Day 275... Sadness (Part 2)

I suppose some of the sadness comes from realizing that there are going to be some elements I wanted for my life that I just don't have any more time for.  Actually there aren't that many I am relieved to say.  No, I'll never have more children but my daughter is the light of my life and has been from the moment I found out I was pregnant.  It was when she was born that I had some startling revelations:  I would give my life for hers and I might be able to cause serious harm or worse to anyone who ever really hurt her.  I look forward to her having children because I know being a grandparent is going to be something magical!

And... hmmmm... and what else? I think (and it might be my own mind protecting my emotions) that the one thing I am sad about as I approach 60 is that I'll never see my only sister again (she is 1 year younger than I).  She and I have been estranged for more than twenty years.  Wow!  The reasons why are far too personal for this forum at this time.  I do know where she lives.  I even know that she is married and to whom.  (No one can hide from anyone with the internet).  What I also know is that approaching her would be impossible and would probably bring more pain for each of us than we would choose to deal with.  And that is very very sad.  And what is sadder is that years and experiences have brought me to understand so much more about childhood, siblings, parenting, family dynamics and DYSFUNCTION and how dysfunction tears at the fabric of a family if not faced and dealt with.

I want to be able to say "I miss you.  I love you.  I'm sorry.  How are you?  I hope your life has been good to you...." I want to share so much with her.  She and I (and our family in bigger ways) had problems but the one thing I hold on to is that she and I good giggle together like know one else.  And, I, me, just me, could always ALWAYS make her laugh even during the worst times we shared and even when she didn't want to or didn't think she could.

We lost our brother about twenty years ago and since we were so far apart from each other (emotionally and physically) and our family unit (that is a stretch) really didn't exist at the time she and I couldn't share our grief or anything else.

Yes, this is the one thing I am sad about because there is no more time I can take for granted where someday I'm sure we'll talk again.  To have to face the fact that I will never see her again or know anything about how she is doing is very hard.  This IS a very sad realization to come to.  And it is a reality of aging.

Day 276... Sadness (Part 1)

Today I am having a hard time writing and I really don't know why.  There is no end to the subjects I am thinking about expressing from the point of view of a near 60 year old.  I was going to go on about drugs (vs. medication) and my experiences with them (coming from the 1960's and 1970's)... but instead I will write about what I am having a difficult time with today.  So, anyone reading this can trash the idea that these essays will be the happy and delightful rationalizations, conclusions and collected wisdom of a lady getting old.  No - today I am sad - so here I will deal (or try to) with it or some bits of it.

I AM sad today.  I'm not sad everyday.  But today there is this sort of whispering and wistful ribbon of sadness gently floating around me.  And I don't know why.  Nothing has happened today or recently to bring this on.  It is colder outside but that can't be it although I like true winters less and less as time goes on.  My back is bothering me a bit.  I fear this physical challenge will now never quite completely go away.  But thats not it.

Without getting too personal (this is a more public journal than a private diary) I have to say there is some melancholy that comes along with aging.  And it is not about the things I always thought I might be sad about.  Like death.  I'm not sad about that.  I don't think I am afraid of it either.  I miss people in my life I've lost and recently had quite a scare with my husband suddenly becoming so ill (recovering nicely now thank you).  Of course I worry about all that anyone in my place would:  health, money, children.  I have gotten over the mourning period I was surprised to experience the first year (and probably the second) my daughter was off and so far away at college.  And there are things in my past that I wished then would have worked out differently like my first marriage.  I really was in love with my then husband and really wanted it to work.  Or, finishing college would have given me the much needed confidence I was bereft of for so many years.  But with time and experience I've been able reconcile my feelings about such as those

However, as I continue on this journal's  journey I find myself running into little revelations - some enlightening, some comforting and now I find some a bit saddening.  Oh and I hate to have to admit that.  I'd love for my life to be filled with lessons rather than regrets.  But that isn't real life is it?  It seems musing about my getting older brings me at least to some bittersweet memories I've boxed up and stowed away decades ago.

So on to the unpacking...

Day 277... Anger

It's powerful.  Or I thought it was for much of my life.  I was angry at everything!  My mother for abandoning me emotionally.  My father for abandoning me physically.  Grown ups for being hypocrites.  Ads for lying.  Every driver in the world for anything.  Co-workers, customers, salespeople.  The guy at the McDonald's window who couldn't hear my order.  My first husband.  My second husband.  Everybody for everything.  The entire world for just not being fair.

Not anymore.  Frankly I'm not sure how much my age contributes to this compared to the medications I take and the therapy I've had.  But I am just not angry (most of the time) anymore.  First, what's the point?  It's a toxic emotion that accomplishes little.  Second, most of the time it really is a waste of precious time.  And third (this is where my maturity comes in) I don't need it as armor anymore.  Anger protected me and it empowered me --- I thought.

No one would describe me as "cheerful" or "sweet" - not then and not now - but, I've learned that what you emit generally sets the tone for yourself, your day, and the people you're with.  I spent years being sullen, sad, frenzied, anxious, and mad.  And everyone around me reacted to that.  Why on earth was I surprised that people thought I was a "snob" or intimidating or perhaps just nuts?  Now of course I care less about what people think of me (one of the privileges that comes with age) BUT... for those who do care for me I am easier to get along with.

I have less reason to be angry.  That is because at this point in my life I have freed myself from doing most things I don't want to or being with people I simple don't care to.  Funny how the options of yeah  or nay reduce the potential for anger (which too often percolates to resentment).  I realize that when one is younger those options are not as available.  By example there is little choice of  who you work with or for when you are desperately trying to support your family.  But when you're older your terms are more comfortably your own.  Isn't that nice?

This is certainly not to say I am skipping around like the good fairy.  I harbor bits of  resentment towards some people and since I am a "grown up" I do still do things I don't want to... but... the depth and the duration of my anger is tempered with my life's experiences.  I have learned how to CHOOSE my battles and if I want to battle at all.

Day 278... Hands

Yes hands.  I remember looking carefully at my hands when I was about 17 and seeing that they did in fact look like a woman's hands.  Now of course they look like an older woman's hands - rangy, a bit wrinkled, protruding veins and somewhat bony and those dreaded spots.  Since officially calling myself an artist some years ago they are especially valuable to me.  But they are growing older along with me.  So they hurt more and can do less but I won't let that hold me back .

What I can't do (easily) anymore:  open jars, button tiny buttons, find that little flap/tag on my jeans zipper when it's stuck at the bottom, hold the weight of a large and heavy pot or pan single handedly, use child proof anything, tolerate the cold...
A few years ago I contributed an essay to a blog I shared with some Etsy friends.  I think this best describes what I will always appreciate about hands :

"The Indispensable Tool

I have found a tool I cannot live without. It is readily available, versatile, easy to maintain and with the right care - it lasts a lifetime. It is absolutely irreplaceable and there is nothing else that can replicate it's use in capability, versatility and utility. And, the bonus is that it has so many uses over and above my art work. I find it useful in social situations - it assists me in expressing a point of view. It has actually been critical to my family's well-being in countless ways (especially with the kids). It's great for travel as it is often a key component to any trip (most especially in a car). It is one of my most productive tools and I always keep it handy wherever I go. It's getting a bit old now but there is nothing to take its place.
With the right care I am sure I can keep each and use them for my lifetime."     from HHU June 10, 2010
   
I've told my daughter if there is ever a time I become so old I need a wheel chair and am confined to spaces that accommodate that wheel chair to just make sure I can wheel myself to a large tabletop desk with art supplies, a large dictionary (I love words) and with any device I can use (who knows what technology will be available by then) to continue to explore and stay in touch with the world.  It may take longer but it will still be my hands that can bring me to projects, places and people I want to spend my precious time with.

Day 279... About Face (mine)

Yup.  I look at this face every day, several times a day and have for (when do kids start looking in mirrors?) almost 60 years.  Over these years only two things surprise me:  it never occurred to me that my eyebrows would start graying and (is this true?) my nose is getting bigger.  Unfortunately I have inherited what I now know to be my father's nose which looks much like a potato and now mine is a bigger potato.

Otherwise not much has surprised me which is not to say I am pleased in any way.  I have "laugh lines" aka WRINKLES around my eyes - ALL around my eyes.  I guess I've laughed a lot.  And I have those awful monkey lines that go from either side of the nose past the corners of my mouth.  I have -- whatever it may be called (bags, darkening - and all of the cream and make up commercials that promise they'll disappear with their product - are lying) under my eyes.  My eye lids are very crapy (not crappy), much like cellophane.  Aha!  That's why older women should be spare with eye shadow I have learned.  And, worse than anything I have the dreaded beginnings of jowls (ah gravity thine enemy of vanity).  I don't have a turkey neck quite yet -- perhaps more like a hen's - plucked.

At this age less IS more.  I don't wear nearly as much make-up as I used to experiment with over the years.  And, because of my age, there are some things I'd like to do but just cannot.  By example:  There was a time (a long time ago) my false eyelashes would out-do Adele's anytime.  Actually I wore TWO sets on each eyelid.  They must have looked like flapping shutters.  I tried recently to add some carefully placed natural looking eyelashes --- NOPE --- because of how crapy my delicate lids are now they looked more like dying centipedes.  As to lipstick if I wore anything near red now I would look hideous and very very old if not dead not to mention that liquid foundation DOES makes me look like a cadaver.

So I highlight what I can that makes any difference.  I darken my eyebrows, I smudge line my eyelids with a soft eyeliner, a bit of soft mascara is great, I use blush carefully to contour what I can (trying to darken right under my chin at the neck so my almost wobbling might be camouflaged a bit).  And that is most of it.

I remind myself that aging is a process not a disease and and considering the alternative I will accept it with as much grace as I can muster.  I am not a fan of plastic surgery (besides the cost).  From what I've seen those who choose it don't look good (see above - looks like a canvas stretched across her face) and the future maintenance needs are not something I want to be concerned with.

Of course "looking good" is subjective.  My hope is that I "look good" for my age... more is that I continue to find more good about being my age!  Oh but I still have to be careful about pictures - chin UP, smile (to lift the corners a bit) and just have fun!

Day 280... Embracing the Gray

I have gray streaks all over my hair.  Actually I like it.  I always have, not because it looks good but more because I am lazy.  The gray started as a "dot" right at the hairline on the left side.  I spent a couple of years (way back when in my thirties) having my hair highlighted on a regular basis and one day saw the DOT.  I did start thinking then about what other people would think "she's getting old..." especially at work.  And then sometime in the earlier nineties I just gave in to it.  I had more important things to focus on.  When my daughter chose a key chain for me at Disneyland of Cruella DeVille I realized the dot had spread.

I liked it.  My husband didn't.  I'm sure my graying hair made him feel old.  So, after much pressure I colored it.  Ugh!  It was a reddish auburn color.  The kind you can almost see through in the sunlight (I have very thin hair but lots of it).  To me it was hideous.  My daughter and her friends at the time didn't like it either... "It didn't look like me, Mrs. D" anymore.  My skin tone didn't match it for some reason but the bottom line was maintenance = too much, too often.  Besides, I was happy to tell anyone who commented that I was earning every one of those gray hairs.  I kept it shorter because then I thought that more appropriate for a woman of my age.  I never wanted then and now still to appear to be like a woman who was desperately looking like she was younger than she was.  At that time long graying hair reminded me of aging hippies wearing ill fitting (to say the least) halter tops at the shops in Woodstock.  NOT attractive.

Now that I am approaching sixty I have decided to let it grow longer too (hmmmm does that indicate I am "letting go"?).  I was thrilled the other day because I was able to put my hair in a teeny tiny pony tail.  Not particularly attractive now but soon I may hopefully have that "simply sophisticated lower pony tail" style.  Give me that, some pearls and a simple white shirt and I'll be dressed for anything.  During this awkward stage where my hair is really too long to leave down (too flat on top and drags my facial features to places I'd rather it not) and too short to put in a acceptable  ponytail I just put it up here and there with a random bunch of clips.  Two things help me make the style passable:  assorted little clips holding pieces here and there look okay only because of the hues of gray streaks, and, I can keep it all together because I have found a hair spray that would stop a bird in flight.  I would love to be the image of an eccentric artist or aging ballerina.  Then again, the reality may be that I look like the singing  witch in that Bugs Bunny cartoon where she is humming happily as she is readying everything for rabbit stew... hairpins flying and floating as she moves with delight around her kitchen.

And, lucky for me the gray isn't yellowy or, God forbid made to look blue!  Back to my age and my time:  I remember the old ladies with blue and/or purple hair lined up in lawn chairs in front of the apartment building in the Bronx yelling at the kids and talking amongst themselves.  Could they have been as young as in their sixties then?  Of course they seemed sooooooooo old!

Day 281...Technology

Technology!  Oh how I wish I really "got" it.  I've been flailing about with it for some time now.  So far I have a Pinterest account (hopelessly addicted), a FaceBook account ("they" update it so many times that I can't keep up with what it does or doesn't do or with whom AND my husband hi-jacks it from time to time... he really should get his own).  I have two Etsy shops (reminder to me = restock both).  Oh yes and I have a Twitter account.  Although for the life of me I can't figure out why anyone wants to follow anyone's random character limited comments (well certainly not mine).  The only person I follow is Cory Booker because he is just so charismatic... I'm ready to help Newark in any way I can.

What helps me though with this technology is what I DON'T have which is FEAR of it.  I know my two user names (teeheeproductions and techcess) are spinning around out in space randomly bumping into index files, Google lookups, FaceBook pages and who knows where or what else.  I have experimented with so many things that finding me would not be hard to do... but I'm pretty comfortable that I'm not lost to anyone.  I have made some big mistakes however.  I tried to sync my husband's  iPhone with our  iMac and completely deleted his entire address book!  Well, it's good thing he is semi-sort-of-retired right now.

Fascinating.  I have had the privilege of watching this technology go from Telex to Twitter.  I actually worked in the telecommunications industry a kabillion years ago.  Who knew?  And who knew how fast this would all continue to evolve.  We really are living in a remarkable time -- this is up there with discovering electricity, the telephone and railroads.  I love exploring Apps and playing Scrabble and texting my husband when I am upstairs reading and he is downstairs watching some sports thing.  I go to bed with my iPad and earphones to watch and read everything.  I wake up and can spend hours with it soaking up the news from all over the world.  I've read more now since I have in years.  And shopping - oh so dangerous.  And, taking for granted that I can always stay in touch with the kids is so comforting (not necessarily to them).

IM'ing years ago during my daughter's first year of college was a blessing (perhaps not so much for her).  I thought I was so techno-savy because I changed the ping notice of an IM to a dogs "woof."  During one IM session my daughter casually informed me she was going to some college kid popular place in Mexico for Spring Break and then simply walked away from her computer.  The entire floor of her dorm (she told me) was trying to figure out where the incessant "woofing" was coming from as I was desperately trying to get her back to her computer so I could warn her about the dangers of Mexico, etc.

My husband thinks all this technology desensitizes people from real interpersonal exchanges.  I'm not so sure... except for  missing the wonderful physical feeling only a great big warm enveloping hug can give from or for someone I love, I am content that I can stay in touch so easily with so many.