pass it on.  

What amazed me most was the internal change that I felt.  I had been humbled by my body failing, but her kindness opened my heart to a new and deeper sense of gratitude.  That evening, everything took on a different glow from the salad I prepared for dinner to watching the US Open. My sense of appreciation had swelled many times over and I was glad of it. Isn't it amazing what an act of kindness can do and isn't it equally amazing that as we grow to deal with our transitioning lives, the experience of true joy can come flooding in.

A final note:  at the very moment I sat down to write, my dear friend from the West Coast sent me the Michael Mahoney piece at the top of this blog.  Life and its timing can be truly amazing. 

Christina

Check out: http://www.gratefulness.org

Does categorizing limit expansion?

Some may think categorizing women by age limits society's view of them as well as their view of themselves.  But the truth is transitioning into the final years or decades of one's life can be especially difficult and is often determined by the years that came before, the expectations we held, the relationships we had, the interests we pursued and especially, how we felt about our bodies.

This blog is dedicated to opening the channels of communication between "woman of a certain age" in order to ease the transition and learn how others have handled and continue to handle it. There has been nothing in my life so important as having a role model, a model that allows me to open myself to another way of seeing things.  My hope is that women will come to "Over the Fence" and by sharing their experiences and their opinions, become models for one another.

I'm walking across the lawn now, coffee in hand, the day is bright with a slight breeze and I'm ready to talk... and listen over the fence.  Please join me.

Christina

Back after a long day in New York City.  I hadn't planned to write tonight but I am compelled to comment on the manner and thought of the path Ulla has chosen.  Some of us find ourselves more confused, some less.  For some of us the separation is too much of a shock while for others, its a new beginning.  So much of our reaction has to do with the history we choose to bring to it.  And I say "choose" because some of us might have taken a bit of the baggage left over from our own histories and wallowed (and I say that carefully) in the pain of the loss.

I remember the day I dropped my first child at school.  I had no idea what kind of wrenching experience it would.  I'd thought that my sheer joy for her to be moving on with her life would satisfy me.  Not the case.  I, too, cried.  All the way home.

But amazingly, years go by, another separation, tears, more tears and then something inside shifts and we learn this is part of a process.  Like my garden, most of us reach for the light.

OVER THE FENCE

Conversations with Women

 

My waist is thick; my breasts sag and I feel invisible.  That about sums up the physical aspects of being seventy-three.

I try to walk thirty minutes a day as prescribed by Dr. Oz, but my bum knee usually stops me mid way.  And yet this voice inside me yearns to move forward, quickly:  to take on a new challenge, be loved, make love, and shine in my husband’s eyes.

My mind is rich with experience, with the wisdom that comes from having lived a whole life, but I want more.  Why can’t these years be more than the prescribed notion of the 60s, 70s, 80s?  Why can’t I leave the gray stands in my hair and not be recognized as nothing more than an old person.

For months now I have ruminated over these questions.  Everyone said, just leave it alone, it will come to you.  The “universe” will let you know what you are to do.  Well perhaps in the end that was true, because the day I wrote “A Wednesday Morning in April,” my life began to change.  That day led me to create this blog so I could communicate with women who are frozen on the road or moving in the same direction, going through this difficult yet wondrous process called aging.  Difficult because it challenges us with a pain here, a tightness there, some hypertension and questions about the future.  Wondrous because life is laid open to us.  No more pretense.  We can come from a clear and lucid place within ourselves and judge how we want to spend the last decades of our lives.

But the day I wrote “A Wednesday Morning in April,” I didn’t think life was so wondrous.  I was thinking:  “What now?”  I hope you’re willing to take a few minutes to read the piece and to walk this path with me.

A  Wednesday Morning In April

I am having my upper lip waxed in a room where the walls have been painted a stirring melon and the trim a sullen mauve.  Amazingly, the colors temper each other. 

I inhale deeply, the pillow under my neck absorbing the heavy morning, the headache that awakened me, the desire to sleep again.  It is only ten o’clock and I want to lie here for as long as they will let me while her fingers work methodically, first applying a light covering of talcum, next a layer of hot wax about two fingertips in length, then the fabric, then the pull that tears the small dark hairs from their roots.  I think of the smoothness when it will be done.

It is only 10:15.  I have earned this freedom they tell me.  And yet, the expanse of it causes me to stop as I lower myself into my car.  Anywhere…you can drive anywhere, I tell myself.  I head home.

It is cold and windy with faint raindrops every few minutes.  I heat the breakfast coffee in the microwave.  It is still warm from the morning but I heat it anyway, waiting for that certain temperature that mimics the first sip of the day.  The gutter is running over and covers the French doors with a sheet of rain.  Have to get that fixed, I think and then turn to the kitchen. 

The blue bowls from Martha’s Vineyard are still in the sink, soaking last bits of oatmeal before they go into the dishwasher.  I swish them with a small scrub brush and load them into the washer with juice glasses and used coffee cups.  I wash the pale blush counters with hot sudsy water and rinse with an old bar clothe. 

The rain begins to slow and a glimmer of sun tips the rickrack plant on the windowsill.  Things are in place.  I walk to the French doors.  What to do, what to do. 

 

Please let me know about you.

 

Christina