middle age woman Archives - Page 6 of 6

Mother Nature Be Damned

I think that it is a cruel twist of fate, what Mother Nature did to us women. She made our biggest hormonal changes and fluctuations, occur simultaneously during two of our most emotionally challenging life stage changes – going to high school and during the emptying of our nests. And I wonder if Mother Nature laughs and clucks her tongue and shakes her head, at families like mine, who have women starting high school and going through empty nest syndrome at the same time. (all while being a little hormonally challenged) Mother Nature really does have high expectations of our sex.

Now, as a woman, I hate when my legitimate gripes get blamed on hormones. I’ve figured out lately, that it is not that my individual gripes are wrong and unjustified, it is just that sometimes I have a hard time keeping my response to the gripes at a proportional level. “You didn’t put your dishes into the dishwasher?!? PUT YOUR HEAD ON THE CHOPPING BLOCK NOW!!!!! AHHHH!!!”

My emotions are all over the map these days. I recently passed a local flooring store with a little sign out front that said, “Closing. Thanks for 50 great years!” I started sobbing. Now, I have never been in that particular little store and I am not in the market for flooring. The store always looked neat and cute from the outside and their mascot was a french bulldog. The flooring store owners were into Frenchies, before Frenchies became the “it” dog. I’m not sure exactly what I was sobbing about – nostalgia about a store I had never even been to nor had any plans to visit? Was I sad that I never got the chance to tell the owners that I recognized the fact that they “were Frenchie, when Frenchie wasn’t cool” and I admire that fact? Was I worried for the owners who probably sold their business for millions and were now free to travel the world? Goodness, who knows? I certainly don’t.

My daughter and I have had some interesting and challenging outbursts with each other. I was used to being the only really emotional person in my family. Now there are two of us. My husband needs a black and white striped shirt to go with his new position – referee. It is interesting to me, that all of our sons have moved out or are on the verge of moving out of our home, right at this critical time.

I have a sign in my kitchen that reads: “This too shall pass. Now would be good.” I’m kind of feeling that right now, Mother Nature. Could we move along with getting these hormones of mine (and my daughter’s while you are at it) all settled down? I think it would be best for all parties concerned. Truly. But of course, Mother Nature knows best.

“It’s like my hormones are partying and getting drunk, and I get stuck with the hangover. Daily.” – someecards

Dogstagram

I know that this is going to sound crazy from a person who is willing to spill her guts on a public blog, but I’m not one for social media. You probably couldn’t pick me out of a line-up from my ancient Facebook front page photo and my kids’ pictures are so old on my Facebook page, you might think they are competition for the waiting list on competitive, hard-to-get-into preschools (three of my kids are now adults). My LinkedIn was required for a part-time job that I had, that ended almost two years ago, when they shut down their local office. I imagine my LinkedIn appears like I still work there. I don’t know. I haven’t checked. I have an Instagram for this blog. It has one post.

When I admit my iffiness about social media to people, I get a variety of responses. I think some friends and family who love their social media, take it as an insult. I think sometimes people think that I am making some kind of judgmental statement with my ambivalence. I am not. I believe everyone has their passions and that is what makes the world go round. Facebook has been a very useful way for me to get in touch with long lost friends and relatives at almost instant notice and I think that is great. About a decade ago, I was much more into posting on Facebook, but then I started getting uncomfortable with it and the amount of time that I was spending on it. I’ve always been one of those people who is much more comfortable observing. Because I’m kind of a friendly, maybe even an “out-there” personality, I think I come across as a contradiction. I’m a natural introvert, who appears to be an extrovert.

The whole “Big Brother” thing kind of stresses me out, too. I’ve got nothing to hide, but I find it disconcerting to walk into a boutique and look at my phone, and have it remind me that I have been to that particular boutique two years ago and three times previous to that. I’m a little uncomfortable being tracked and stalked by my phone and whatever forces lie behind the tracking features. The more exposure everything seems to get, the more I seem to want to dive into my own little hole, like Alice, into my own little Wonderland.

That being said, all of that has served as a preface to a wild hair I got this weekend, when I thought it would be fun to turn our dogs into Instapups. Boredom and a lack of a schedule, brings out the crazy in me. If you follow my blog, you’ve read some stories about our dogs, so you can now follow them on ralphieandjosie on Instagram, if you are so inclined. I warn you, I get bored easily and I hate feeling overexposed, so I’m not sure how long it will last, but for now, I’m having fun with it. I’m not willing to put myself or my family out there too much on public pictorial stage, but hell, I’ll throw my dogs to the dogs, so to speak. 😉 And for now, they seem all in, tails wagging.

“Don’t say anything on online that you wouldn’t want plastered on a billboard with your face on it.” – Erin Bury

But Keep the Old

“Make new friends but keep the old, one is silver and the other gold.” – Girl Scout song (in honor of the fact that it is Girl Scout cookie time – YAY!)

My husband and I went to a few new restaurants this weekend and they were all a bust. These were local establishments that were on our “List to Try” and since it was a relatively unscheduled three-day weekend, we were eager to give them a try. Not one of them made it on the list “To Go to Again.” It became almost a comedy of how bad it could get. I kept looking to see if there were cameras pointed in our direction, like we were on one of those Candid Camera type shows. Servers not showing up to the table and when they finally came, due to our exaggerated flagging them down, they acted like they were doing us a huge favor by writing down our orders. At one restaurant, my husband ordered a beer. It came out flat and tasted like fruit juice. He asked for a different one. It came out the same style. He finally ordered a canned beer to be on the safe side and it was full of ice. We went to brunch yesterday and my chicken fried steak basically had a cold can of Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom soup plopped unceremoniously on top of it. And this restaurant had pictures of John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson on the wall, proving their visit! These establishments all had decent Yelp scores.

Do you ever feel like you are carrying some kind of strange energy that is coming with you wherever you go? By yesterday, I would have been more surprised if our brunch cafe would have turned out to be good and tasty. Sometimes I feel cursed by my need to adventure. Sometimes I feel envious of people who have the routine of going to their established favorites all of the time, whether it be restaurants, vacations, stores, etc. Maybe these people are better at owning what they like and knowing that their expectations will be met, at the places where they are loyal customers. I wish I didn’t get bored so easily. I have a huge fear of “ruts.” Maybe the price to pay for the need of novelty, is going through a lot of rocks before you find a gem. And while searching for new gems, it is probably best not to forget the special gems that you have found before and every once in a while, remember to go back to the old gems to appreciate their steadfast gleam.

“Develop the wings of loyalty and you will fly above the dooms of disappointments.” – Israelmore Ayivor

This is Friday

In honor of all of my awesome James Madison University Alpha Sigma Alpha sisters (shout out) who have been so supportive of my published essay in The Fine Line magazine, I have written down this little “ode to Friday” with you in mind:

We love you Friday, oh yes we do!

We love you Friday, this much is true.

When you’re not with us, we’re blue.

Oh, Friday, we love you!!!

New readers, on Fridays I keep it superficial. That’s just how I roll into the weekend. I list three products/services/ideas that I really like and that have kept me hummin’ over the years. I would be thrilled to see more recommendations in my Comments section from my readers. Hint. Hint. We could turn this into to something really useful and fun if everyone shared the love!! Please feel free to check out previous Fridays for earlier recommendations. So far, I’m not rescinding any of them. No recalls.

Here we go:

Graptopetalum Pentandrum Superbum Flat Succulent – So I was trying to find the nickname of this beautiful plant on the internet and all that I could find is that it is in the subspecies “Superbum.” Enough said. I love all succulents but this one is queen of them all. I discovered this gorgeous, drape-y, purple, impossible to kill succulent at a garage sale. It is in that moment that I fell in love hard with succulent plants. I have created probably 18 pots (I’m not a minimalist) of this succulent from the one little plant that I fell in love with at a garage sale. I even offered to pay full price for it. The neatest thing about the “drape-y grape-y” (my nickname for it) is that water beads up on it, so it looks like it is adorned in diamonds after it rains. If you haven’t fallen on to the succulent bandwagon yet, this is the plant you want to start with and then don’t blame me for the obsession that happens next.

Sky Map app – My middle son “blinded me with science” with this awesome recommendation. This app for your phone will tell you the name of every twinkly dot you see in the sky. All you have to do is hold the phone up to the sky and you will know where Mars, Venus, the constellations and even the moon (being silly) is in accordance to where you are standing and looking up at the sky. All you have to do is shake your phone to calibrate it. Seriously. I love this app! It even works through your car windshield, although that is not how I would recommend using it for safety reasons. Trust me on this.

Paul Mitchell Tea Tree Special Shampoo – Anything with tea tree oil is invigorating. In my twenties, I discovered tea tree shampoo when I found my head tingling in a great way after a shampoo from an “ahead of its time” beauty salon. We used tea tree shampoo for a few years after that and then unfortunately, I got distracted by something on sale probably and forgot about it. My boys were little guys at the time that we used it and they loved the zingy feel of it on their heads so much that it was a great bribe to get them into a bath tub. I am so happy to have rediscovered this! Honestly, sometimes I rub down my limbs with it because the sensation is so exhilarating! It’s like cleaning your hair and your body with a York Peppermint Patty. Seriously.

Okay, I cannot wait to see the Comments today!! I’ll end with the Friday quote of the week:

“Music always sounds better on Friday.” – Lou Brutus

Have a great weekend! I appreciate you reading my blog! Big love and thanks!!

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.

What Next??

So yesterday I allowed myself a pathetic pity party. I thought it felt good at the time, but it got old fast. I think part of the mopefest was because I’m avoiding the hardest part of the Second Half of my Adulting. For me (and I suspect for a majority of women in my position), this is the trying to figure out the big ol’ What I Want to Do Next.

I recently saw a picture of a rally in which a woman held a poster that read, “Teach our Daughters to be Somebodies, Not Somebody’s”. I don’t think any of us made our minds up from the get go, to lose our “somebody” quality. I take pride in being J’s wife, and my kids’ mom. But over time, those identities did seem to swallow up most of the whole. Those identities did seem to make the first half of my adulting simple. Simple, mind you, not easy. When your family is young, your purpose is very clear. Keep the kids alive, keep them fed, keep them focused. We are a “traditional” family, so my husband is the primary breadwinner and I am the primary “cat herder.” Now as the cats are starting to leave the herd, there are a lot more options for me. This is exciting, but also bewildering.

I was a marketing major in college, a textbook sales person before my kids were born and I had a few part-time jobs over the years that were also mostly sales oriented. So, I suppose a sales job is a possibility. I had a small accessories business on ebay several years back. Perhaps I could start my own business again. My volunteer positions over the years have all centered around my kids’ schools and sports. Maybe I could branch out in the volunteer realm. I honestly feel no strong inclination or passion about any of these ideas just yet.

I’m very envious of people who feel a strong lifelong passion for their occupation and/or their hobbies. I’ve always felt like more of a dabbler. I tend to lose interest quickly. I read recently that to find a passion, you should follow your interests. Learn more about them and see where this leads you. There are so many gurus these days that advise to follow your heart or to follow your bliss. But if you have spent a lot of your life filling your heart with your family and following your family members’ bliss, it’s puzzling at first to find your own pathway back to your own bliss. So, I will take baby steps in getting to know me again. What are my interests? What are my favorite things to do just for me? What books/music/activities/foods really speak to me and how can incorporate these things into my second half?

Just like when my kids were born, I long for a detailed instruction book to guide me on exactly what to do, step by step, with guaranteed results. You’d think by my Second Half, I would have figured out that those instruction manuals really don’t exist, at least not in a traditional sense. I guess that I am going to have to trust that my internal life manager who has gotten me this far, will lead the way, if I just remove the impatience and fear that is clouding the path.