Age. Just a number?

So many times I hear the phrase, "Age?  Don't worry about it.  It's just a number."

How do they know?    Are they at a point in life where so little transition is happening?

Numbers are important and with age, it's not to be trivialized.  As much as people tout their nonchalance concerning age, it's interesting to see how quickly a label gets slapped on someone if they step out of the boundaries for age appropriate behavior.

As midlife women, we are encouraged to embrace our age but the media constantly tells us how to appear younger in our outward appearance.  And should we actually follow through with the prescribed formula of anti-aging, then the label of desperate is quickly applied.  Going out with a younger man even if he's mature looking and acting...still considered a cougar and the relationship is looked at with a wink and nod.

Older man with younger woman...gold-digger, daddy lover, and for him-cradle robber.

The mindset of youth is ageless and should be celebrated but the eras from which we are born are equally important.

Tick Tock

Tick Tock
My life is but a clock,
A turning wheel of history
Making time a mystery.

Tick Tock
I seek for it to stop,
Giving back my memories
Changing life instantly.

Tick Tock
Time winding down forgot,
As treasured moments oft
Are lost with every tick..tock....
.

Ah, poetry

During the days when it seems as if I exist alone, I think of Emily Dickinson and her morbid fascination with death and its aftermath.  She gives her words the experience of birth and death as she deftly weaves them into succinct poetry.  The breath of life with the sorrow of living make up the mosaic of her mastery.

"HOPE" is the thing with feathers—

That perches in the soul—
And sings the tune without the words—
And never stops—at all—

And sweetest—in the Gale—is heard—
And sore must be the storm—
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm—

I've heard it in the chillest land—
And on the strangest Sea—
Yet, never, in Extremity,
It asked a crumb—of Me.

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And as I remember that I'm not truly alone but just living as so for the moment, I look at a modern poet from my dear Kentucky.  Even if I cannot visit the "nature" he speaks of for solace, I read his words and I am there.  He comforts me.

The Peace of Wild Things, Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

I am, I will, I do.

My mother passed along that phrase.  As I have been reading her father's diaries, I see that "doing" has always been important within her family.  Day by day, my grandfather listed his "done" list and rarely do I read of his emotional side.  It's important to recognize my family's emphasis on filling a day with chores.  I find myself doing the same thing and with that, I find myself feeling guilty if I've let an hour pass without accomplishing something.

And now the crux of the issue...I'm struggling to give myself permission to simply take the time "to be."  The research is clear and arguments against it are useless as history proves the theory correct.  Great insight and discovery happen when the brain is allowed to rest from its multi-tasking fury.

I am, I will, I BE?

Besides my family's influence, my own motivation is to set and reach goals.  With that comes unconscious planning and I'm off to complete tasks.  Since I deal with my wildly fluctuating creative instincts, I'm comfortable with starting and pausing tasks but not to the point that my surroundings are disturbed.  Instead, I keep a mental "junk drawer" that calls my name and propels me back to work.  As a stay at home mother, my home appeared clean and orderly, the children well kept, the husband and pets content, and I was the calm mother and wife.  Unfortunately, we know that the fairy tale of living that life is more horror story.  I buried my disappointment and stress when life's daily events went awry.  My coping skill was denial. Since I wasn't bringing home a pay check, I tried to do every other job possible to maintain the homestead as my contribution.  That meant there were a lot of daily disappointments and I was hyper sensitive to my husband's criticism.  Yes, he was "only trying to help me do it better" most times, but with the overwhelming amount of work that I put on myself, I could only hear that it was wrong.  We certainly needed communication assistance but alas, it never happened.

Perfectionism remains my struggle.  Although I have made tremendous strides in keeping it at bay and accepting its influence in my life, the side effect is guilt.  Intellectually, I know that it should not be so...mentally, I back away from certain behaviors...emotionally, I attach guilty feelings to my non goal achieving activities.

Just BE instead of Just Do It?

Just BE.

Guilt free.

A worthy goal....

Literally Speechless

It seems I'm becoming more "speechless" than not when it comes to understanding how the opposite sex handles relationships.  Friends and family warned me that it might be better to stay in a bad marriage rather than confront the dating scene in midlife.  My ex husband even used it as an excuse for us staying together rather than confronting the ugliness.  

My observations in the last couple of weeks have me wondering if midlife men have gone mad.  I might surmise that it's just the ones I meet were it not for the fact that so many other women speak about similar circumstances.  

And what is the common theme that keeps popping up in these stories?  Fear.  And it's not the women's fear!  I had NO IDEA that so many men operate with fear as their guiding emotion.  Not love, not passion but absolute fear of being vulnerable and open. 

I guess I'm showing up late to this party of knowledge.  My perception now seems rather quaint and outdated...I truly believed that at this stage of life, it was we single women who were the most fearful.  After all, our looks fade, our careers have suffered while rearing families, our health begins the long transition of menopause, and we tend to be the main caregivers of our aging parents.  Amid that, it's often divorce that has catapulted us to this point and there is the messiness of broken hearts.  

Tonight I learned that a man who was wooing me no less than six months ago had married.  He had been quite forthright that he felt pressured to marry his previous girlfriend regardless of the fact that he didn't feel "in love" with her.  And so he had begun again because he didn't like being alone.  Hmmmm?  Who does?  But I don't use that as an excuse to date someone and listening to my inner voice, I asked a simple question and his answer..."No, I don't think I loved either my ex wife, my old girlfriend or any woman.  I just don't think I can do that."  It was really quite easy for me to not see him again after that.  His last entreaty was at Christmas but not one that I cared to return as his attitude of fear was the same.  

I find out tonight that he has just married the girlfriend he didn't love.  She now has a husband and he doesn't have to be alone.  I will be the cynic and believe that fear guided them both to the altar.  Perhaps this is success  as both their needs are met and I will not judge their union.

It does make me feel more earnest about my own journey though.  Fear kept me trapped in a relationship for half my life but it will be love that guides my second half.  I will work doubly hard to cast aside my cynicism when fear rears itself BUT I will pay great heed to my inner voice when it warns of insincerity.   Perhaps the only love I will get to hold will be that of my family and myself and yet, hope endures.

A Thinker

As I've reopened my life to writing, I find myself confronting past fears about my thought process.  Staring down my path, I seek answers to the questions that have haunted me for  8 years now.

Can I be the "thinker" that I once was?
Do I have the brain power to rev up my creative engine and am I able to effectively deliver my thoughts?
Can I be smart enough, clever enough, and fast enough to take this journey of pen to paper?
Most of all...am I allowing perfectionism to stall me as it has done before?

Airing these questions provides some relief.  Up to 50% of MS patients struggle with cognitive issues and it's well documented that menopausal women of my age enter "brain fog."  Hormones or lack thereof....  Bleh!

I concede that since I do not know which part of me is struggling cognitively...MS or Menopausal...then I simply must cast my doubts aside and get on with my endeavors.  Perhaps not knowing what to blame is a blessing in disguise and instead, I just join my fellow baby boomers who grouch about losing their memories!

Today, I found an interesting article concerning the creative mind in relation to intellect and mental illness.  A quick summation is that I neither have to be a genius nor crazy to get on with my creative process.  Fortunately, just having a few of either in the family gives me enough cred that I'm in the correct gene pool.

A little crazy + a lot of smart can = a family that produces creatives.

Secrets of the Creative Brain

Follow along, oh wise reader and see if you too may be part of a creative and crazy family!  Smiles!!

A dark and rainy night...

They tend to be the worst...rainy, dark, lonely nights are when I miss him the most.  And who might he be?  I do NOT know.  One of the assignments I was given years ago involved listing the attributes of someone who might fit in with my life.  Before I divorced, it was a "want" list for my ex-husband that requested a common meeting ground of these qualities.  He never gave me a list and stated that he was happy with exactly who I was...but that wasn't true and I wondered why it was so difficult for him to voice his preferences.

Was it because he felt I couldn't live up to them?  Perhaps he was so dedicated to the institution of marriage, he simply could not think beyond his partner.  But he must have thought something as the magazines and movies were filled with fantasy women.

I'm fortunate enough to be living in a REALITY now and as I look back almost a year ago when I was writing it, I'm happy to see that little has changed.  I am clear about who I seek but unclear of my path to him.

The List

Good Fences

My imagination takes me to wide open spaces today as I troll through my recent Scotland photos.  We hiked 90+ miles on mostly private lands and had we not taken care of the gates, many sheep and cattle might have escaped.

We were in awe of the trusting nature of these land owners.  They have a "trekking" culture in the U.K. and it seems their main concern was for the safety of their animals from rogue dogs.  We didn't come across constant signage reminding us of NO LITTERING or LOITERING.

It was quite the opposite as we felt most comfortable to remain anywhere for as long as we wanted.  The good fences they built for their livestock extended to the good nature of their communities.  Pubs stayed open late for us, inn keepers came to the trail heads to check on our progress, and drivers adjusted their timing so that we might not be too far from schedule.

The personal boundaries/fences that one might think the stoic British are apt to keep in place disappeared when we needed help.  It was a refreshing reminder that a welcome from anyone is warm when expectations are met from each side.

Good fences make for good guests?

STRONG FENCES

We build our own fences
We build them high not low

We build our own fences
We build them steel or stone

Our gatekeeper faces keep
Us in, You out

Our steely cold eyes flash
A warning, Keep Out

Stony cold countenance
Close mouthed, closed heart

We build our own fences
And die from the start