Time for Thought

I have been thinking a lot about aging these days, probably because I am looking forward to retirement and realize that I must plan my future carefully if I expect to get the most out of my remaining years. I think when you reach that certain age, if you are lucky, you begin to realize that life is giving you a second change chance. When you are young and raising a family you are busy living in your waking hours. Each day is auto-filled with necessary deeds and tasks. People need you, so you spend time working on filling those needs---whether it is earning a living to pay bills or cooking and cleaning and kissing boo-boos or consoling a broken teenage heart.

It is a daily race and you fall into bed at the end of the day, hoping your mind will slow down enough so that you can sleep.

Then, almost suddenly, but not without warning (children entering college, getting married, having their own little ones) you realize that the race is slowing way down. You have time to look to each side and not always ahead. You are going slow enough that you now no longer worry about tripping or mis-reading signs and taking the wrong side road. As a matter of fact, a side road is most appealing.

If you have good health and your finances are secure your side roads are more interesting and more available. But even if life didn't end up like a bushel of sweet peaches, there are still different opportunities and angles that you can think about.

I watched a movie starring one of my favorite actors, Judi Dench, called Ladies in Lavender last night. A scene in which Dench is lost in thought about missed opportunities in her life and future choices she must make remains in my thoughts. Dench is lying casually on her bed with daylight crossing her face showing how lost in thought she is. The scene hangs in my memory because the impression given was that she had been lying there thinking for a long time. I realized that I have not had an opportunity to be lost in thought for quite a while.

I remember days as a young child daydreaming for hours. Do children have time to do that today? Are their days so programmed with activities or so filled with technological temptations that they fail to exercise their thinking muscles and in turn their imagination growth? Are we becoming a nation of doers and not thinkers?

I guess this is why activities such as camping and canoeing appeal to my soul. There is usually time for thought. Walking is another thought-provoking activity I enjoy.

I have decided that getting a little more peace in my life for thought and helping others realize how important thought is will be a new goal in retirement. The next time someone asks me what I will do when I retire, I will answer "Think more."

The Center of the Universe

I am pretty sure my mother thought, for a very short time, that I was the Center of the Universe. After all, I was the first born of five sweet cherubs. The first of five smart futures. The first of five beautiful replicates. Unfortunately, she got over that idea in a few short months. Fortunately, I have never really accepted her theory that I am not one of the most important people in the world and that the Cosmos is not linked to the date of my entry into the world. Why, you may ask, in your serious interest in my life, do I think this? BECAUSE, recently this was confirmed by a number of cosmologists---note I did not write cosmetologists. (They are too expensive.)

I never have been much of an "end of days" or "apocolypse" person. S**t happens and we don't need to try to predict it. (Believe me, after living with two small people in diapers I know this.) But I saw a re-run of a program on TV a few nights ago and found that the Mayan Calendar ends on my 66th birthday. According to this calendar the poles of the earth and the magnetic forces shift on my 66th birthday. There is some re-alignment of milky way...I mean, are you surprised...really?

On August 3rd, the History Channel aired a program about my 66th birthday. See! According to the documentary my birthday will start a cataclysmic event in the history of the earth or perhaps it will mean an opportunity for monumental change for the good depending on which expert you believe. The History Channel is favoring disaster it appears, because after all, it sells. Disasters with blondes (Hilton, Spears, Lohan) sell. Why not disasters of the world? (Disasters with our illustrious leader are not nearly as commercially significant to the media...maybe too predictable?)

But some of the touchy feely experts think this change is going to be a transition to a better way of life. Go on and read this, I will wait.............And why not? I think that this version is just as good. (I sent my hubby this link and he sent me an email saying that this was perfectly understandable since marrying me was the beginning of his life...I know girls...you are sooo jealous.)

Regardless of the outcome, it will happen on my 66th birthday. Let's all get together somewhere cool and celebrate!

This Old Life

My life is in boxes
Wrapped in white paper
Resting securely
And tucked tight away.

My life is in stasis
With memories stalling;
Fads that have faded
In the warm light of day.

My life is outdated,
Stale themes in reclusion,
Old times held suspended
Will be forgotten some day

My life was electric,
At one time in neon
Billous loud green;
It's now just today.

The Good Spot

I have been so busy moving out of the apartment and packing 80% for down at the house and 20% for the next few months that I will be living in my daughter's basement. She is only 30 minutes from work...and I still have to work at the monkey house (another long story.)

There is a lesson here. Children, your parents may return! They may move in, actually, if you have a basement with a tiny bedroom, small kitchen and teeny weeny bathroom. But unlike family members who move back in with laundry, your parents will do their own laundry! They also work as free babysitters, allowing you to check your email or nurse your baby or take that well earned sitz bath at your leisure. Guess what, some of us even pay a token rent!!

As you will notice, your Daddy does the lawn, sweeps the driveway, picks up at day care and is great at BBQ.

Your mom, granny, allows small infants to throw up on her without flinching and can help with planning dinner and shopping. She is also great at playing with Thomas the Train for an hour before her head explodes. And at the age of 60, she can bend over and push a little plastic car around the park chasing her grandson as he pushes the other toddler car for quite a few laps. Of course, after a half dozen laps around the park, she looks a little hunched in the back area when she tries to stand upright. But does she complain about the pain? Never--unless you count that groan that scares the little poodle on the bike path.

Then like the good guests (hired help) that they are, they disappear on the weekends to their own place, so you are left to entertain the people of your generation who also have munchkins and talk about important things like reality TV and football.

In all honesty this little hiccup in our life has worked out far better than one would think. We are a help, we give them their space, and we contribute to costs. (Also, in another 'all honesty' hubby is having his challenges remembering to put every pen, pencil and laptop out of the reach of a toddler. He completely forgot to bring his laptop down this weekend as he had put it high on the mantel and ended up grabbing an empty backpack!)

In return, I have gotten so close to both grandchildren and fully realize how very very very rare and special this time is.

Reveling in My Genetics

The images set by television are so insidious in their effect on how we view ourselves and decide what is beautiful and what is not. Certainly in this American culture aging is not beautiful. We must plump the lines, pull up the sags, remove the spots, dye the hair, remove the protruding veins, and in general strive for Stepfordness in any way that we can afford. If you don't look good then you are not good. Of course this change is for those in their 40's (and idiots in their 30's). All the rest of us are over the hill and no amount of tweaking is going to bring us back into the mover and shaker fold.

I have succumbed to thinking about this calling vanity. I would like to pull up the sags so that I don't look so grumpy and tired. I am much happier and perkier than I look! But I am also cheap and cannot allow myself the expense for that vanity.

My husband and I were watching a show on television and there was some comment by one of the characters regarding baldness and thinning hair. The woman in the TV show deleted the male character from her "Candidates to Date" list due to his receding hairline.

I mentioned to my husband (who is almost bald) how I like guys with hair but also find baldness very sexy...which I do. I mean picture Jean Luc Piccard with hair? Puhleeze! I like my husband's wisp of silver that barely covers the top of his little pointed head.

My husband, who has never had any sense of vanity in his life, smiled and said:
"I revel in my genetics."

And shouldn't we all.