Tag: Madonna

Stop Stressin’

“It doesn’t need to be a great day, as long as it is Friday.” – upJourney

Happy Friday, readers and friends!! Here at Adulting Second Half, Fridays remain fun and frivolous!! We don’t take anything seriously on Fridays. On most Fridays, I list three Favorites (whether they be things, books, music, etc.) and I strongly encourage you to share your favorites in the Comments section. Please check out previous Friday blogs for other excellent ideas to brighten up your living experience!

Here are this Friday’s Favorites:

Toffee-To-Go – I adore toffee. I love Heath bars. However, this Toffee-To-Go is the best toffee that I have ever eaten. It is the best combination of chocolate and nuts (which is the best combination in the world to begin with). It is totally impossible to not eat a small box of this mixed perfection in just one sitting. Go to their website now and order yourself a little box to be delivered to you or to your friends and associates, straight from Heaven.

Ballard Designs Clothes Drying Rack – A very wise, creative closet designer suggested that we add this dream contraption to our newly remodeled laundry room and I am so happy that she did! (shout out, Jo Anne) This drying rack hangs on the wall of your room and you pull the racks down from their magnetic closures, to dry your socks and intimates and whatever else you prefer not to put into your dryer. When you are finished, you just close the racks back up and they fold nicely back into the frame on the wall. Before this, we used to haphazardly dry our things on various pieces of furniture and unfortunately, some of the wooden furniture shows that we did that, with ugly water wear marks. (so sorry, my lovely, beloved rocking chair) This rack comes in all different sizes and is sturdy and attractive and yet, still extremely useful.

Madonna’s Medellin video – Love or or hate her, you have to hand it to her, Madonna remains transformational, relevant and interesting to this day. She came on to the scene when I was just 12 years old and now at age 48, I am encouraging you to check out her new video. The video is raunchy and racy and controversial (would we expect anything else from her?), but it’s fascinating to watch and I do really like the beat of the song. I watched a little bit of her MTV interview about the video and here are a few interesting tidbits that I took from it:

Madonna picked the directors for this video because she wanted it to look “painterly” (her words) and surreal. It does seem otherworldly.

Madonna currently lives in Lisbon, Portugal. She moved there so that one of her sons, who wants to become a professional soccer player, can get his best training. In her words, Madame X (her new persona) is a “soccer mom” at heart.

Madonna believes that it is MUSIC that universally connects all people of the world. “We were connected before Instagram, people, seriously.” (her words)

Finally, Madonna told one of her fans that she wanted to get back to her naivety. Now, most people don’t look at Madonna and think, “naive and innocent.” She explained that what she meant is the naivety that she had when she just started out and didn’t care, at all, what people thought of her or of her work. Madonna explains that when she was young and starting out, she created herself and her craft, out of pure passion and inventiveness, without giving much credence to other people’s influence and criticisms.

I have never found Madonna to be a particularly warm, ingratiating person, but I really do respect her vision and her daring and her inspiration. She is encouragement for all of us Second Halfers to keep on creating, doing and exploring what makes us alive and “naive”, in the best sense of the word. And for that reason, I’m grateful for her influence.

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Madonna’s Butt

I have to confess that I am not above reading Hollywood gossip, as much as I don’t like that quality in myself. The other night, I found myself clicking through a series of articles discussing/criticizing/critiquing the possibility that Madonna had recently invested in rather unflattering, butt implants. Madonna is aged 60. The overall consensus of the articles that I clicked through, seemed to be, that Madonna takes herself too seriously and that she is not aging gracefully. Many Madonna fans are finding it disconcerting to see her show a level of insecurity that she never seemed to portray before, with her current seemingly unending quest, for hopelessly trying to retain her youth.

Now I don’t know Madonna personally, so I have no idea what her mindset is and I say, if her butt implants make her happy, so be it. But as a woman approaching 50, the question does come up from time to time, “What does aging gracefully mean for me?” There isn’t always a simple, easy answer.

When I was in my 30s, raising small children, I belonged to a neighborhood pool club where all of the other 30-something moms, living in our neighborhood like me, would congregate with our kids. The 30-something moms, sat in the area in close proximity to the kiddie pool, bathrooms and snack bar, for obvious reasons. The 40-something moms had their own area. Their area was closer to shade and the tennis courts. A lot of times, their teenage kids weren’t even at the pool.

I bring this up, because looking back, while the 40-something moms didn’t have our youthful freshness, our sag-free skin and our budding energy levels, they made up for it all and some, with their confidence, ease and comfort level with themselves. They had nothing to prove. While us 30-something moms offered each other a lot of support and camaraderie, there was also a great deal of competition. Who bounced back to bikini body after pregnancy the fastest? Who packed the healthiest snacks and safest pool toys for our kids? Who managed family, marriage, career, beauty, etc. the best? The 40-something moms had enough experience under their belts to know that the competition game was silly and futile. They knew that time was ticking and it was high time to make sure that their own needs were being taken care of, too. A lot of them were excellent tennis players, who spent a lot of time honing their individual skills. They were lovely in their poise and certainty. They were so attractive because of their easy self-assuredness and confidence and their seemingly lack of care about the fleeting things that really don’t matter.

I read a book many years ago, written by a naturopath. I cut out an excerpt from his book and unfortunately I can’t find the name of the source. Still, his wisdom has served as a guide for me, many times, when the reality of aging has reared its ugly head, when I gaze into the mirror on a day when no amount of mental cheerleading makes up for the degeneration that the reflection of the reality of aging, is showing. This is what he said:

“What you need to remember is this: healthy-looking women are way prettier. It’s dumb to think you’re ever going to look young again. You are not. If you set your heart on looking twenty-eight or thirty-eight, you’re going to break it, no matter what this cosmetic maker or that plastic surgeon tells you. Ain’t gonna happen. The best you’re going to do, if you go down that road, is look like a vaguely delusional woman of precisely your age who has gone to a hell of a lot of trouble and expense to achieve a slightly weird look. The real goal is much simpler and easier to achieve. The real goal is to be a terrific-looking woman . . . of precisely your age.”

I think that is what Madonna’s critics are trying to say. Be the best version of yourself at the age that you are currently living, Madge. You don’t have to be young Madonna. You were already her. Be the version of Madonna who has experienced a lot of life and knows the serene value of that wisdom and experience. Be the beautiful image that reflects the irrelevance of the fleeting, and the in-depth beauty of the experienced and the enlightened. Continue to be the renegade to help guide others to what really matters – the inner core of self-awareness and the confidence to let that boldness and fearlessness fly in a way that moves past age and decay. That boldness is timeless. And incredibly beautiful.