Tag: middle age

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 The second awkward stage is coming to the acceptance that the stuff that I like is starting to be considered a little “outdated”, but not old enough to be considered “retro and cool.”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.

 

That Woman

I have become That Woman.  That Woman who drove Young Mama me insane.  Young Mama me met That Woman several times throughout the child rearing years and it was never pretty.  Typically, it went something like this.  Young Mama me would be in the grocery store.  I would be wearing the stained sweaty clothes from the day before or perhaps clean clothes that came off of the top of giant Mt. Laundry.  We all knew that these clothes never really had a chance to make it into closets and drawers before being soiled again anyway.  Young Mama me would be donning a pony tail that was starting to turn into an unintentional dreadlock.  Young Mama me would be trying to keep the four kids organized in the grocery store by screaming at the top of her lungs, “Get in a line!!!  Like ducks in a row!!”  (All four kids still do a great impression of Young Mama me attempting to do this feat.)  Back in those days the kids, of course, were very similar to marbles on the shiny, hard floor of the grocery store, bouncing, rolling, bumping into displays, spreading out in every which direction.  Nothing at all like ducks in a row.

So, then Young Mama me would finally navigate the grocery cart overflowing with diapers, paper towels, family sized Cheerio boxes and a bunch of other things that the kids managed to sneak into the cart, to the checkout lane.  Young Mama me usually eventually managed to get to the checkout lane with all four of her marbles in tow.  Then, it never failed. That Woman was right behind Young Mama me, smiling serenely and winsomely at the crazy marbles, like they were Harry Winston diamonds that had just fallen from Heaven above.  Now That Woman looked very different from Young Mama me.  She was middle aged, wearing clean pressed clothes and donning a nice leather purse instead of a stained, smelly 3 ton diaper bag.  Her hair and make-up were neatly done and her cart was near empty.  She may have a container of sushi, a slab of cheese with a name Young Mama me could not pronounce, or perhaps a bottle of French wine, a baguette and a sleeve of fresh flowers. And she was at the store, peacefully, all by herself.   And just in that moment when Young Mama me was desperately looking into the ether space for the fast forward button that would get me to That Woman’s stage in life, That Woman would look at Young Mama me, all doe-eyed, and say something like, “Oh honey, just enjoy these times, these kids.  It all just goes so fast.  Before you know it, they’ll be grown and gone.”  In that moment, Young Mama me would desperately want to hit That Woman.  While holding a death grip on my cart handle, I would be thinking, “WTF?!?  What on Earth could possibly make you think that I need a Guilt Trip on top of all of this fun, you evil witch?!?”

Now that I am That Woman, I have a much better understanding of what she was trying to convey.  It was not a guilt trip at all.  That Woman is just not very good at communicating because she has a lump in her throat.  That Woman can’t go back to herself as a Young Mama and say, “Honey, cut yourself a break.  You are doing the best you can and what you think is so important, really isn’t.  Those babies are going to be fine and as much as that little boy of yours, having a tantrum is driving you crazy, you are going to miss stroking his sweaty little red curls.  Because one day, very, very soon, those curls will be on top of a 6’2″ man and you won’t be able to reach them.  And he won’t be around anyway because he’ll be several hundred miles away in his new job, probably in a meeting room or eating lunch with colleagues.  Yes, that little sweaty marble will have colleagues.”  So,  all that she is trying to do is to pay it forward because she can’t go back.

I really think if Young Mama and That Woman could see each other’s lives through each other’s eyes, they would really appreciate each other.  It would be such a good reminder to not live too much in the past, but also not to try to rush into the future too quickly.  Both ladies would realize that they have it pretty good in their current stage of life and then they would feel grateful for that and for each other.  Then, as they were leaving the grocery store, they both would feel lighter, connected and excited to see what the rest of the day would bring.

Keeping it “Real”

Well, here I am at Day 2 of my Second Half of Adulting.  I wish I could say that the watermelon sized lump in my throat has gone away, but it hasn’t.  In fact, I woke up in “Moody Trudy” mode for sure.  Then I did the worst thing you could ever do.  I fed Moody Trudy by going to Facebook, which is not something that I even do very frequently.  So even though I am having a nice summer and we had a truly awesome memorable family vacation before my son left home, the comparison monster, made me feel even more miserable looking at everyone’s happy faces on their delightful summer adventures and travels.  Then I slogged Moody Trudy for not being a better person and feeling happy for all of her dear friends and family, which just spiraled me even more.  This is not a good way to start the day nor my second half of adulting, but it is what it is and the truth must be told.

Now, in the first half of my adulting, I learned that we women need each other.  Yes, we can be each other’s worst enemies or passive aggressive “frenemies” (on an aside, when I started my first job out of college, I asked a female manager what was the hardest thing about being a professional woman and without a blip of hesitation she said, “other women”), but in the end, no one “gets us”, like us.  I have gotten discerning over the years and I have learned to put up better boundaries.  This has helped we whittle it down to primarily two solid groups of women friends with whom I can keep it real.  Really real.  So, this morning, I texted both groups.  Turns out, I’m not the only Moody Trudy today (which is not surprising in a group of chiefly middle aged women, many with a few teenage kids in the mix) which helped me feel supported, eased me into a lighter mood and got me “out of myself”.  I was then able to help other friends with their own problems which helped me to put my issues into perspective.

Bottom line, today emphasized something very important to keep and to treasure in my second half of adulting – the awesome support of true, kind friends.  Maybe I should keep a list of “keepers” for my second half?!?  Number one on the keeper list:  Solid female friendships.

Adulting – Second Half

Today is the first day of my second half of “adulting.”  Some people would say, “Whoa Nelly!  Don’t jump the gun!”  You see, my eldest child, my 22 year old son started his new adult life today, but I still have three kids in the cooker.  That said, I’ve always been one to look ahead and I think I saw the writing on the wall when my eldest got his driver’s license.  The fact that this new phase of my life was right around the corner became even more evident when he went off to college, which involved study abroad and internships in which he lived far, far away and came through the experiences alive and well and an even better, more interesting young man than he was before the adventures.  So obviously, I see where this is going with the rest of my brood, soon to be following suit.

I had my eldest son when I was 25.  I have spent most of my adult years being a mom.  “Mom” has been my primary title, identity and structure of my life until yesterday when I “let” one little birdie fly the nest.  At that moment, I felt that structure crack a teeny little bit.  Seeing my son off to his new adult life was surreal and sort of anti-climatic.  You drop your child off at his new apartment, you wish him luck on his first day of his exciting new job, you make sure he has groceries and you sit on your hands and wallet, knowing that he can well afford his own groceries now and your major work with him is done.  Your part of the masterpiece has mostly concluded and your role has changed from nurturer, teacher, mentor, protector, provider to mostly now, just an excited observer.   The scale has slowly shifted from predominantly shared adventures to now sharing with each other our mostly individual adventures.

As any parent having gone through this transition knows, the mixed bag of emotions being felt is tumultuous and almost undefinable.  I have heard that we can fit all of our emotions into four simple categories:  mad, glad, sad and scared.  Well, I’m here to tell you that it is possible to feel all of those emotional categories all at once and deeply!

I have started this blog for me, but if it is helpful to others that would be grand.  I have always felt that when people truly share what is really on their hearts, the world is a little less lonely.  I don’t know where my second half of adulting leads me but I am certainly in the contemplation stage.  And this new stage of my adventure is probably very similar to my son’s new experience – exciting, scary, exhilarating, freeing, introspective and necessary for us both to further develop into what we are meant to be in this mystery called Life.