Category Archives: aging

Getting to the root of the question

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I am a natural brunette, or at least I was a natural brunette until sometime in my twenties.  Like my grandmother, my hair started to age before its time and I began to notice more salt than pepper at the roots surrounding my face.  I have been dying my hair since then because I refuse to go down the path of “aging gracefully” without a hearty fight.

Someone recently asked me what my natural hair color was and, after I finished giggling, I responded with “I’m guessing somewhere between alabaster and egg-shell white”.  I still like to think the hair color that I have paid for on numerous occasions reflects the age I feel and not the age I should look when I am eighty.

When I was younger I remember  hearing the belief that grey hair made men look distinguished but made women look old.  Along with every other changing belief, this is an outdated way of thinking and there are many women disproving this theory at an alarming rate.  One stand-out woman who takes grey hair to a new level of sexy is this woman.

Jamie-Lee-Curtis-image-3

Jamie Lee Curtis is 56 years old, a mere 10 years old than I am and she looks absolutely stunning having allowed herself to embrace the natural greying process.  Since the length of my hair in the summer months is very similar to her pixie cut, I have been tempted many times to put the box of “natural” color back on the shelf and see just what color my hair really is at this stage in my life.  Somehow those ‘Natural Instincts’ make their way to the counter every time.

Maybe when I hit that magic number, the big 5-0, perhaps then I will be ready to leave the color in the box, but until then it’s time to put those gloves back on and keep fighting the good fight.

The fireflies at the windows

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We are rapidly approaching the last of the “firsts” since we lost my mom almost a year ago.  I stumbled blindly through my birthday last year, which was three weeks to the day after she passed.  We muddled through the rest of the birthdays in our immediate family, except for one still to come, and celebrated mom’s birthday by having her celebration of life on that same day.

Valentine’s Day will be a quiet one for me this year.  After my dad died, mom and I made a pact to be each others Valentine.  Even after I was married, mom and I had a standing ‘date night’ on February 14th because my now ex-husband always had to work at the restaurant.  She and I would go out for a nice dinner and always gave each other either a lovely arrangement of flowers or a cry-inducing Hallmark card full of sentiment that we both honestly meant.

My youngest nephews’ 12th birthday will be the last of the firsts.  That will be an odd feeling.  But it got me thinking about all of the other milestones, the new ‘firsts’, my parents may see from where they are, but will not be able to physically participate in.  This is the calendar year that my brother will turn fifty.  I’m sure nobody in our family ever thought that momentous day would come and neither of our parents will be here to help him celebrate and embarrass him with untold stories of his youth.

They will miss my oldest nephew, in just over a year, getting his G-1 (the Canadian version of the Learner’s Permit) and creating a new crop of grey hair on the heads of my brother and sister-in-law.  They will miss both of their grandchildren deciding on what field of study they wish to pursue and their subsequent University years and future careers.  And they will not be here if the Gods decide to shine favorably and allow me to fall in love again, the right way this time with the person who deserves my heart.  (although I know my mom will be doing her best to send that person my way)

fireflies

I know in my heart that both of my parents wouldn’t miss any of these events.  They will be those dancing specks of light we see at dusk, hovering by the window to watch our lives move forward.  It would just be so much nicer if they were standing right beside us to share in all of the new firsts yet to come.

 

 

 

 

 

Put your heart to paper

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Valentine’s Day has always seemed, to me, to be so commercialized. Stores begin building their storefront windows with lavish hearts, teddy bears, cards and flowers to lure you into the belief that love comes with a price tag.  But Hallmark has gone above all of the tangible commissary items and done me in this year.  They have a new campaign that has me buried under a mountain of used tissues and it is simply wonderful.

It is easy to say ‘I love you’.  We can utter those words without really giving them a second thought when we are in a relationship.  But Hallmark asked several couples to describe their partners without using the word ‘love’.  The results are overwhelmingly emotional and the video below is only one of the couples interviewed.

I don’t have a lot to write today because every time I think of this video, I cry.  This couple is asked, after 56 years of marriage, to describe their partner without using the word love.  This is what every person in the world should experience.  A love that could swallow the alphabet a million times but not be able to form a sentence to do it justice with words.

Maybe my goal of finding that love is too lofty. But I call bullshit.  I’m not willing to settle for any less because this type of love should be felt by everyone at least once in their lifetime.   The type of love that simply makes you happy and makes you regret nothing.   The type of love that makes you crave that person every second you are apart and makes you appreciate everything that is different because it compliments who you are.  Sure it will never be perfect, but love rarely is.  Love is a struggle.   Love is about compromise.   And, at the end of the day, love is about knowing you are in the right place with the right person.

Damn you, Hallmark…..where is the tissue?

If I lived in Boston, I would say Buddha is ‘wicked smaht’

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I’m sure we can all recall the many times in our childhood we were told to treat people the way we would like to be treated.   Do unto others.  It made a great deal of sense, it still does, and made us all (hopefully) more socially responsible and more polite human beings.

But somewhere along the path of treating others with respect and courtesy we may have drained our personal well of kindness and empathy and saved very little compassion for ourselves.  We spend so much time worrying about how we treat others that we fail to treat ourselves with the same dignity that we would impart to a stranger.

buddha

(image credit)

 It is instinctual to be concerned for others, to help those who need our help, but how often do we reflect on our own needs and drink from our own well of compassion?  We need our own help just as much as others may count on us for support.  There is a vast difference between wallowing in self-pity and allowing yourself a few moments to feel the pain of what is bothering you, to process it and to understand that giving yourself time to heal is, not just okay but, a necessity.

We need to do unto ourselves and give the same common courtesy to ourselves that we were taught to give others.  To do anything less would be a grave injustice. As Buddha so wisely says, it would make us incomplete.  Denying ourselves that level of self-compassion makes us unworthy of being able to understand the message behind the emotion and renders us unable to truly share the gift of empathy.

It is better to give than to receive.  But it is acceptable and necessary to give to ourselves as well as give to others.  Compassion is not something you can only share with those around you.  Compassion is meant to encompass everyone, including you.

 

Screw the other two percent!

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I’ve finally gotten to the point in my life that I can be proud of my accomplishments instead of picking them apart to find the most minute flaw.   My cake decorating days were rough!  I would spend hours putting together a three-tier cake designed specifically to match the request of the bride and, although she thought it was perfect, I always found the tiniest blemish and was disappointed in myself for not making it perfect.

At least I know I came by this mental mutation honestly.   When I was in high school I was a good student, especially in math.  I would bring home a test with 98 percent and my dad thought it was funny to ask “what happened to the other 2 percent?”  Despite the fact it was said as a joke, to an impressionable fourteen year old girl, it felt like a failure to me.  Unfortunately I have carried this with me along the way and although it has made me strive for that 100 percent even more, it has also made me extremely self-critical.

With my writing, something is different.  I have more confidence in my words than I have had in any other area of my life.  Perhaps with age really does come a sort of wisdom, or just maybe that elusive two percent was never meant to cause me so much concern.   Either way, I give myself that little punch on the arm when I’m really proud of something I’ve written, and not just in theory, I really punch myself in the arm…….

   

I hope you are able to be proud of your accomplishments.  Your successes should never be measured by anyone other than yourself.

Your biggest obstacle

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smell

Take a moment to breathe.

Close your eyes and inhale deeply.

Let the scents of life permeate your brain,

and then move forward.

Stop building walls that impede you from progress.

Stop creating lingering shadows

by standing in your own sunlight.

Get out of your own way.

Life wants to you win.

Only you can choose how you play the game.

Ignore the things that threaten to hold you,

to keep you from where you want to go.

Don’t be the one thing

that keeps you from your dreams,

that keeps you from living

the life that is meant to be yours.

~~

(image credit)

 

 

 

Getting the lead out

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The Daily Prompt had me thinking again this morning.   This is what it had to say – “When was the last time you wrote something substantive — a letter, a story, a journal entry, etc. — by hand? Could you ever imagine returning to a pre-keyboard era?”

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I vaguely remember the pre-keyboard era.  Either that, or I am trying to block it out because I do remember it and it makes me feel somewhat vintage.  I was the girl who loved to write letters to pen pals, write silly love poems, short stories and crazy plays that could only be created by an 8-year-old mind and acted out by animal puppets.

I would spend hours printing and practicing my ‘cursive’ writing.  (that word plays heavily in my vocabulary these days, but with an alternate suffix and a very dissimilar meaning!)  I loved to write so much that my wonderful penmanship turned into an obsession with calligraphy.  My doodles in high school were never flowers or hearts, but intricately designed versions of the alphabet.  There was something so satisfying about being able to create that type of flare with my own hand.

calligraphy

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Now the world is so different.  Millions of fonts can be downloaded with the touch of a button on the keyboard and all of that creativity I used to enjoy has been replaced by technology.  I miss the excitement of buying new ink for my calligraphy pen or having to buy new pencils because I had spent so much time writing that they had all been worn down to little nubs of wood and lead.

Although I began writing my novel in longhand, the novelty wore off when I realized how much faster I could record the ideas on ‘paper’ by using a keyboard.  I do miss the days of the natural flow of ideas from brain to pen or pencil and didn’t have to tune out the incessant clacking of the keys.  Oh, how we suffer now for our arts.  😉

 

 

Nineteen going on romantic

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I was having a conversation with a girlfriend about our first really memorable kiss (not together) and I remembered I had written this blog post last year.  I love this memory from my teenage years, so, since it is Throw Back Thursday,  I’m sharing it again.

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He held my hand during the movie.  It was sweet.  When he thought nobody would notice he leaned in for a kiss.  It was tentative at first, his lips slowly grazing the flesh of my cheek, but it drew my blood to the surface of my skin and I blushed in the dark.  His face nuzzled my neck and he kissed the skin below my ear.   The movie reel continued, scenes flashed before my eyes and the surround sound echoed throughout the theatre but I became lost in his touch and forgot the movie even existed.

I was 17 and my experience kissing boys was awkward at best.  Teenage boys were a kaleidoscopic combination of raging hormones and wandering hands and I didn’t expect this night to be any different.  I was well versed in a strategic line of defense when it came to thwarting enemy advances but tonight was different.  There were no ill-timed gropes and no need for the tactical measures that I had been prepared to use.

I turned my face to meet him and his lips found mine.  The kiss was soft with a hint of controlled yearning.  His mouth moved from my lips and he kissed both of my eyelids, knowing full well I was squeezing them shut to savor the feel of his mouth on mine.  He kissed the tip of my nose and, after a slight pause, our lips found each others once again.  Where I had expected urgency, there was tenderness.  Where I had expected roving hands on my body, there was only a gentle caress of his thumb on my hand.

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I was afraid to lose myself in his kiss.  I was waiting for the stampede of teenage male hormones to ruin the moment and I had braced myself for the inevitability of something so sweet turning into something so uncomfortable.  But that moment never happened.  His kiss was his power.  He didn’t listen to the teenage voices in his head telling him to get to second base.  He just seemed to feed off of the energy that was created in the intimacy of a kiss.

His other hand gently cupped my cheek and he pulled me back to his mouth.  It was exhilarating.  I no longer felt the need for my defenses and I let myself get utterly lost in that moment.  In the maturity and wisdom of his 19 years, he got it.  He understood the magic of romance and how to build a moment into a memory.

That moment from so many years ago is still etched into my memory and the power of a genuinely passionate kiss will always differentiate romance and sex.  May we all love deeply and kiss intentionally.

Do you remember the first great kiss you ever had?

Sometimes you just need to look backwards

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reflection quote

“A lake that is noisy cannot reflect anything”

– Robert Adams

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I like to spend time reflecting.  I don’t dwell on the past but I do visit from time to time so I can take a moment to appreciate the lessons I have been taught along the way.  I am a different person from the one I was masquerading as many years ago.   And yesterday, the serenity of my day off provided me with ample moments to look back and plenty of time to plan my journey forward based on where I am in my present.

My lake was quiet today.  It afforded me a few precious moments to realize that if I hadn’t experience failure, I wouldn’t have learned to appreciate success.  If I hadn’t lost pieces of myself along the way, I would never have been able to have found the real me and respect who I truly am.

Looking backwards may seem like a waste of time but that personal reflection will remind you of where you came from and make you acknowledge where and who you are today.

A funny thing happened on the way to the finish line

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Apparently, I am no Job.  I have no patience when it comes to many things and I just want to get from the start to the finish line.  The problem with sprinting to the end is that I forget to enjoy the scenery during the marathon that is my life.  I have a very bad habit of trying to make things happen instead of just letting them happen.  The meaning of the song ‘Que Sera, Sera’ is hopelessly lost on me.

I don’t know why I cannot let whatever will be, just be.  I need to teach myself to relinquish some of the control I so desperately want to have and let life unfold in front of me.  There is more beauty watching the petals of a rose open slowly than the rose itself at the end of its blossom.

rose

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Perhaps wisdom really does come with age.  Maybe I am at the point in my life that I am willing to sit back and loosen the reins a little and see how the proverbial cookie crumbles without me breaking it into a thousand tiny pieces.  It’s time to let life happen and for me to find strength in patience and wait for those good things to come.