Tag: aging

Friday’s My Favorite

Buddy the Elf’s Manager: Why are you smiling like that?

Buddy the Elf: I just like to smile. Smiling’s my favorite!

Buddy the Elf’s Manager: Make Work your favorite. That’s your favorite, okay? Work is your new favorite.

Ha! It’s Favorite Things Friday and there is no way, ever that work is going to make the list. Smiling can make the list on Favorite Things Friday, but not work. Nuh-uh, no way, no how. New readers, on Fridays, I keep things light and happy and smiley. There are no deep thoughts on Fridays. I typically list about three things, songs, apps, websites, twitter feeds, etc. that make the experience of my life just a little bit grander. I would love for my readers to get involved in the comments section and add to the favorites list so we all can have an even grander experience is this game called Life.

Today, I am going to expand my list a little bit because I’m only going to discuss nail polish colors. Now, I have hideous fingernails and I’m too lazy, impatient, cheap and rough with my hands, to get acrylics. However, I have always had pride in my feet. I think that I have decently pretty feet. I also love a good pedicure, even more than a massage. Even though “work is not my favorite”, if I had a dream job, I think it would be naming nail polish colors. I think those people are among the most creative people in the world, and I’d love to be part of that colorful crowd! Here goes:

In the brown family: Essie Partner in Crime (a dark, chocolate brown) and Essie Mink Muffs (a light, chocolate milk brown). Also, OPI Krona-logical Order (a greyish, earthy brown).

In the orange family: This is my only go-to in the orange family and I go-to it a lot! Essie Playing Koi (an dark, autumn-like, rusty orange)

In the green family: My skin tone looks terrible with light greens, but this rich, foresty, dark green is fabulous!! Essie Stylenomics

In the blue family: Blue is another tricky color with my skin tone, which bums me out, because I love the blues on other people. That said, I can get away with this light, sky blue version. OPI No Room For The Blues

In the red family: I know Russia is a touchy subject these days, but this is the only red that works for me. Dark, mysterious, maroon-ish and metallic. OPI Midnight in Moscow

My two long-term favorites of all time: Essie Smokin’ Hot (a fabulous milky, dark lavender) and OPI Nein! Nein! Nein! Ok, Fine! (a gorgeous, sophisticated grey)

To give you a frame of reference, I am a natural brunette with brown eyes and medium skin tone. I often have been asked if I am Italian (one very southern woman once asked me if I was in the EYE-talian Mafia, true story), Spanish (a lot of people just start talking to me in Spanish), Middle Eastern, and Native American (this one is more related to my maiden name). Truth be told, according to DNA tests, I’m not at all exotic, much to my dismay. I am mostly English and Irish and a little bit of German. Anyway, readers please share your favorite polish colors!!

Buddy the Elf answering his father’s office phone: Buddy the Elf, what’s your favorite color?

Come on readers, what’s your favorite color??? Happy Friday!!!

The Most Important Lesson

“One of the Best and Most difficult lessons you can learn in life is that no one owes you anything and you owe yourself everything.” – FofF twitter

We have started to get close to the crescendo of the holiday season.  I see it in my family and I see it in our stores.  I see it in the local restaurants and I see it in my neighbors’ faces.  There are parties after parties, food overloads/comas, last minute stresses, shopping and shipping fiascos, final exams, and on a personal level, our family spent most of yesterday on a wild trek/scavenger hunt for the last, decent, real Christmas tree in our part of Florida.  (we found it, thank goodness!)

Over Thanksgiving, our 18-month-old Labrador dog, Ralphie, was a frenzied mess.  We had 16 people in our home and a lot of those people were teenagers who liked to swim with him, in our pool.  He was ecstatic and on total sensory overload.  At one point, someone made the comment that he was like a toddler who was beyond exhausted and just didn’t know what to do with himself.  With his long tongue sticking out, he aimlessly started pawing at everyone and everything with a wild, blank expression on his face.  I think that this is the state that a lot of us get to at some point in the holiday season, and I think that it is starting right now.  

It is at this point in the season, that it is so important to stop, pause and just breathe.  Nothing is as important as we have built up in our heads or that our stressed bodies are making it feel like.  Everything that is truly important will get done.  Everything that is meant to happen, will happen and all will be fine.  All is well. 

I love the opening quote because sometimes during the holidays, often us females particularly, try to do so much to make the holidays “perfect” with the hidden expectation that if we do everything just right, Santa or someone else is going to make the holidays “perfect” for us.  Deep down though, we know that this is not how it works.  As we are finishing up the season, we must bring the focus back to ourselves.  We must remember that no one can fill up our mind, body, spirit needs except us, and that “trifecta of filling up” is our biggest responsibility, to ourselves so that we can be there for others.  Today, we need to be honest with ourselves about what we need.  Those needs should be on the top of today’s holiday “to-do” list.  

“Slow down.  You’re too important.  Life teaches you how to live it, if you live long enough.” – Tony Bennett, on what advise he would have given to Amy Winehouse

Happy Birthday Beethoven!

Happy Birthday to Beethoven and to me! Beethoven is 248 and I am 48.  I’ve actually reached the age that when someone asks me how old I am I have to roll my eyes up into my head, think, do some math and finally come out with the right answer.  When I was a kid, I used to think that was a lot of bunk when adults did that, but I now realize that forgetting your age, really does happen.  You reach middle age and you know that you are in a certain age range, but the actual number never sticks with you.  I’m not sure it that is a sign of early dementia or subconscious rebellion/denial, but I now know that whatever causes it, it’s a real thing.  However, for today, I know that I am 48.

I guess being 48 means that I really am approaching age 50, in a very serious way.  Honestly, I really don’t mind.  My body is definitely slowing down, and that gets frustrating.  I wore some pretty high heels to the Christmas party last night and I feel like I ran a marathon in record speed this morning, my body aches so much.  Still, from a mental, emotional, and life stage point of view, I am very optimistic about my fifties.  I feel like I know myself better than I have ever known myself.  I think I approach life with more curiosity, appreciation and acceptance than I ever have before.  I no longer try to conquer and control Life.  I’m better at letting Life flow.

When I was on the brink of my forties, my whole life changed in many, major ways.  Let’s just say that my husband and I were the Poster Kids for the Recession.  Our life as we knew it, completely and irrevocably disappeared and we ended up having to move our large family to a whole new city and state, to begin again.  And, guess what?  It’s a cliche to say it, but it turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to our family, on so many fronts.  I strongly believe that God/the Universe knows what it’s doing.  My faith lies in that.

Years ago, I read a very fun, upbeat book in which the author insisted that everything that happens to you, is meant to guide you to joy.  Now, I get that statement can be a tough pill to swallow, especially when you are going through one of those really rough “Why me?” times in life, but if you really look for it, there is a glimmer of goodness and transformation in every single experience.  I believe that with every fiber of my body.

I once again want to thank you for reading my blog, commenting on my blog, bolstering me and rooting for me.  You, my readers, have been a wonderful gift in my life this year.  Happy Birthday to me!  It’s going to be a great year and a great upcoming decade for all of us!! 

    

Holiday Hottie

Recently I read this question/answer in Quora.  The questioner asked, “What age is considered middle age?”  The best voted answer came from a writer named Rufus Evison.  He said, “It keeps changing.  The important thing is not to give up making an effort.  If you are resting on your laurels and getting fatter, that is middle age.”

The truth hurts.  Today I am making an effort.  I am going into the salon for my pre-holiday beauty refresh.  I will be there for hours and hours.  That is definitely a sign of middle age for women – the older you are, the longer you will spend in the hair salon.  We have a couple of holiday parties coming up this weekend and I am making my effort to try to look like I am just at the early stages of middle age.  I’m going to try to make the hours and hours spent in the salon today, look more like an “effortless, popped out of bed, looking this way” freshness at the parties.  Ha!

In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve mentioned eating cookies and other holiday treats a lot in my blog, in recent weeks.  Ugh. It shows.  And I don’t live up north, so I can’t hide those few extra pounds in clothing layers, bulky Christmas sweaters and oversized coats.  Double ugh.  I wish that these parties were costume parties with themes like Best Jolly Santa or Fattest Frosty.

I read once that you can look completely “finished” if you just put your hair in a neat, tidy, nape pony tail, wear over-sized sunglasses and bright lipstick.  That’s been my “go-to” look lately.  That, or baseball caps, or even just my warm, fuzzy robe, have been the “holiday look” for me, so far.  I get that these are pretty weak laurels to rest on, Rufus.  So, it’s off to the salon, I go.  If I really want to look younger than middle age and look like a “holiday hottie”, I may have to stay at the salon throughout the holidays, and be ready just in time for the New Year’s Eve celebrations.  Hmmmmmm . . . . 

Llamas, Sloths and Gnomes

Every year, there seems to be a few particularly popular symbols or creatures and true to American form, we take that character and run with it.  We put it on everything from towels, to soaps, to cups, to garden accessories, to underwear.   This year I have seen a lot of llamas, sloths and those cute, little gnomes, in which the only thing that you can see is their adorable little ball of a nose, sticking out from under their pointy hats.  At Christmas time, these items seem to multiply, and usually with little holiday additions, like holly berries and some tinsel, to add to their charm.

I have not been immune to this craze.  I have a couple of sloth accessories, several llama trinkets and about 500 versions of the nose gnome.  I’ve loved gnomes since I was a kid and this particular version is extremely irresistible to me.

When my husband and I were first married, we became friends with a Swedish family, who came to America for a couple of years, on a work visa.  Our Swedish friends said that one of the things that struck them the most about America, was the overwhelming abundance of choices, when it came to just about anything.  They said that they even found toothpaste shopping to be stressful, due to the plethora of brands and flavors.

It’s easy to be a collector of just about anything in America.  There are so many options available.  I think that this is something that many of us take for granted.  Truthfully, some of us take this American perk, a little too far, thus the TV show,  Hoarders.  Every once in a while, I make myself watch that show, just to keep myself in check.  I don’t want my readers to watch that show someday and see me buried in a pile of llama, sloth and big-nosed gnome trinkets.  I want to still be able to get to my computer and to write.  Plus, I want to still have plenty of room for objects portraying the new “in” symbol of cuteness, every single year. 

The Old and the New

Today I’m going to see people I haven’t seen in a very long time.  This includes adults and children.  The “children” are now teenagers who will tower over me and I’ll say the same dumb thing that was always said to me by middle-aged people when I was their age, “Oh my goodness!  The last time I saw you, you were only this big!”  I’ll put my hand at some arbitrary spot near to my waist and they will smile at me awkwardly, silently wondering how the hell they are supposed to respond to that statement.

The other adults and I will politely tell each other the opposite statement.  “Oh my goodness!  You haven’t changed one bit!”  We all know that’s a lie.  Someone recently told me that aging is like a toilet paper roll, the closer you get to the end of it, the faster it goes.  That is the truth.  Still, it will feel good to hug each other and know that even though we all have aged, the familiar essence of the core people we care about, is still nestled into those slightly older, worn for the wear packages, showing that we all have experienced all sorts of life, since we have seen each other last.

I’m expecting the kids to be the most changed, of course.  I’m really curious to talk to them individually.  When kids are little, you kind of lump them into a group and they like it that way; they are “the kids”.  At gatherings, kids would much prefer to be in little bands of their own company versus awkwardly staring at the adults leering down at them, comparing that particular child’s growth chart movement from the previous year.  My husband even noted recently that for years, he saw our four children, as more of one entity, “the kids.”  Now that our children are spreading out in all different directions, it’s easier to see their individuality and their unique qualities and tastes, more than it ever was before.

As for the adults, even though I haven’t see them in forever, I can already predict their actions, what they’ll say, and how they’ll laugh.  I am expecting these peoples’ certain idiosyncrasies to remind me of our shared history and familiarity.  Undoubtedly, they’ll be expecting my predictable behaviors, as well.  Sometimes, I wonder if this is really a fair way to approach it, though.  All parties involved, adults and children have gone through quite a bit of experience since we have seen each other last.  These experiences will certainly have molded and molted all of us, young and old.

Years ago, I copied this quote by Azar Nafisi, out of one of my son’s yearbooks.  It is a good one:

“You get a strange feeling when you are about to leave a place.  You will not only miss the people you love, but you will miss the person you are now, at this time and this place, because you will never be this way ever again.  But you are excited for the person you are swimming towards and look forward to the new you that awaits in the distance.”

It doesn’t matter, whatever the age we are, all of us are always swimming towards new versions of ourselves.  This will happen always, while we are still alive and breathing.  Perhaps I should approach the adults just as I plan to do with the kids, with wide-eyed curiosity, of who they are today and what effects their experiences have had on the persons they are still becoming.  Hopefully, they will approach me in the same way and it will be like getting to know new people, but with that familiar comfort of shared experiences long ago.

Character Marks

“Some people try to turn back their odometers.  Not me, I want people to know “why” I look this way.  I’ve traveled a long way and some of the roads weren’t paved.” – Will Rogers

This summer we took some wonderful hiking trips and on one of them I ended up with my legs covered in a rash from poison oak.  That’s okay.  I would do it all over again.  But I do have some nasty pink scars left on my legs that I scratched so much that I think I invited some varicose veins to the surface to join the fun. Sometimes I just “own” the scars, sometimes I cover them up with concealer and sometimes I look up telephone numbers of doctors who inject veins to make them go away.

I think I’m at the stage where I’m on the fence of aging gracefully versus fighting the fight to keep a youthful appearance.  When I was in my late thirties,  I found a cool magazine clipping and I hung it on my mirror.  It had a picture of a beautiful woman with a few lines on her face.  It said something to the effect that “Beauty is accumulative and all of these lines are just character marks from the story of your life.”  That sounded so right . . . . when I was in my thirties.

“Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they’ve faded. But trust me, in 20 years, you’ll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine.” – Kurt Vonnegut

I love that quote from Kurt Vonnegut’s famous commencement speech.  It makes me feel winsome and hopeful at the same time.  When I’m 75, I guess I’ll look back at pictures taken of me now and wish that I looked like what I look like right now.

In today’s world of giant, overwhelming beauty stores like Ulta and Sephora, of every procedure available to turn you into whatever boob size/nose size/butt size/movie star you want, of impossibly attractive 80-year-old actresses like Jane Fonda, and households of Kardashian sisters becoming multi-millionaires primarily due to the hustling of their collective beauty, it’s hard to decide what your own limits are to “preserve and protect” versus letting it all go and just being free.

I guess it really does come down to doing what you want, what you value and what makes you feel good with the realization that you can’t stop others from doing what they feel the need to do and be.  Do you want to be that perfectly preserved, valuable, beautiful, ageless Barbie doll in the box or the much lived, loved, tattered and torn, worn for the wear, kindly and comely Velveteen rabbit?  Probably most of us will end up being something in-between and that is okay.  We have to forgive the flawless Barbies and the sanctimonious rabbits, though.  They have the right to their decisions and we have the right to ours.  Perhaps if we feel love and compassion for all of us as we work through this aging process together, those feelings will glow through and as a whole we will see beauty like we have never seen and it will be timeless.

It’s A Sign

A good decade ago, I belonged to a book club and the book that we were reading and discussing one month was Still Alice, which was focused on the subject of Early Onset Alzheimer’s disease.  We were all still in our thirties, but instead of discussing the book, someone had gotten a hold of psychological tests we could all take to make sure that we none of us were in the early stages of Alzheimer’s.  We all nervously scrambled, taking the test quickly and anxiously.  It’s a shame that we all wasted our time worrying, instead of enjoying the discussion about a really good book.  We all came out “normal.”

I laugh at my foolishness then, but as I approach 50, I find myself questioning whether I need to take that test again.  I read once that most people are as forgetful as they were in their 20s as they are in their 50s, its just that when you are in your 20s you don’t even question it.  In your 50s, you notice everything that you forget.  Lately, everything gets questioned as a sign of aging for me.

My right arm has been sore for a while.  Now, keep in mind that I type more than I ever have, I walk around with an 82 pound labrador who is mediocre at best, on a leash and my purse has so much stuff in it, I might as well be carrying around a bowling ball.  That being said, on a day that my arm was particularly sore, I started out believing that I might have a debilitating case of arthritis and because I had time to stoke my imagination, I soon started hyperventilating believing that I was having a heart attack.  Dr. Google is not my friend.

My body can’t do the things that it did in my 20s and 30s.  I have come to terms with that.  It’s just that with the self awareness that comes with aging, it’s less easy to brush things off.  A bad mood is all of the sudden a concerning menopausal hormonal imbalance or a desire for a new car becomes a midlife crisis.  Other people are forgiving of the foibles of aging people.  Maybe I should just take advantage of that fact and enjoy some forgiven kookiness that comes with the second half.  If I can let go of some of the anxiety, it could be quite freeing.

What Level Are You?

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!

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.