A-HA!

It seems that we're never too old for an "A-HA!" moment. I had one hit me between the eyes the other day, right in the middle of a conversation. I was carrying on of my near-monologues with a new person in my life. Oh, he talks to me, there's no problem with that. We talk a lot. It's just that I have a tendency toward philosophical discourse and I sometimes verbally follow the thread of my  mental gyrations while my audience sits and waits it out.

Maybe that's why I have a change purse that says it all, right there printed on the side in bright colors: "Consider me a challenge!"

And that was the topic of our conversation. Relationships. Hunkering down for the long haul. Navigating the passageways flowing between two people who have already seen a lot, if not all there is to experience when someone catches another's attention.

Marriage and I have been bedmates a couple of times (pun intended, we need to have fun where we can in life), but not successful companions, I admit. I CAN be a challenge, although I'm also kind, patient, and loving. And we were talking about that when I said, "I'm just me, and I don't apologize for that any more."

Too many times we get involved with someone, all is well at first, and then we start trying to change that person to fit some mold we have in our heads of the "perfect" man or woman for us.

What's up with that, anyway? 

Two people come together for a reason, some traits that tickled the fancy initially. And then, over time, we start noticing things we wish were different. But we shouldn't be in a relationship to change the other person, or to be changed by them. If that becomes part of the deal, we need to keep looking.

But then it hit me: I can't change the other person, nor should I want to, BUT I can try to be the best version of me that I can possibly be. I like this person....a lot.....so why shouldn't I want to please him as much as possible? Won't that end up pleasing me, too?

I know my strengths, but I also am very familiar with my weaknesses, those characteristics that do not play out well in close proximity to other people.

For example, I know exactly when I cross the line from involved to controlling. My brain also can now monitor my mouth whenever I choose to do so, instead of watching in horror as I say things that cut deep, only regretting them, too late, as the blood from the wound flows around our feet.

Our skin may wrinkle, our memory may weaken, but it seems we always have the capacity to see new paths open up in front of us. Mine hit me squarely between the eyes with a mighty "A-HA!" that can improve my life in many ways. I'm not interested in changing HIM, but I certainly can improve ME in ways that I know are already there inside.

It is never too late to be who

you might have been.

George Eliot

What's that tattoo say??

What's with the bruising? I walk around looking like a social worker might want to take notice, with mean looking bruises on my legs and arms, all from seemingly insignificant bumps against things like the edges of desk drawers that SOMEBODY left open. One day I caused a bruise on my thigh by resting a heavy box on my leg as I balanced to open a door, although I forgot what I had done as I watched the brown welt turn colors over the next few days. Where did THAT come from? (Impaired memory as we age, coupled with a tendency to bruise easier makes for really fun thought experiments, take my word for it.)

It makes getting dressed for a semi-formal event (I don't go to formal events, so no problem there) a bit difficult, what with the fact that no one wears pantyhose any more.The women, I mean. Here I've got bruises and other unexplained brown spots on my legs...which USED to be one of my best body parts...and nowhere to hide them, unless I want to highlight my age YET AGAIN by wearing pantyhose with my sexy strappy sandals. I've even tried concealer on my legs, but I ended up leaving it on the seat at the concert hall downtown. Bet they didn't like that as they cleaned up after the show. And afterwards, I had all those distracting, blotchy marks showing anyway.

Maybe the answer is tanning. No wait.....that causes cancer. And someone my age tries to protect the ones we have left, the years I mean, so purposely chalking time off the tote board of life doesn't make sense. Does it? I think most people know that those tanning beds are life-stealers, but they seem to be busy all the time, anyway.

Just last week, the nice saleslady in the lingerie department looked at ME with suspicion when she saw the huge bruise on my mother's arm...the one she got from running into a rack in ANOTHER store the week before. That woman was thinking about calling social services on me, I swear she was.

It's a conundrum. If you're under age 50 or so, you have no idea what I'm talking about, other than to recall the "old people" you know who do seem to have lots of bruises tattooing their bodies. You will, too, no matter how you try to hide behind that trite "But it will be different for me!" wishful thinking. All those secret thoughts you have about "old people" (don't lie, I know you have them) will come back to laugh and point in your face someday. Save this column to remind you.

Maybe that's the answer, though. Bruises can be the new tattoo art for those of us marked without the benefit of needles. Our skin is already sagging, too, so we won't have to listen to that boring warning about "What do you think that tattoo is going to look like when you're old and have sagging skin?"

I'm going to throw all my pantyhose away now.

"Life is full of bumps and bruises. It's what you learn from it and what you do with it that makes you who you are."

Change, and then change again.....

Life is all about perspective, isn't it? We all have one, and it's often very different from the person sitting next to me, or walking with me, or looking at me with disdain as I navigate through my day.

But as we age, some strange things begin to happen. We either lose total sight of everyone else's right to even have a different perspective, or we embrace the fact that life is like a carousel, with constantly changing people and viewpoints around us as we ride those brightly colored horses labelled "experiences." I hope I'm in the latter group.

Last week I accomplished my "thing I've never done before" for the month, which showed me my city from a new perspective.

Here in Jacksonville we have an elevated Skyway that consists of a few automated cars that creak along a track through the downtown area. It was built sometime within the past 20 years, and I had never ridden it. (Which illustrates its usefulness around here, but this city has been debating THAT point ever since the little self-propelled car pulled away from the station the very first time.) I can remember when my now 28-year old daughter was a little girl, we stood and watched it on occasion, and said "We should do that some day." But we never did.

 So, downtown I went last week with a friend to ride the Skyway. I'm not sure why it was free (THAT'S a new perspective!), but we went through the turnstile and up to the platform. I looked down on the roof of the cars in the parking lot below, huddled like toy vehicles scattered across the dirt. We don't often get to see how dirty the roof of our car is, do we?

We boarded the next car that came by, not really knowing where we were going. I've gotten much better at that, too, as I have aged. I don't always need to know where I'm going....life has been so much more fun operating in the dark, too.

I saw the central plaza in the city from above the trees, and city hall workers on the 4th floor peering out at us as we rode by. We crossed the St. Johns River that runs through our huge urban area, and saw it stretched outside the windows, our ever-present reminder that nature is mightier than we are, no matter how much we try to puff ourselves up.

I saw myself looking at, well, me in the reflection of a passing building, an admonition that there are eyes everywhere, a lesson we all learn the first time we do something we think no one will EVER find out. And then we get found out. It never fails.

There weren't many people riding the Skyway, although we met a nice gentleman, impeccably dressed, who rides for entertainment every day. We encountered two young women (twice!) who seemed to be students, and were using the train to get to the college downtown. But their perspective remained focused on the little screens on their phones, as do most young people today. Some day they will realize that life happens elsewhere, but who am I to spoil their fun?

Perspectives change over time, too. Riding the Skyway showed me new views of the city I have lived in for nearly 30 years, giving me a new perspective of my home....at least until it changes again. 

Just like we do.

No rehab for stupidity......

I've learned that years do not equal understanding. At all.

The chalkboard of events that make no sense, are illogical, incomprehensible, and well, let's face it, just plain stupid seems to grow every day. Here I thought some magic genie would start riding on my shoulder at some point (the shoulder that hurts all the time) and whisper words of wisdom in my ear. I was wrong....again.

And some of these things can set me off on a rant with little provocation, probably because they have been so persistently puerile that a mere whiff of them can provoke me in an instant. I know, I know.....what good does it do to get upset? None, but it feels good anyway, doesn't it?

You're trying to figure out what some of my favorites are, aren't you? Maybe they are yours, too.

Why, oh, WHY do I have to wait...and wait....and wait at a red left turn arrow, when all I can see coming toward me is three or more lanes of NOTHING? Is it because there are so many people who learned to drive by playing video games that they can't be trusted to understand that when we actually hit a real car people get hurt? Idiots, in other words, have caused our "traffic engineers" to treat us all that way.

Alert! to all those nefarious persons who seek to destroy. (I started to use the "T" word, but you can get in trouble these days, with guys in black suits showing up on your front lawn if you're not careful.) Anyway, start looking for 75+ year olds to carry your tools of destruction for you. The TSA announced, loud and clear recently, that they had relaxed the rules for older folks at airport security checkpoints. This is equivalent to me taking out an ad with my address in it before I leave on a 2 week vacation. How nice for the bad guys......

Do I really trust a scientific community that studies the sexual frustration of fruit flies?? REALLY??

And, surely we all understand by now that we're supposed to "wait for the tone" to leave a message on someone's voice mail, much less "simply hang up" when we're done? I think we've got it by now, even old geezers like me.

I don't get high, but sometimes I wish I did. That way, when I messed up in life I would have an excuse.

But right now there's no rehab for stupidity.

Chris Rock



Hotel rooms by the hour....

Here's a silly question: How many hours are really in a day? I know as we get older it seems that they fly by, faster and faster, as we march to that day (there's that word again) when it won't matter any more. I'm not trying to be morbid here.....the "day" issue is bugging me.

Oh....you want to know why it's gotten under my skin? Well, you know me: I'm about to share that with you!

It seems that in hotels and other such places, a "day" is defined by some strange calculation that has to do with cleaning rooms or something. Towels washed, maybe? But NOT with accomodating guests who might want to stay an actual DAY in that lovely place.

Recently I was calling around, trying to find a room for an upcoming wedding in another city. Which starts at 5 PM. Now stay with me here: I am driving for about 2 hours to get there and would like to check in, shower, dress, get made up, (which, let's face it, takes longer as we age, right?), and catch my breath before we head off to a location that is unknown to me. So, age having provided me some wisdom, I leave time to get lost and then find my way to the wedding venue, park (you never know what that's going to be like, either), and to the right location for the wedding INSIDE the venue. (We all know how big some of those places are. You can walk forever just to find a bathroom.)

Check in times ran from 3 PM to 6 PM. Yep, 6 PM. Oh, no problem, I told my mother. They'll let us check in earlier to get ready if we only explain the situation. Wrong. They didn't care. "Sorry, we can't guarantee that any rooms will be cleaned any earlier from the night before."  Really?

Especially considering that check out time at that same hotel is 11 AM.

So, let's count: Check out time is 11, check in time is 4. That gives them 5 HOURS to turn that facility around, and yes, I understand that some of them are huge. HIRE MORE STAFF! Who are you in business for....your housekeeping staff or, God forbid, your customers??

Which leaves a 19 hour day for the customer who pays a "DAILY RATE" for that room. And that's just using the hours I've indicated above. The one that really blew my mind was the 6 PM check in time, with a noon check out.  And that was a Bed & Breakfast with 6 rooms total! That's 6 full hours subtracted from the length of a day's stay. Even if the innkeeper has to clean all 6 by herself, I could do it in 6 hours. And those of you who actually know me know that would be a painful sight.....but I COULD do it if it meant paying customers on the other end of the agony.

I guess one solution would be for all hotels to charge by the hour, just like some of those, well, you know.....

So, how many hours ARE there in a day? There are 24...unless you enter a time warp of hotel accomodations. Then they suck some of them right out of you at the front desk upon check in.

Time is making fools of us again. ~J.K. Rowling

Getting comfortable.....

We're not a comfortable couple, never have been.

A bit stand off-ish.

We just don't understand one another. Maybe there's even a little fear involved. Certainly not the basis for a healthy relationship.


But last week we took a step to learn more about one another, and I must admit, we're much more comfortable in each other's presence.


Guns and me.....who would have thought?


But in order to shoot a hand gun, my "thing I had never done before" for February, I was required to take the NRA Basic Pistol Safety Course, a two hour session that forced us to become acquainted on an intimate level: the parts of a gun, how it operates, how to keep our sights straight, where not to point it (at anything you don't intend to destroy), and how to take care of one another. All relationships are built on these things, it seems to me.


At the end of the second hour sitting in a chair, I was getting antsy, ready to get my hands on my partner in a real way. So, off to the range we went, ear muffs, goggles, pistols and semiautomatics. My instructor finally got us together, and I have to admit, the lessons helped. We made beautiful music together.

There is now less fear and more understanding, essentials for any relationship. Do I plan on moving in with my new companion? No, we're still a little hesitant around each other, and it's probably best that we live apart. But it was great fun for a one-day stand, and the whole experience supported the axiom that knowledge is power. I am not going to run out and apply for a permit to carry a gun, but I know I would feel more comfortable with a weapon in my house if I change my mind.


Thanks for my instructor, Ed Blaker, who was patient and kind to this liberal who showed up on his doorstep without much notice on a Sunday. (The fact that he kissed my hand has absolutely nothing to do with it.)


And, Jack...thank you for, well, you know. You saved my February adventure when we had to go to Plan B!

 ”The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able may have a gun.”
~Patrick Henry

 

Get out the sledgehammer......

Assisted living centers.

Nursing homes.

Clunky plastic shoes.

Unending doctors' visits.

Arid, sexless unions.

Steel gray hair.

Golf carts parked in the carport.

Rocking chairs.

Ticking clocks in the silence instead of rock and roll at full volume.

                  Do you have the visual yet? Go ahead....I'll wait.

Now that you have it, destroy it! With a sledgehammer if you must.

Apparently my subconscious had that visual in place for decades, just biding its time until the clock ticked over to age 60 for me a few years ago. I didn't realize that I had that perception of life after that particular age, but based on my reaction when the calendar flipped over to December 28 a few years ago, that is exactly what I thought.


I was OLD. Life was essentially over for me. I was depressed for months that year. And I know that most people under the age of about 50 have that same perception. If  you don't believe me, just ask them at what age they will be "old." I bet that most of them say 60.


With that, they think life will consist of the list I provided above, with the essence of existence sucked right out of them. 


Instead I find vibrant people who not only refuse to buy into that stereotype, they are secretly amused by it. They don't have to prove anything to anyone, and they know it. 

I know it now.


And then the fun began.....just ask me about it. I'll be glad to tell you!

The old are in a second childhood.

ARISTOPHANES, The Cloud

 

Old dogs and new tricks.....

You have all heard it, too:

"You can't teach an old dog new tricks."

Oh, yes, you can. I'm walking proof of it, so I have no patience for others in my age group (or older) who use the statement as their default excuse for everything.

You know, the ones who say things like, "I've been this way my whole life! I can't change now." Mutter, grumble, whine........

What they really mean is that they don't WANT to change. They want everyone else to pat them on the head, either literally or figuratively, and give them a free pass to demean, moan, belittle, and complain their way through the rest of their lives.

Don't plan on it around me, that's all I can say. Although I have no definitive explanation for it, I went through one metamorphasis at age 35 that reconfigured my personality and thus, my life. I often "joke" that I learned to talk at age 35 and haven't stopped talking since.

It's not a joke. Those who have been on the receiving end of some of my verbal dissertations can attest to it, too.

Then about a year ago I morphed again, but this time I know why. It was deliberate and well-planned, although it has worked better than even I had envisioned. I was bored with myself. Life presented itself to me each day in shades of gray, the mist hovering around my head like a perpetual storm cloud just waiting to envelop me. To be honest, it didn't matter to me if I woke up the next day or not.

And then a book offered me a way out of my ennui, and I embarked on a year of new experiences that has delivered me out of the gray mist.I dance through my days, I smile all the time, and most importantly, I have taken back my life.  It's up to me to be happy.....and I am.

So, don't default around me. I have no patience for it.

Plus, I'm just having too much fun to listen to you!

Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional. ~Chili Davis

And the genie dances again.....

It would be easy to become so hardened by life that no one would ever break through the shell, wouldn't it?

Life has a unique way of knocking us around and then laughing at us as we teeter on the brink of not only disaster but sanity sometimes. 

I'm exaggerating, you say? 


Just think about your own life. If you're over the age of about 40, you can probably list five or six events in your life that other people would have a hard time believing if you told them the whole, sad, crazy story. 

I'm right, aren't I?

If this chronicle of my journey into the misty recesses of turning 60 a few years ago has done nothing else, it has given you, the reader, an unprecedented glimpse into someone else's life, with all its ugly blemishes and cracked veneer. Sometimes its beauty, too.  

That would be MY life, of course. But I'm no different than any of you. We move through our days, we make huge mistakes, we clean up after ourselves the best we can, and we try again. And again. Often, we aren't the ones making the errors: It is others who stumble into our lives,  smashing the furniture and generally creating havoc. All we can do in those instances is go find the dustpan and broom and start sweeping the mess out of the way. Or step over the broken pieces of our lives and just keep going.


Do you remember the publisher who called and "offered me a contract" on my book manuscript, the book about not complaining? Oh, the irony of it all. I researched the company, I scoured their website and their listing in my Writer's Market book, the bible for authors. I trusted the woman who called me that Sunday in early September, the one who said the words every writer longs to hear. They wanted to publish my work.


It seems the cosmic genie is dancing a jig in the padded room again. The publishing company neglected to say, or to disclose to that bible I mentioned earlier, that oh, by the way, the author has to pay for the first printing of her book. 

I believe that is called self-publishing, isn't it? The very thing I was dead set against with this book. And I still am.

A kick in the gut, for sure. Deceitful chicanery at its best. The genie is dancing in double time right now.

Oh, yes....I admit it. I complained for a little over a week. Loudly. I cried. And I hated to tell all of you about how I was deceived, even at my age. 

But that's why we all convene here, isn't it? The roller coaster catapults down into the depths and scares us to death. But it always comes back up.

Stand back. Here I come again.

"If I had to select one quality, one personal characteristic that I regard as being most highly correlated with success, whatever the field, I would pick the trait of persistence. Determination. The will to endure to the end, to get knocked down seventy times and get up off the floor saying. "Here comes number seventy-one!" Richard M. Devos

It'll turn up......

I had a really good topic for today, but I've forgotten what it was.

My best thinking is done in my car, my moving meditation device. So I bought one of those hand-held recorders to keep in the console right next to me. That way, as I wended my way through traffic, enjoying the tailgater behind me immensely and a thought struck me (at least a different one than what I was screaming at the tailgater), I could whisk that device out and record enough to jog my memory later.

Then the recorder got lost in my car.

I also lost all the tiny tapes, one by one, after I took them out of the machine, carefully labelled them, and put them.....somewhere.

The most maddening part of this phenomenon is that I can search, and search, and search for some errant item and then finally give up. Only to find it later, sitting in plain sight where I had just been looking.

This is so common that I have a "one size fits all" catch phrase for this: It'll turn up.  And it usually does. So, I stop looking, turn my attention elsewhere, and sure enough, it turns up.

If you're waiting for me to explain this, you can go read something else. I don't have a clue.

But my personal favorite experience is when I forget what I'm saying right in the middle of saying it. How does that happen?

Talk about embarrasing, especially if it occurs in the middle of a business meeting. You're on a roll, supporting your plan or your viewpoint or whatever is on the table at the time, and for no reason at all, your entire train of thought vanishes! Poof! Your mouth even may still be moving from the word before, and then your mind literally becomes a blank slate, empty, while your lips struggle to form whatever word WAS going to be there just a second before.

It's as if your mind develops holes in it, like the sieve you use in the kitchen. Instantaneously. With no warning, everything that was just there leaks out, and you're left with.....nothing. A deserted warehouse.

There is so much that is wonderful about getting older, aging gracefully in a society that is youth-obsessed.

This isn't one of them.

“The existence of forgetting has never been proved: we only know that some things do not come to our mind when we want them to.” Friedrich Nietzsche

A toast to broken boxes......

Who knew?

Who could have possibly guessed?

When this year opened its sleepy eyes last January, it yawned, stretched its arms wide like a baby, and appeared it to be like the 62 that had already shown up on my life's doorstep. Appearances certainly deceive, don't they?

Instead, 2011 sneaked up on me that month in a hookah lounge called The Casbah, and then strutted out at my birthday party last week as I shamelessly sang karaoke with a backup group made up of my daughter and some good friends.

In between, I explored adventures that intrigued, challenged, or scared me to death. All because I dared to dismantle the box I had been living in for decades, the one that had been dictating what was acceptable for me, based on the judgements and opinions of others. In other words, today I am no longer bored--or boring.

And my New Year's resolutions, you ask?

I have only one: Here's to a 2012 filled with beauty and excitement that will continue to surprise all of us! 

The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year.  It is that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new backbone, new ears, and new eyes. ..... Unless a man starts afresh about things, he will certainly do nothing effective.  ~G.K. Chesterton

Conga lines and karaoke.....

I was sweating and it wasn't even time yet. My heart raced just visualizing what was going to happen, my palms got sweaty, and I began to think of excuses for NOT following through on my public proclamation to do this particular ridiculous thing. Not only do it, but carry it out in front of everyone at my birthday party.

Yesterday it was time for the 12th installment of "things I've never done before."  The journey I started on last January, generated by a book called "The Second Half of Life" by Angeles Arrien.

Enough already, you say. How did I embarrass myself this month?

Are you ready?

Karaoke. With a hideous singing voice. And no rhythm, something my dance instructor can now attest to with vigor.

But, hey. Isn't that the same way I felt when I opened that dance studio door for the first time last April? And look what happened with that one: A passion was born for ballroom dance that reconfigured my life in ways I could never have imagined.

So, what was a short song in front of those who love me? My party was in full-swing, and the time arrived. I sashayed up to the stage with a few groupies, and we belted out Linda Ronstadt's "When Will I Be Loved?" I even camped it up a bit, demonstrating some of my newly-minted hip moves at the appropriate places. (You had to be there to know where those places were.)

My life this year has been filled with such delight. I believe this monthly twist has had much to do with that, too. A year ago, I felt old, uninspired, unmotivated. Stale. My world was painted in shades of gray, and the cloud cover existed in more places than overhead. It was also IN my head, leaching color and joy from my life.

I celebrated my 63rd birthday last night, complete with a conga line, a sweetheart dance where I got to dance with about 8 partners within the course of one song, and, of course, a bit of karaoke. I look forward to my next adventure, some activity that I've never tried before or have even feared.

Because, yes, I've decided to continue this journey for another 12 months, and have already picked out where I'm headed in January.

Have you ever ridden a mechanical bull?




For those of you who are new to my adventure, you can find the first one at http://agedtoperfectiondeborahhansen.blogspot.com/2011_01_01_archive.html and catch up.

Merry holidays, fa-la-la-la

O Holy Night.....

The Sacred Festival of Lights....

Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays.....

The media frenzy as we approach primaries.....

More bizarre weather events around the globe.....

So much to attend to in the world as we move through the winter solstice....

All of it critical to our survival as a country, as a conglomeration of nations, as a planet.

Our attention should be focused on all of these momentous events, each of us adding our voices to those of our neighbors, both next door and across the globe.  Right?

How long have you been reading this column, anyway? You should know better than that....

I DO want to focus on what's concerning me, the matter that keeps me awake at night, distressed and full of angst. It's these tiny bumps that have appeared all over my shins. Kind of like barnacles on the underside of a boat, but these have affixed themselves to the front of my legs, where everyone can see them. Now, THAT'S concerning me.

Plus, now I find out that other people experience the same thing as the aging process sneaks up on them and smacks them right between the eyes, laughing and pointing as we all look on in horror to our bodies morph and slide and....well, those of you who have been through this know what I'm talking about, don't  you? The least some of you could have done, though, was TELL the rest of us that this was going to happen. 


At first I thought I'd just have to live with these pesky adhesions, but then I Googled the situation. And do you know what I found out? You can scrape them off with a rough sponge, just like those little boat freeloaders can be scraped from the hull of a boat. Sweet.....I would never have thought of trying that.


Bet you didn't know that, either, did you? That's because people who have already gone down the road of birthday cakes burning to a crisp are hiding all of this information for some reason, holding it close to their drooping chests or bent backs, chuckling and whispering with glee, "Just wait.....!" until the next catastrophe strikes, the one that plays even more havoc on our bodies or our minds. 

So, go ahead and argue about whether to say Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays, or which Republican is going to come out on top when the tear gas clears and the blood stops flowing. For me, I'm going to get out my little loofah and start scrubbing.

Merry holidays, ya'll.

Age wrinkles the body. Quitting wrinkles the soul.

Douglas MacArthur