piecesofpeace1

aging without botox

Archive for the tag “Shopping”

27 Jun 2013
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Long, lazy, summer days

Last June, my husband, two teen girls, and I discovered a small, sleepy beach town on Florida’s Atlantic coast.  Last week we visited there again. I usually plan an adventure over the winter and we go somewhere different each year, but this winter I didn’t have the energy, so we went with the sure bet.

We drive from Maryland.  How does that sound? Most people gasp when I say this.  I love it.  I love being enclosed in a minivan with my family; moving speedily down the highway while at the same time weighed down by the space in the vehicle. This is where the groundedness of vacation begins for me.  The slowing down.

I often have a difficult time going on vacation.  Throwing off the structure and routine scares me.  It helped knowing what I was getting into this year – knowing where we were heading. It is beautiful; the condo is right on the beach.  The first full day, I was on the balcony with my husband and feeling as if it were just too much trouble going down to the beach.  I was grounded to the point of being heavy, slow moving, like a sloth. So I sat on the balcony searching for the dolphins in the ocean before me.

Without the distractions of work and house – I am forced (or I chose) to see.  I see that for the first time, I don’t want to do anything. I don’t want to perform. I am that person who was always running, working, cleaning, planning, talking, partying. Even on vacation – I had to keep busy.  But now – I’m ready – I’m ready to just be.  (See what I did there? I have to get ready to simply be!) And yet I can’t throw off the pangs of guilt that creep in – the guilt that is always about comparing my insides to others’ outsides.

Even the waiter at our favorite restaurant at the beach asked what we had done – water taxi, para sailing, National Seashore? “Uh, no, no, and no.”  We didn’t do anything.  We went to this awesome used book store and bought 10 pounds of books.  We read, we sat on the beach, we swam, we played Scrabble and Phase 10, and we slept.  And I watched baseball.

It was Tuesday before I became grateful for the heaviness, the sloth like body that I took on.  It was Wednesday before I  stopped comparing. It was Thursday when I realized that if I had written a story about my future – what kind of family I thought I wanted – it would not have been the one I have.  I would have written all kinds of things about money, and success, and the Caribbean, and parasailing. It would not have included used book stores and teens that sleep until 1:30.  I would have been selling myself short. I have the most incredible family; the perfect family . . . for me.  Especially now – in this moment – in this year of my turning 50 and the girls being 14 and 17 and Jeff loving and accepting us with his whole heart and soul.

Especially now – as I let go of past and future expectations. Especially now that I begin not caring what others want and expect from me. Especially now that I have lived long enough and been brave enough to look beyond the surface into the darkness to see what was driving me and and pushing me to do, do, do instead of be, be, be. Especially now as I am in that uncertain time of life where we stand on the bridge between having children and launching young adults.  Especially now as I experience both the  sadness of knowing this moment is fleeting and the excitement of knowing this moment is fleeting. Soon – it will be Jeff and I in the car alone traveling – how wonderful . . .and how sad.

Next year – we may stay for two weeks. Peace.

Rainbow without rain

Posted in Being still, Human being - not human doing and tagged , , , , , , ,
05 May 2013
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On the Fence?

We are all living on the fence.  Think about it – we all want it to be this or that, but it is often (I’d say always) this and that. I was in my therapist’s office the other day asking what she thinks of procrastination   “Do you think it is laziness or fear?” She has this way of never giving me an answer because she too believes it is always both this and that. She says, “Why can’t it be many things that cause one to procrastinate?” Well – because you are the doctor and I want answers!

I then go on to talk about the anxiety.  How for many years I never felt my skin crawl with pins and needles, or the lump in my throat that blocks the air to my brain, or the racing thoughts at 4 a.m. I ask her, “is it all the grief, is it the fear of raising teen girls after experiencing a horrendous teen girl adolescence myself, or is it menopause that heightens anxiety.”  Again she responds, “It seems like you have many things to explain the anxiety.”

We seem to come to the same conclusion in each session – life is living on the fence.  It is being the mom of a newborn and being brought to tears by so much love and gratitude, while at the same time needing sleep or a shower so badly that you feel intense anger and resentment against that same precious newborn.

And what a set up that is!  How many women instead of allowing themselves to feel this anger and resentment (because what would people think!?), instead screams at her partner or blames hormones, or in-laws for the anger?  What would happen if we just started saying, “Yes, I love my kids, but some days I really want to run away from home.”

Why do I get such weird looks when I talk about how difficult it is living with teens, and that I am looking forward to them finding their way in the world.  This doesn’t mean my kids are bad, or mean, or even obnoxious for that matter.  It doesn’t even mean I won’t feel blue when they actually do leave home. Mostly it means I have learned that at this point, I can’t do much to control, soothe or help them, and that is an incredibly uncomfortable fence on which to sit.  I need to hang here until they pass through this phase.  I heard a great analogy for parenting teens: “You want to stand far enough away so that when they crash you don’t get hit by the shrapnel, and just close enough so that when they crash (not if), you can go in to help them.”

Isn’t that why new love is so grand, because we lean into the euphoria that clouds any humanness and we get hooked into only goodness? Then once our relationship transitions from the new, euphoric stage into the adolescent stage, we realize our beloved is actually human. . .well divorce seems the cultural answer.  When really our partners are both lovely and hideous. Most people who leave a relationship because they get uncomfortable about not being loved or appreciated enough – or sometimes being loved too much – being smothered. Our partner doesn’t act the way he or she should, we can’t get what we want when we want it so we leave for a new relationship.  Then, voila within a few months or a few years there we are struggling in a different relationship with the same stuff trying to find comfort in our own skin – on the fence – sitting with the good and the bad.

The beauty of being on the fence is that it is very uncomfortable.  However,  the more we can simply live with the uncomfortableness until it passes, because it ALWAYS passes, then we don’t have to react.  We wait on the fence until we reach a place that doesn’t feel so desperate, and then we make a decision.  Sometimes the decision is to remain on the fence.

Peace.

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21 Apr 2013
5 Comments

The Good News about Aging

The good news is – I am turning 50 this year.  In America it seems almost sinful to age, but also sinful to die before turning old.  Which one is it? Do you want to live or die? I’ll take living! I’ve never had issues in telling people my age or my weight – they are all just numbers, and truly do not define me. I don’t know what the big deal is about aging – I think it is cool to be turning 50.

Besides – I’m getting better with age.  I continue to stay fit and try to take care of myself physically. I also continue to grow spiritually and emotionally with the help of spiritual friends and professional helpers. I am old enough to have friendships that span decades, and some of these friends know me well enough to tell me the truth about myself when I can’t bear to uncover it alone. And I listen.  I talk a lot too, but I listen more than I ever have, and I continue to change. I even enjoy being surprised by the changes in myself and those around me. Changes used to scare me when I was younger and needed to control myself and others.  I continue to let go – not completely – but I’m heading in the right direction.

Why don’t we focus on these aspects of aging instead of continuously fighting the physical properties of the aging process. We are instructed to cover the grey, get a shot of Botox, a tummy tuck here, a neck lift there, and then we will be beautiful, satisfied, happy.  Yeah right!  A few years ago I began asking myself if getting____________ would make me more lovable to my family and friends. You can fill in the blank with – whiter teeth, Botox, being thinner, tanning, dying my hair, wearing more make-up, etc, etc. If the answer was no, than why would I get it?

When I was younger – I tried changing the outside stuff in order to be happy, and I am now wise enough to know it does not work! Those of us that are lucky enough to grow old will witness our hair turning grey (or losing our hair) and our skin will begin to droop.  Why do we have to hide this process – why are we expected to hide this process? We should celebrate these things – they are all proof that we are still alive!

When I was 44 my dad died.  This was my first significant loss, and it had a profound, and yet wonderful impact on me.  I had a twinge of guilt about not being available enough to my dad.  Instead of letting this eat at me, I decided to live differently going forward in respecting my dad’s life.   I tried to “show up” for people more often. A few weeks after his death an old friend of mine wanted to get together for lunch; we stumbled upon a crack in our busy schedules, when I noticed I had an appointment to get my hair dyed that day.   I chose to have lunch instead.  I remember thinking I had recently hosted a wealth of friends and family at my dad’s viewing. I felt like an adult; a rite of passage had taken place. I earned this grey hair.

It is very difficult to let your hair grow out! Very difficult!  It looks pretty dreadful for awhile, but I have an awesome friend who has been doing my hair for over 20 years – she was fabulous! My mom and my sister were horrified.  They said – you are younger than us – if you go grey everyone will know we are really grey too!  I ran into a male acquaintance at a gas station who was taller than me who was looking down onto my head and asked, “What is going on with your hair?”  This from a grey-haired, slightly chubby biker dude who was just an acquaintance!  I said, “I am letting it go – going natural.”  He proceeded to tell me to look around – women all over were dying their hair and I should too.  It was amazing and fired me up even more to let my hair go grey.  Lots of women then and now still say things like, “If I had pretty hair like yours, I would grow mine out too.” I didn’t know my hair was going to look this fab until I actually let it grow out, so they don’t know either.

We live in a culture that devalues aging.  I have 2 teen daughters, so I have been in a few dermatologist offices over the years.  If the ads there don’t make you feel worthless if you aren’t getting some “work” done – nothing will.  I don’t actually like taking my kids there either – they have enough issues trying to live up to the standards of beauty in America. My older daughter has near perfect teeth, but began asking at 13 if she could get her teeth whitened! Whitened? What the heck!  She is now 17, and has learned to live with her near perfect teeth; as she herself ages and becomes wiser, she realizes that nothing is perfect except the unique (perfect) imperfections that we all bring to the world.

This isn’t to say I’m totally opposed to hair dye and make-up.  It was fun to experiment with hair color and make-up in my youth. It was only when I felt I needed to get hair dyed or wear make-up to look younger or wear make-up before being seen in public that it got ugly.  A part of becoming wiser is giving myself the freedom to wear or not wear make-up, but to do it or not do it on my terms, and not to please a man or a woman or to “one up” the neighbor or the ex’s current girlfriend.

Yes, I’m getting older. I am sometimes more tired or forgetful or tearful. But I am also less tied to social mores and societal standards of dress.  I choose which commitments I want to attend; I no longer go to be with the cool kids or because I don’t want to miss something, and never because I “should!” (Aging has taught me not to “should” on myself). All of this has taken years of practice, and I’m still not perfect.  So . . .I hope to live a lot longer, get a lot older, and get a ton more wrinkles, so I can become freer and more comfortable in my own skin with each passing year. I wish you all the same.

Peace.

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