I love to read inspirational signs that make you think. The other day I saw one that suggested that instead of saying “age” we should call people different “levels.” So instead of age 80, someone now becomes “Level 80”. It does sound a lot better. It suggests all of the time and wisdom and experience that comes from being “high level.” So at least for today, I’m proud to be a “Level 47”. And also for today, I am going to head out on some fun summer adventuring before I “level up.” No matter what level you are currently on, may your summer adventures and experiences be all that you want them to be. Game on!
Author: admin
Thank You for Your Patience
It is a very strange feeling questioning yourself when you write a text to your adult child. There has been this shift in the relationship where “bossy mommy” probably isn’t going to fly anymore. There is a certain unsaid understanding that when a parent is paying the bills, the scales are tipped to the parents having a certain level of control. My son is paying his own bills now. He no longer relies on me for anything. I’m not supposed to spout my advice unless he asks me for it. I understand that on a logical level and I want to have a great adult relationship with him and my other children, so a lot of times I have to just sit on my hands and wisely choose not to write a text. When I do write a text to him, I find myself editing it, contemplating it, getting feedback on it, almost as if we were two people in a new relationship.
A college friend once told me that I apologize too much. She said that instead of saying, “I’m sorry.” I should say, “Thank you for your patience with my . . . .” So, yesterday, I just couldn’t help myself. Bossy Mommy took over the reigns and she felt it was necessary to text her adult son that he should probably get his dry cleaning done for a big business trip that he has coming up. Ugh. Now I think there was actually a struggle going on between Bossy Mommy and Mature Detached Mother, so the text came out garbled and ridiculous. Autocorrect was having a field day. I almost felt the need to tell him to please not send the text to that segment on Jimmy Kimmel Live where Jimmy reads outrageous texts from parents to their young adult kids. And everyone laughs hysterically. All that I can say is that the final text to my son from me was, “Thank you for your patience with my need to still parent you.”
And he answered, “I love you, Mom.”
Favorite Things Friday
I’ve decided to do something new with my blog on Fridays. I realize that I tend to get a little deep and this will lighten things up a bit on my favorite day of the week. It’s funny how certain seemingly insignificant memories stay with you, but a situation that happened when I was a young pre-teen has stuck with me all of these years. I was attending a sleepover with a good friend and we were doing one of those cheesy quizzes from a teen magazine. The theme of the quiz was “Describe Your Best Friend”. The choices went something like this:
A. Fun and Frisky
B. Sporty and Sassy
C. Cute and Crazy
D. Deep
Now, I was praying that she would pick A, B or C, but I already knew the answer that she would pick because she knew me and I know me. D. Deep. So, on Fridays, I am going to keep it Fun and Frisky and get out of my D. Deep box. Since I have been a female head of household (and a rather large household) for going on 24 years, that make’s me a BIG consumer. On Fridays, I’m going to talk about a few products or services that make my heart sing. Please keep in mind that I only started this blog about a week or so ago, so I assure you that I am receiving no kickbacks. Further, as a brutally honest person, I could not recommend something to anyone, if I didn’t think it is 100 percent great. That is just not my style!
First products of Favorite Things Friday:
Smart Mouth Clinical DDS Activated Oral Rinse – I love, love, love this mouthwash. My husband and I both are coffee drinkers, we both love spicy foods (Mexican, Indian, Thai, etc.) and we put onions on our Costco hot dogs, as previously mentioned. We also love to kiss each other. We’ve tried a lot of mouthwashes over the years, but nothing compares to this stuff. We even buy the travel packets for when we go on trips. It’s expensive, but my mouth has NEVER felt cleaner.
L’Oreal Hydra Genius Daily Moisturizer – As an aging women, I’ve spent a lot of cash on various skin creams at all different price points and I probably will continue to do so, forever looking for that “miracle in a bottle.” This stuff isn’t a miracle, but let’s just say, I’m on my third bottle of it and the bottles last for a relatively long time. This moisturizer is the first one in a long time that makes my facial skin feel “plumped up” for longer than 3 minutes.
Mrs. Pasture’s Cookies for Horses – We have a little horse farm around the corner that we can walk to and my daughter’s tennis instructor has a couple of horses on her property. In an attempt to bribe them to come over to the fence and see me, I started with traditional apples, then moved on to some things I found at the local feed store. However, it wasn’t until I ordered Mrs. Pastures from Amazon, that the horses came stampeding. It’s like crack for horses. Even the horses that hate people turn into Mr. Ed for this stuff. My dogs like them, too.
I think three is a lucky number, so I’ll quit there. Come back on Favorite Things Fridays and I’ll let you know where else I’m spending my money.
Thanks for reading my blog! Have a great weekend!!
Good Grief
Obviously when a child leaves the nest it’s inevitable that you will go through the process of some grieving. Grief. It’s a word, a process, an experience that we all want to avoid. In fact, I’m sure a lot of my readers right now are going, “Okay, time to X out of this page.” My husband likes to say that no one gets to middle age without going through at least one “major biggie.” And most of us have gone through more than one “biggie” by this time in our lives. Grief is an obvious outcome when we lose someone we love deeply or a long term relationship ends. There are a lot of support systems out there to help us with that expected type of grief journey. In fact, even when our aged, grumpy old man of a dog died last year at the ripe old age of at least 15 (he was a rescue, so his age was sort of up in the air), my vet handed us a 20 page booklet on how to deal with the grief of the loss of a pet.
They say that there are five stages of grief. Denial. Anger. Bargaining. Depression. Acceptance. The annoying thing about these stages is that they are not linear; you get to be-bop back and forth between them. Just when you think you are past one of these stages, something sets you back and you feel like you are at the beginning of it all over again. Grief is a lonely emotion. I’m sure that my husband and I are both grieving the fact that our nucleus family will never be the same structure that is has been for the past 22 years, but we are grieving it in different ways and be-bopping through the stages at different paces and tempos. Loving friends and family can empathize and support us through our grief, but their loving energies and prayers are just good sustenance in our backpacks as we travel this road by ourselves, individually.
I used to feel guilty about grieving. A lot of the times, the things that you grieve are also tied into exciting, happy new beginnings. I’m truly thrilled for son’s new opportunities and for the space that has been created in my life because he has moved on with his life. Every time that we moved to a new town, we grieved for our friends and neighbors, our jobs and our homes and the memories that would now be part of our past, but at the same time we were very excited for the newness of a new place, and for the experiences and people that would come with that new place. Grief can be major or minor. Heck, I grieved when my favorite perfume was discontinued and I could no longer even find it even on ebay!
One year one of my children’s yearbooks had a quote that said something to the affect that we grieve our moments in time because there is a deep understanding in us that the person we are right now in this time and place will never be the same person again. Even if we try to duplicate the experience, it can’t be the same because we aren’t the same person anymore. We are constantly changing due to our experiences and growth. So in this sense, we even grieve a former version of our own selves.
Grief is a multi-layered experience. When we are grieving someone or something, we often find old remnants of previous grieving that we thought we had already accepted. What a lovely surprise! Ha! I think the older I get, I have learned to stop labeling things as much as I used to do. Grief just is. We want to think of it is “bad” or “negative”, but it really isn’t either of those things. It’s just one of those aspects of us that proves to ourselves that we are deeply alive. I would definitely rather feel than to be numb. Why would I want to cut off the experience of feeling all of those times of pride, excitement, happiness, joy, peace, contentment, wonder, and mostly deep, deep love to avoid going through the pain of grief?? My son’s venturing out into the world towards his own adult adventures has sparked every emotion in me that I ever knew that I had, and if I accept this process and I allow this process instead of resisting it, I will come out the other end of it stronger and wiser than I have ever been before.
The Grind
I’m going to the dentist today. Obviously, I’m not excited about that fact. I didn’t put an exclamation point on that sentence. Yay! I’m going to the dentist today! I have to get a crown because my back molar chipped. My dentist insists that this is because I refuse to buy an expensive, bulky mouth guard to sleep with every night to protect my pearlies as I grind away at my teeth at night. I insist that those high priced hunks of rubber are only going to add to my dust collector collection, as I won’t be able to sleep with wax lips in my mouth.
For years, my dentist and I have had a love/hate relationship. He thinks I’m stubborn and foolish but he loves me because I’m the one who has made sure that all six members of the family have seen him regularly for seven years. I say, “Here I am, your favorite, know-it-all patient!” and he says, “Great to see you, my retirement savings have just gone up.” He has taken the impacted wisdom teeth out of the jaws of our two older boys, and created the beautiful smiles, with years of pricey orthodontics, for our two younger children. He has filled fillings, created crowns and lectured all of us to do a better job with flossing. (As much as I have tried to “walk the talk” and be a good example to our children, this is an area where I may have fallen a wee bit short.) My dentist knows my family and due to the fact that dentists mostly can only “talk at” you, I feel like I know his family and their adventures, too.
Which brings me to the sad part because today I am going to see a dentist I have never seen before. Our dentist has retired from this practice. While I understand that change is the only constant in life, it’s hard when the foundation people of your community start leaving and moving on. We have had to move our family for better job opportunities a couple of times over the years and I always enjoyed the excitement and novelty of exploring a new town. However, to make sure that the family feels secure and safe, there are some staple professional people you pick out when you first move and you make them “your own.” I remember being truly surprised when my eldest son got his “college shots” at the pediatrician and we were told that he would need to find an “adult doctor” now. What?!? Why?!? There is nothing disturbing about seeing a 6’2″ man with a beard waiting in the waiting room, watching Dora the Explorer with the other kids. Where are his Teddy Grahams for being a good boy?!? There have been a couple of occasions where three or maybe even four of our kids have even had the same teacher. My daughter recently told me that one of these teachers said that she was his favorite out of all of our family’s kids. I am pretty sure that he said that to all of our kids, but I kept that to myself.
Why is it that we accept that changes in our own lives are inevitable but feel angry and confused and bewildered when others go on with their changes in their lives? Why does it feel insulting when one of our long time neighbors move? Why do we understand that our kids are growing up but feel utterly bewildered when we get Christmas cards portraying previous members of our kids’ play groups in graduation robes and wedding gowns?? It’s like we want to explore and grow and learn, but we need everything else around us to remain the same, to be our “rocks of stability.” I think it’s like when my kids first started to crawl and to then walk and then to run. They always crawled, walked and ran back to me to make sure that I was still there, holding their security blankets to melt back into when they got tired.
I’m sure that the new dentist will be a nice, competent person and I sure that I will continue to be lectured on mouth guards and gum disease. I’m sure that we will all be okay and adjust accordingly. We’ll keep smiling. Life goes on, even though one of our “rocks of stability” has become a rolling stone.
Awkward Stage
A couple of weeks ago, I took my eldest son and my daughter who is my youngest child to lunch (I call them my Alpha and my Omega). We went to a restaurant I had never been to before that is known for its nightly shows and bands. When I asked our waiter what show he would recommend, he looked at me and without a stutter he said, “Oh, definitely Throwback Thursday. My mom loves that show.” Ouch.
Now, he was right. I am definitely old enough to be his mom. And I love 80s/90s music, because that’s the music I was brought up on, but ugh, I didn’t want him to notice that fact. I didn’t want him to look at me and think “Throwback.”
I think that I’m at that awkward stage of my Second Half of Adulting. It’s similar to the one I went through in my First Half of Adulting, when I was just a preteen. That first awkward stage involved being stuck between being a kid and being a young adult. The big dilemma at that stage was, “Do I still want to play with my toys or do I want to kiss boys?” The second awkward stage is coming to the acceptance that the stuff that I like is starting to be considered a little “outdated”, but not old enough to be considered “retro and cool.” The second awkward stage is the awakening to the fact that I’m not necessarily part of the mover/shaker crowd anymore. The marketers and the trend watchers are more interested in what my kids are buying and doing than in me anymore. And there’s a conflict because I’m not sure I want to move out of the First Half of Adulting. I still have two kids at home and unfortunately, retirement seems quite far away, but I’m starting to not fit in with the First Halfers anymore either.
It’s subtle changes you notice when you are moving out of your First Half of Adulting. It’s like when you see the Barbie you played with as a kid, now in the window of an antiques store, or you start realizing that you don’t really know who 85% of the people on the cover of the gossip magazines are anymore. The frequency of being called “Ma’am” goes up a notch. Last year I had a part-time job where I shared a cubicle area with a couple of millennial women. We were talking about weekend plans and I said that my husband and I were going to Hall and Oates. My coworker said, “Oh cool, is that an island?”
The Second Half of Adulting is still new to me. So, it’s hard to “own it” with confidence. I know that my husband and I could not pull off Hipster with any kind of grace. Tattoos, nose piercings, pink streaked hair, woolly beards and beanies aren’t part of our middle aged comfort zone. But at the same token, I’m not ready to shop for retirement communities yet, either. It’s funny how life cycles around. I never dreamed I’d have to go through another “awkward stage” but I guess these are the stages in life that you must go through to figure out what you really want next. You get so uncomfortable with being uncomfortable, that you finally accept your new role, your new place in society with confidence. You’re the “record player” now because you’re cool again. And you never stopped being a record player, it’s just that you’ve stopped apologizing for being a record player and you’ve stopped trying to turn into Spotify. With your new self confidence and self worth, people remember that you’ve always been pretty amazing and that that you still have an important role to play, it’s just shifted a little. And maybe that’s not so bad.
Just. This.
We went to the beach yesterday. We are fortunate enough to live near to the beach and it was the perfect beach day. It was the kind of day where there was enough cloud cover to keep the sun from pelting down on you and enough wind to keep you cool but not enough to stir up any storms.
We didn’t always live near to the beach. We moved here seven years ago and when we first moved here, we truly understood how lucky we were to live near to the beach and we took advantage of it every chance that we got. Then after a couple of years in, living near to the beach lost its novelty and it became familiar. It was something that was always there for us in the background, like an aged dog or like that shiny, new basketball headboard or swimming pool or fancy jungle gym in the backyard that loses its luster as the kids get older. Of course, on occasion I would panic that we had lost our appreciation for living near to the beach and I would spout out guilt-wrenching edicts at the dinner table. “We used to spend thousands of dollars to go to beaches like the ones we have practically in our own backyard! We are going to the beach tomorrow and we are going to like it and we are going to appreciate it!” There is nothing like “forced fun” to bring a family closer. Ha!
I am particularly sensitive about taking things for granted right now, with my son freshly out of the nest. So when my husband suggested a long stroll on the beach, I jumped on it. We went to our local beach which is actually a beautiful island. It is a state park so there are no condos, surf shops or blow-up water slides. We took a 2.5 mile hike out to the secluded top tip of the island and we rounded the corner to the little cove where people anchor their boats and everyone just floats.
There is a big movement right now about staying in the “now”, in the present moment. When I can do it, when I can stay in the “now”, it makes so much sense. The now is peaceful, it is a gift, it is the only thing that we truly have, but of course, staying in the now takes practice and concentration and more often than not I am haranguing myself for past mistakes or worrying about future ones. So when we first arrived at the beach and started our walk, I was beating myself up for not coming to the beach more often, especially with summer more than half over. But then something magical started happening and I think the beach is a particularly good setting for magic. Walking on the warm, giving sand, listening to the gulls and the tide coming in and out, watching a kite in the distance stay happily floating in the air, like the people in the water, floating easily on the top of the buoyant salt water, I fell into a meditation taught to me many years ago. It’s a simple meditation. Breathe in deeply. Just. Breathe out all worries and concerns and grief. This. Breathe in. Just. Breathe out. This. Just. This. Just this.
I try to put so much thought and meaning and purpose into everything that I think I often miss the whole point. It is becoming more and more obvious, the older that I get that the point is probably just to experience it all, experience all the magic, beauty and perfection, even when it doesn’t feel like perfection. Just this. It’s a beautiful, simple meditation and it may be all that we need.
Binge Watchers
Last night my husband and I watched this cute, sleepy little documentary about a sweet, young German couple and their dog, who refurbished a school bus into an adorable little traveling cottage and drove from North Carolina to Niagara Falls to Alaska, down the Pacific Coast to the tip of Mexico. Now I have to admit, when we first started watching the show I was wondering if we were getting a divine intervention. I started fantasizing about a few years from now, when our youngest, our daughter goes to college, that possibly, my husband and I could sell everything and do the same thing. Except that we would be the older, slightly less hip, American version with two dogs in tow. I even made a mental note to check Craigslist for old school buses. However, by the end of the documentary it became evident that the bus never had air conditioning, it broke down a lot, the couple met some shady characters from the Mexican drug cartel, and their dog almost died of heat exhaustion. By the end of the documentary, both of them must have said at least 17 times something to the effect of, “It will feel so great to be home and to be settled.” So then I thought to to myself, “There’s no place like home, Dorothy. Scratch that idea off of the list.”
Today’s blogpost isn’t about future retirement plans, however. This blog is about the fact that like many Americans, my husband and I have become Netflix/HBO series binge watchers. Some may call it an addiction. My son says that he now understands the true meaning of the term deja vu. He says it’s like Groundhog Day every time he comes home from whatever activity he is doing that night whether it be work or a date or a workout, only to find his parents in the same exact position on the couch staring at the television like zombies. (When he said this I thought how interesting life is when you start role reversing with your children.) Here is a short list of a few of the series we have finished in just a couple of years. Breaking Bad. Game of Thrones. Ozark. West World. Stranger Things. Peaky Blinders. The Unabomber. Are you noticing sort of a disturbing theme? If I look at that list with a little self awareness, if I consider it from my armchair psychologist point of view, I find it concerning, too. When I fervently recommended Ozark to my long time friend and hair stylist, a middle aged woman just like me, she told me that she felt dirty and like she needed trauma counseling after one episode of it. I noticed that she now carries her scissors with her when she goes to mix my hair color. My other friend is a well regarded English teacher. For years she has had the misconception that I have some kind of higher literary mind. For a long time I think that she actually thought that I had a sophisticated palate when it comes to the arts. She asked me in all wide eyed earnesty, “Why do you like Game of Thrones so much?? I hear that all it really is, is a lot of sex and violence.” The best response I could muster was, “Well, um . . . . Yeah.” I think her misconception of me is finally debunked.
Now in all fairness, I have a good rationalization for our kind of “over the top”, bloody choices for our series addiction. Have you ever done one of those crazy hardcore diets where you supposedly can lose 20 pounds in five days, or one of those carrot/celery juice cleanses where you can effectively clean out all of your internal organs at once or have you ever decided that even though you love burgers, you should probably become a vegan? And after trying one of these diets/lifestyles for a little while until you’re starving and gnawing on your own arms, you finally stop doing it and the pendulum swings so far the other way that you find yourself bingeing on McDonalds, pork tacos and buttercream frosting? Well, my husband and I are just at the “buttercream frosting” stage of our TV watching experience. For years and years (remember we have four kids) our TVs were under the lock and key of Parental Controls. We watched more Nickelodeon, Disney Channel and Full House reruns than anyone I know. It wasn’t until our kids became teenagers and they were always out or even when they were home, they were always in their rooms Facetiming their friends, that we got full, uninhibited access to our TVs again.
The thing that heartened me about our TV viewing choice last night was that it was soft, pleasant, rated PG and it wasn’t going to give me any nightmares. It might have been slightly boring, but it kept our interest and we watched it all of the way to the end. Perhaps the pendulum is swinging back to center now. And that’s the whole idea, right? That no matter what stage of life you’re in, no matter what activity your partaking in, you just want to feel centered, no matter what. In the meantime, I’m waiting impatiently, with bated breath for the next season of Ozark and Game of Thrones.
Costco and Aging
I’m about to write something kind of “cringy.” My kids say that I say “cringy” things all of the time, so I guess I’ll just stay on my roll. Today my husband and I are going to Costco and I’m giddy about it. Yes, giddy. I’m pretty sure that my husband’s excited about it, too. It’s on the list of Date Night Options and it makes the cut a lot of the time. I’m not sure why I love Costco. I’ve had a membership for a long, long time and I didn’t always feel this way about it. When I was younger, I think I considered Costco to be more of a “necessary evil.” I hate crowds and our Costco is always crowded, starting with the crazy parking lot. The samples really don’t thrill me. I don’t really like Greek yogurt and quinoa is only good to me if it is smothered in some kind of fattening sauce. The sample “nazis” stress me out anyway. I’m still a little scarred from the time when I accidentally pulled a sample from the wrong side of the little plastic roof thing. That Sample Lady angrily immediately tossed out the entire tray of samples into the garbage can right in front of the hoards of people waiting with drool coming out of their mouths. I think I got the evil eye all at once from at least 60 people that day.
So, I’m trying to figure out why my husband and I like Costco as much as we do. It might be because Costco has a little something for everyone, or should I say a lot of something for everyone. I mean who doesn’t like good books, good gadgets, good prices and mounds of food? I really don’t think that is it, though. Now please don’t quote me on this because I’m not a doctor or a scientist, but I’m almost positive that loving Costco is part of the biological aging process. I think it goes like this: Wrinkles. Readers. Grey Hairs. Achy joints. Enthusiasm for Costco.
When we go to Costco it’s like a Middle Age Reunion Club. Every time we go there we always see someone from the past. We see couples from our former Travel Soccer Club Posse. We see current work colleagues and parents we met at College Orientation in the Book Store. And we all are smiling. And we all have full carts. And we are all going to get one of those delicious, cheap hot dogs wrapped in those steamy, pillowy buns because we earnestly believe that the jumbo size One A Day vitamin bottle that we just purchased will cancel out the guilty pleasure of the hot dogs. Whatever makes me happy about Costco, whether it be a biological switch or not, one thing is for certain. Costco is on the keeper list for my Second Half of Adulting.
Taking the Plunge
My second son, a 20 year old college student, is going skydiving for the first time today. Skydiving. He and his girlfriend both have birthdays in July and they felt that this shared experience would make a great mutual birthday gift for each other. Now my more conservative friends have said that this was the time for me to start threatening to cut off payments for college and living expenses if he goes through with this. My more adventurous friends have asked if they could get in on the experience. After much discussion and prayers and more discussion, my husband and I have reluctantly offered our blessing to this excursion. And I will be able to breathe again when I hear that they have safely landed back on Earth.
My second son has always been my daredevil and thrill seeker. In lieu of a high school graduation party, he wanted a day of jet skiing. He valets as a summer job, primarily so that he can drive Ferraris, even for a short jaunt. He’s not a fearful person. I love his zest for life. But this blog is not supposed to be about my kids. It’s supposed to be about getting “back to me.” Which brings me to this confession. Skydiving has always been on my bucket list. Unfortunately I never got around to it when I was 20 or 22 and by the age of 24, I was pregnant with my first child. Skydiving quickly got moved way down on the bucket list, because skydiving never seemed like an entirely prudent, responsible decision to make as a mother of 4 children. I always envisioned the headlines, “Irresponsible Mother of 4 Children Plunges to Her Death in an Expensive, Frivolous, Unnecessary Skydiving Excursion as Horrified and Forever Traumatized Family Looks On.” I like to think I was being responsible for not doing it, perhaps I was just being chicken.
I think the neat part about this Second Half of Adulting, is the inspiration and learning that you start really gleaning from your aging kids. Now, I’ve learned from my kids my whole mothering experience. It is awesome to rediscover caterpillars and roller coasters and Christmas through the fresh eyes of your children. But as they get older, their experiences get bigger and you are moving further and further away from what the world looked like in your childhood and closer to what the world looked like in their childhoods. In some ways, they are starting to know a little bit more about today’s world, than you do. (They know a hell of a lot more about tech and social media than I do!) This can be sobering, but exciting. The shift from me being a mostly “in the moment teacher” to more of a “wise old sage/wide eyed student” is happening to me as my kids grow up and it’s interesting to experience.
My eldest son had a summer internship in my hometown last summer. Now I grew up in my hometown, as did my parents and both sets of grandparents. I spent all of my twenties there. So, when we went to visit him, I figured I would be the tour guide. Ha! He took us to neighborhoods that used to be “lock your door, don’t make eye contact and drive fast” neighborhoods that are now really cool hipster hangouts with wonderful places to eat, to drink and be merry. He took us to my old familiar “haunts” but with his fresh, excited eye and perspective, it made me appreciate these places in ways that I never had before. When I was willing to let go of my control and my “authority”, I really enjoyed being the student of an old place turned “new.” My son made for an excellent tour guide.
I’m really excited for the upcoming tours and adventures that all four of my children will lead me on. I’m looking forward to the upcoming tours and adventures that I’ll be leading myself on. I’m also grateful and inspired to remember those items that have been placed on the back-burner. Skydiving has just moved up a little on my own personal bucket list.