The LIST......

No one told me about this. There are just so many surprises as we age, aren’t there?

It seems that the day your Medicare card arrives in the mail, something else comes with it. I’ve never actually seen this list of “ ready-to-use after age 65” statements  myself, but I’ve been exposed to enough people in this category to surmise that it does indeed exit. It has to….why else would so many older folks use them on a daily basis?

You know the ones I mean, right?

“Look how fast he’s going!! What’s the big hurry anyway??”

“Only girls wear earrings. And he needs a haircut, too.”

“Look at all those tattoos! You know what they’ll look like when they’re our age, don’t you?”

“How do you carry that purse around? I’m surprised you don’t have back problems.”

“Why can’t they have paper towels in bathrooms anymore? I hate these blower things.”

And my personal favorite:

“Why are all these people out on the roads? Isn’t it a work day? I thought there was a recession.”

And each such statement is followed with a sound that I used to think writers made up, but it actually does exist. I’ve heard it myself:

Harumph!

But to make it all the more fun, EVERY time we drive an interstate or go shopping, or need to use a public bathroom or venture forth anywhere, the applicable statement is pulled out from their wallets (behind their Medicare cards where they hide it, I guess) and used as if WE are deaf and didn’t hear it the first thousand times or so they said it.

I know, I know. I’ll be there myself soon and should have more empathy. In all fairness, it does seem to take a few years past 65 before these statements are used regularly, but they seem to catch up with everyone eventually.

You’re probably right, I should be more understanding, but in the two years until that happens, I’m taking my huge purse and going shopping. I may even speed a little along the way.

And I’m sure I’ll hit a few bathrooms while I’m out (a topic in this category for another day), and I assure you that I won’t mind those hand blowers a bit.



 The older you get, the more you tell it like it used to be.
-- Author Unknown

 

 

 

 

Dancing fool....

I was nervous and edgy. I almost talked myself out of going. Here it was, my fourth month of “doing something I’ve never done before” and I was thinking of ditching it at the last minute. But, I pushed through those feelings and drove to the dance studio anyway.

My hands were sweaty as I walked into the chilled studio and I was glad to see there were only a few other people there. That had been my plan, after all, when I scheduled the lesson for the dead of an afternoon during the week. I arrived and watched a woman who obviously was a competitive dancer go through some intricate moves with a partner, while an older woman shuffled along with an instructor on the far side of the dance floor. And, yes, there was actually a mirror ball hanging from the ceiling, ready to cast its jeweled reflections over the room.



I took ballet and tap lessons when I was about 5. I still have the black and white photos to prove it, complete with the tutu and daisy headpiece sliding over one eye. But I had never taken any kind of ballroom or contemporary lessons, and had never had much occasion to dance anyway. (I did go to my senior prom on a blind date...that's a story for another day.....and for the life of me cannot remember dancing.) But inside my head, I was a fantastic dancer, gliding down the staircase on the set of “Dancing with the Stars” to wow the judges with a spicy rumba or tango. In the real world, though, my experiences have not quite matched my mental images. Not quite....

It had gotten so bad that I had taken to refusing to dance with the (few) men who asked me over the years. It was just too embarrassing to walk out onto the floor, not having any idea what was in store for me, and have the guy start gyrating his body, hands flapping around his head, eyes closed, while I stood there clueless about what I was supposed to do.

My father did teach me the two-step during the years that he and my mother were dancing their way through retirement. And I could follow someone who boxed-stepped me around the floor, and sometimes I would encounter someone who led me enough that I felt like I was “dancing.” But they were the exceptions. I usually stepped on a lot of toes and had mine routinely crushed. Or I stood there and watched the gyrations, anxious to sit down so people would stop looking at me. There might as well have been a large black arrow pointing at my head as The One Who Doesn’t Know How to Dance. At least, that's how I imagined it.

And here I was, ready to take my first real dance lesson. Imagine my surprise when it only took my instructor, James, 40 minutes to prove something to me: I CAN dance, just like I experience it in my head.

What is required is a partner who knows how to lead.

Before we were finished, I was waltzing around the entire mirrored dance floor, head tilted just right, music flowing around us, with only a misstep here and there on the turns. We cha-cha’ed, his hand on my back gently telling me where to go as I flowed into the steps he had shown me. We finished with the swing, something I had seen other couples do but thought it must be too complicated for me to learn. It wasn’t. But it was a lot of fun.

This year-long journey is proving many things to me. One is that we are never too old to walk to the edge of the cliff of a new experience and take a leap, even when we’re unsure of what awaits us at the bottom. It might take a little push to go over the side or maybe just someone who can gently lead us.

Thanks, James! I can’t wait for lesson number two next week.

Absolute Dance Studio/Jacksonville

Stifling an urge to dance is bad for your health - it rusts your spirit and your hips.  ~Terri Guillemets

Where will you wake up today?

Getting "older" in our society isn't all bad. Really. There are some great insights that come with age, especially if we are paying attention to our lives.

Let's see....

A few years ago I looked around and decided that what I was doing for a living probably wasn't making much difference to the teenagers I was teaching. In fact, I wasn't sure I WAS teaching most days, considering the silliness that those in power have decided to insert into education. And for a teacher to face herself in the mirror and grapple with that demon is heart wrenching.

I had no one at home who could pat me on the back and say, "Honey, if you want to quit and take some time to find something else, it will be OK. I'll take care of everything for us." And since teaching was my second career, I didn't have enough years to walk away with those great retirement benefits many folks hold out for as they spend every waking minute counting the minutes until their company gives them a party and waves good-bye.

I own a small house, a car, I need to eat and stay warm/cool depending on the season. I'm a basic kind of person, but the basics sure do feel good, don't they?

When I was younger, I would not have had the courage to walk out the door of that school with no benefits, no salary, and no back-up person at home to carry the slack. When I was younger, my self-image was so weak that I couldn't handle anyone thinking I was a bit crazy for taking an action that had so many negatives.  But I did it at age 55, and the feeling of strength in myself was incredible. I walked out without any job and I went home to regroup. I did get advice from someone important to me on a way to provide some income until I found out what I wanted to do when I grew up. ( Houses provide more than a roof when some extra cash is needed, I learned.)

I think that comes with age for many of us. Especially women, perhaps. (I can't speak for men and won't even try. We'll go there another day, I promise.) We have enough experience at life to know our limits and those limits grow as we age. Today I am self-employed, doing what I love, and make a living for myself in the midst of the worse recession in years.

There are other things, of course. I now dare to leave the house without make-up and sometimes my socks don't match.  I've taught my daughter if someone judges us on those kinds of things, that person needs to get a life. I've also taught her to trust herself a bit more than I ever did at her age, and to take chances sometimes. Doing what everyone else thinks you should do should be of no concern to you. Listen to advice, yes. Then chart your course, call forth your reserves of strength, and follow the yearnings of your heart.

The only life you have is the one you woke up with today. Age has taught me to cherish the days I have left and I vow to follow my own advice.


.

What were we talking about?

The weather.

     Doctor's visits, complete with an itemized description of all medications.

The weather.

     Surgeries. Often accompanied by unveiling of the incision(s).

The weather.


Oh, my. The topics of conversation around me are dwindling, it seems. Maybe it has something to do with that shrinking experience thing we talked about before. As many people move along the time continuum, their activities shrink as their age grows. Just think about all the events you have attended in your own lifetime, events that you will never experience for the first time again. It takes dedicated thought and intention to keep finding new things to do (see http://agedtoperfectiondeborahhansen.blogspot.com/2010/12/time-passeswith-or-without-you.html), something that is just too much work for lots of people.

The result? Many people talk about the two things they DO see on a regular basis: The weather, which is always new no matter how many days we hang around, and all the strange goings-on in/on their bodies. And it doesn't seem to occur to them that maybe we don't want to hear the minutia of their body's gurgling, itching, or groaning.

Upon being asked how my day was recently, I talked about the topic I am currently researching for a writing project, going to the gym to work out, and then running errands before going home for the day. Without responding to anything I just said, the "listener" responded with, "They say it's supposed to be foggy in the morning."

Foggy? What part of my response referred to, or even HINTED, at the weather? Somebody please tell me. Am I missing something here? (And I'm still trying to find out who THEY are, because THEY are always wrong anyway.) And how was I to answer that without sounding snippy, anyway? "Uh, OK. Foggy. So what?"  What I actually said, nice person that I am, was, "Uh, OK. I haven't seen any fog here today." And just like that, I become part of the problem.

I've given my daughter license to slap me silly if I start wandering along this path, lost in the murkiness of boring everyone with a commentary about rain, sleet or snow and what medications make me gassy or incoherent. She assures me she stands ready to assist.

Now, what we were talking about?

Time's form....

Three generations of women's hands:

Thanksgiving 2010



Time is an illusion, given form only

by the work of our hands.

Nothing else matters.

"Charlie Sheen-itis"

Most of us by now have watched at least one episode of the popular TV show that highlights two men and their (now grown) son/nephew. You know the one: The uncle is a caricature of the playboy, a jingle-writer whose dictionary doesn't reference the word "commitment" and who loses days at a time while overindulging in, well, just about everything there is to wallow in. Women, alcohol, gambling......you  name it, he jumps in and might not come up for air until the booze runs out or the woman does.

Charlie has come close a couple of times. Meaning to a WEDDING, not some satanic ritual where everyone gets naked and shakes things at the full moon, although now that I think about it, there are some similarities. But, a glitch always appears that causes him to run for the door like he IS the centerpiece at some human sacrificial ceremony, leaving a beautiful woman at the alter wounded and bewildered.

Apparently the writers of the show are intelligent enough to take note of the fact that their lead character MUST be aging, especially since the nephew has literally become a young man on the set of this comedy....they can't hide that one with make up and spiky hair. So, occasionally they insert a throw-away line that proves that Charlies knows his jowls are a bit longer and his stamina leaves just a little to be desired.

This takes them into the media minefield of aging. They can't pin the "getting old" label on HIM too often or their audience will remote their way to MTV. So, they splash his women with dialogue that proves it can't be his inability to "keep up," even with sly references to those little blue pills. But my ears perked up one evening when Charlie and I were meandering through a half hour when he said, "Ewwwww! I'm not going to put my tongue in some 60 year old woman's mouth!" And his face was all screwed up in disgust as he swigged his vodka. Like women over 60 were so unappealing and OLD that he couldn't even say the words without gagging. 

I had to back the recorder up and play that segment again to make sure that's what he said. Yep, I heard right the second time, too. Let's think about this now:

Christine LahtiCristina Ferrare

  Jane Pauley Linda Thompson

Yes, these women are all over 60, folks.

But I think many men agree with Charlie on this false age-referenced distaste, based on my own experience with dating (or attempting such a hilarious thing) after 50. But that's a topic for another day.

Maybe Charlie just needs to keep better company. And the writers need to acknowledge the obvious....their lead character HAS to be knocking on the door of middle age. Soon it may be the women who can't imagine kissing him(or whatever...this IS an adult-themed show with plenty of the action taking place in his bedroom). Think what fun the writing team can have with THAT.

We don't want your job....

Age discrimination exists. I know you've heard that before, but until it personally slaps you in the face, it is only hearsay.

When I turned 50, I had had enough of entertaining (or not) middle schoolers all day. Fifteen years was my limit for people ignoring me and parents telling their kids they didn't have to do anything I told them to do. (The kids, not the parents. And yes, a parent told their child that at a conference I had requested to find a way to control their darling in class so I could actually TEACH.)

So, I decided to find another way to make a living. I reasoned, "I have a decade of experience in the business world, then 15 years in a classroom. Surely, those are marketable skills....somewhere." And off I went, sending out resumes and answering classified ads. Of course, like any sane person, I kept teaching in the meantime, anxiously opening my mailbox each evening as my patience wore thinner and thinner, hoping to find a positive response happily jumping around in there until I came home to find it.

Sometimes I actually got a chance to meet in person about a job posted somewhere. Have you ever had the experience of being interviewed by someone who is at least 3 decades younger than you? (They actually look like they're in the teens, but everyone looks younger as we get older, so we do have to factor THAT into the equation, too.) To say it is challenging is being polite, as they chew their gum and twirl their hair and ask "Like, tell me about yourself, 'k?"

The result of all those resumes and interviews was another year in the classroom, watching the months tick by and my sanity become even more compromised. This was before the economy took a slide into oblivion, so it wasn't that I was joining millions of folks doing the same thing. I just wanted to make a living doing something else, I had good experience and a college degree, and my work ethic is daunting.

The result? No job offers. I was "overqualified" or they decided to "go a different way in their job search." Or, even worse (I think), no response at all to my contact with their company. I came to the conclusion that I scared these youngsters. They probably thought that I wanted their job and had the ability to jerk it away from them fairly quickly. If they let me in the door. Which they were quick to slam in my face, collectively, about 5 or 6 times a week.

Little did they know that their jobs were safe from the likes of me. Every job I've ever had morphed into a supervisory position once those in the upper offices realized who they had. Someone who could do it. Whatever "it" turned out to be. But, with that responsibility came the headaches, the long days and nights of backbreaking work, and the lack of appreciation for all of the above. 

All I wanted at 50 was to show up on time, do my job to the absolute best of my ability (well, OK, maybe 110%, I can't change my personality THAT much), go home on time, pay my bills, and enjoy my quiet life. They would still get more for their money than what they had, I was sure, but I just wasn't into climbing the corporate ladder any more. That ladder was now stowed in my dark garage closet, gathering dust and cobwebs. I wasn't going to pull it out suddenly to tell them how to improve what they were doing.

Believe me.......'K?

The years teach much which the days never knew.  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson