Tag Archives: middle age

Rock ON

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My friend writes a great and funny blog, Forever 51.  The other day she asked what the soundtrack of our youth was.  That got us talking because the kind of music we listened to says something about us.  

When I met my best friend in 2nd grade, I was introduced to “Black Water”.  This was pretty eye opening for me as my family only listened to classical music.  I had already had the fiasco of “Jeremiah was a Bullfrog” being banned at my house because of the wine reference and I was an empty cup when it came to music. Oh, I could belt out all four stanzas of hymns 1 – 345 in the Baptist hymnal and could hum a good many waltzes and concertos, but the Doobie Brothers were out of my realm.   My friend had younger parents and her house had music playing in it that made me feel cool and hip, like an after school special. 

When the disco era came along I was still in middle school, tucked away in private school where we belted out the tunes about sex and drugs and had no idea what we were singing about.  Barry Manilow and Abba ruled, it’s sad to say. 

Upon being sprung from the misery of private school, I threw away my preppy shoes and had the eye opening experience of public education.  Kids kissed and held hands in the halls, soon I kissed people in the hall. Kids could bring in a note that allowed them to SMOKE AT SCHOOL.  It was an orgy.  Peter Frampton rang out, The Who, REO Speedwagon.  My first concert was Journey, an event for which my date had to come into my house and convince my mother I wouldn’t die or join a cult from attending. 

If I had to pinpoint the band behind most of the shenanigans I committed in high school, though, I would say without a doubt, it was AC/DC.  I can hear the bells starting up Hell’s Bells and still get a mental whiff and taste of that time. I can smell my car, a sweet little black Camero with a great stereo, cracklin’s from Long John Silvers spilled between the seats, and a bottle opener magnet on the dash. Led Zeppelin tapes all over the floor mixed up with punk tapes like the Sex Pistols. I remember my Halston perfume and the smoke of the fantastic parties that seem to happen most weekends.  

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When I met the Goose, he was on a whole different wavelength.  He listened to Bruce Springsteen, who honestly causes me a bit of nausea, Jackson Brown, who makes my ears bleed and Jimmy Buffett, whom I’ve come to like in small doses due only to the fun I’ve had at his concerts and to his music.  The Goose didn’t know every word to Kashmir and didn’t consider it a holy song.  He didn’t know Moving in Stereo, Starship Trooper or any other long make-out songs. For a while, I won him over, most likely because of the making out, but several years into our marriage he produced from his mouth a sentence that could have spelled the end to our union.  He said, with all sincerity, “I really only like country music.”.  It’s true, that I’ve stayed married to him, whether out of pity or inertia, and tried to gently move him back into the light, but he persists, even asking me to “listen to the words” now and then.  It’s a burden I continue to bear and I say with all shame in my heart that my precious daughter, who in high school had purple hair and listened only to music that could take one’s skin off, has veered over into that twangy territory.  I find it uncomfortable to think about and embarrassing to admit, but my daughter is a country music fan and I love and support her anyway. I think there might be help group I can attend for this. 

I find that in my advanced years I listen to a lot of stuff, rap and Cricket’s old screamo when I run, Grateful Dead at the lake or with wine, but the two kinds of music I continually return to are those of my youth, classical, because my mother played in the Atlanta Symphony and I grew up with the screeching of a practicing violin, and the banging rock anthems of my high school sound tracks.  We all go back to what’s comfortable. I once heard someone say that we are going to be a generation of old people, sitting around in rocking chairs, holding hands, eating jello and singing along to Stairway to Heaven and I feel that, possibly due to the punishment our brains took, that time might be closer than we think. 

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All Aboard to Ladytown and Boobyville (not a men’s blog)

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My daughter is a modest child.  I cannot conceive of where she gets this trait.  Even as a kid, I would whip off my clothes to swim or run through the sprinkler.  My mother caught me showing off my parts to the little boy next door and I was summarily sent to the “switch” tree to choose a limb with which I would be whacked.  There was lots of skinny dipping as a teen and in those college years came the advent of the hot tub.

Today, at my ripe old age, I would need at least two weeks of prep time before I could even begin to think about getting into a hot tub with others.  No carbs could be consumed, there would need to be a good bit of epilation and it would have to coincide with a “good booby day”.  In other words, it might not occur except during a comet.

It occurs to me that I require a lot of prep in general now.  I have scheduled these two weeks as my doctor weeks for the year.  Doctors?  Yes, plural.

I was married 8 years before my first child came along.  In those years, our insurance company was laughing all the way to the bank as neither I nor the Goose made one doctor visit.  Upon having a baby, I was gobsmacked to learn all that’s involved with body maintenance.  After my babies, I again drifted into no man’s land for years with no medical upkeep.  When my mother died, I figured out that she had not visited a doctor in 43 years.  She fully believed that once you let ‘em in, you never get away and I’m beginning to find this is true.

Today I’m at the breast doctor. Driving down here, I was listening to a Kanye song that starts out “weeping and a moaning and a gnashing of teeth” and that refrain has been playing in my mind while I wait.  This is a three hour ordeal where lots of woman are sitting around in blue robes, like at the spa, and waiting to be called for a squeeze and a picture, NOT like at the spa.  Sometimes there are strangled screams from behind closed doors. This is not as fun as it sounds.  There is a drink machine, but not the right kind to make it okay for a stranger to  wrestle with me while feeling me up.  I keep thinking this is NOT a good thing going on here and I feel kinda resentful that I was  told that my breasts were dense.  I have a snappy comeback, but it just seems downright rude, and I got a “look” when I giggled at the nurses cold hands, so I’ll keep these things to myself. Apparently, there is no humor in boobland.

ImageTomorrow’s appointment is with my dermatologist, who will remove a small part of my facial expression for a lot of money.

Next comes the gynecologist who does things to my Ladytown that any other man would need at least two drinks and a bracelet to try.

My point, ladies, is that it takes a village to just stay even now.  Remember just rolling out of bed, in last night’s mascara and pulling on jeans off the floor that were baggy because you just lost weight as you slept?  Remember partying at night and waking up without a face as puffy as Mayor McCheese? I hate it that I’ve had to break up with french fries and nachos.  I want to tell them I really miss them and never stopped loving them.  I dream of them.

All my life, I thought I would get to a “certain age” and stop having to worry about it.  Our mother’s generation did.  They went to get their hair done once a week, wore a girdle and ate whatever they wanted.  Like a donkey following a carrot on a stick, I’ve been following this dream.  Now, it looks like the reality IS the carrot, not the carrot cake.  There are no girdles for us, no wash and set perms.  Where are our turbans?  Our mumus?  Gliding through middle age trying to look like a teenager, feel like a 20 year old and think like an adult is not all it’s cracked up to be.  Somehow, I’ve exchanged my spring breaks for doctor’s week.  Not a fair trade at all!

Never Too Old To Party

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Last Sunday we had a really rockin’ sermon on finding time.  I say rockin’ because we now go to “church lite” which comes complete with a rock band and disco lights.  I can’t complain about the content because our pastor delivers the most loving, funny, informative sermons I’ve ever heard.  I just miss the old hymns with all four stanzas in three quarter time, with the music director making those Baptist music gang signs as we sing.

This message pertained to how we live our lives and use our time.  In it he quoted a book by a woman who has worked in hospice for years.  The book is all about the regrets of the dying.  Of course, everyone wishes they’d lived their lives differently and used their time for different things other than work.  This caused the Goose to roll his eyes a bit and ask who would have paid for things if he hadn’t worked so hard, but the rest of us got a lot out of it.

I had already been thinking of this and have been trying to have more fun and less stress.  The Goose will be really be rolling when he gets to this line because, apparently, I have a stress free life anyway.  I am less stressed because I’m made that way.  I am optimistic, usually see the bright side (except for those sad dark weeks of January) and know things will usually turn out okay.  Still, it’s easy to slide into the drudgery of everyday life.  Most mornings, my friend the Trophy Wife will call to see what i’m up to.  Every day, I mean every single solitary day, we say the same dialogue:

Good morning!

What’s up?

Nothing, cleaning up the kitchen, you?

Same.

How does this happen?

Because no one knows where anything goes but me.

Same here, or to paraphrase, word to your mutha.

It’s said by every woman everywhere at exactly the same time.  While men in other countries are simultaneously bowing toward Mecca, woman are muttering “why can’t anyone put anything where it goes?”. Someone really should work on getting us synchronized and it’d be a lot more fun.  Maybe someone could add music like they did for that guy who said “hide yo kids, hide yo wife”. .

One of my favorite movie lines is from the Addams Family where someone asks Morticia how things are going.  She replies, shrugging her shoulders, “oh, you know, I just wish I had more time to seek out the dark forces and join their hellish brigade”.  I feel her pain.  There is just no time for anything it seems.  I am not half as busy as I was 10 years ago, but seem to get nothing done.  Saturday night we had three delightful invitations, all would have been great, but 8:00 saw both the Goose and me, in our jammies, in the bed, watching mindless tv.  This just is not right.

This sermon has made me renew my efforts for fun with great devotion.  I’m really not sure what he was going for was that we try to party more, but that’s what I’m taking from it.  This year, I’m going to have more fun whether my house is straight or not.  While I am going to continue to berate my children into cleaning up their mess, I’m not going to restrict them from having friends over until a 24 hour “clean quarantine” period has passed after maid day.  I’m going to sit in my yard, drink more wine and watch my animal kingdom cavort.  I may or may not pull out old prom dresses, or I might try something new.  This might be the year for big hats. I’m going to go OUT, into the big world, after 8:00 on some weekend nights. I’m going to wear my good shoes in the rain and not save them until my dog chews them up.  I will use my grandmother’s crystal every time I have a pretty drink and sometimes just when I’m having water.  I will visit friend’s houses and not look at the clock, feeling the need to pull a “homing pigeon” and run home to see that a stray crumb has not fallen on my floor.  There might be days when I don’t make my bed, but most likely not as I want to enjoy life, not live like someone from 16 and Pregnant.

I am NOT going to lie around, in my lovely lavender bed jacket from Neiman Marcus (take heed, Cricket, the one that matches my purple earrings) and not have any (more) wild secrets to tell my hospice nurse.  I want her scandalized enough to be unable to look me in the eyes.

World beware, I’m pulling out some stops.

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Middle Aged Lunacy (or, Don’t Poke the Bear!)

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I think there’s an army of middle aged women out there set to pop. Perhaps it’s middle age that’s causing this.  Perhaps a change in hormones.  Maybe it’s when a well meaning hair dresser thinks you’ll be happy to learn that instead of the full on bimbo bleach she’s been using on your hair for 19 years she now thinks she should “weave in a little natural color since it’s mostly gray under there anyway”. 

Women who are late 40s, early 50s just don’t seem to have the same goals as our mother’s generation. None of my friends play bridge or own panty hose.  I may have missed it, but I feel certain I have never heard one of them answer “yes, dear” to any question posed by their husbands. 

I believe, my friends, that most of us spent our 20s and 30s in mostly the same way.  We got married, got cute little houses, got BMWs, got bigger houses.  We got kids, got them into preschool, went to Gymboree.  We spent Wednesday nights volunteering at church programs that caused us to scream at our children all the way there because they hadn’t learned their Bible verses.  We got bobs, boob jobs, facials, SUVs, yellow labs, made Superbowl food and had polite holidays with our in-laws that caused us to gobble leftover pain pills in the bathroom. We got our son’s baseball pants their whitest, their brightest. I was a cutout for a perfect wife and mother. 

I’m not sure when the rebellion set in.  I mean, I should have gotten this out of the way in high school.  Lord knows I partied hard enough.  Still, around 40, something uncoiled deep inside me, caused me to gain about 10 lbs and asked me to please uncork some tequila.  It has motivated me to swear like a sailor.  I recently called my son a name which was so foul, so obscene that it sent shock waves throughout the universe causing  my daughter and husband to have trouble getting enough oxygen.  

Recently an online newspaper asked a question about marijuana.  Before the minute was out 435 middle aged women had responded asking that it be legalized, taxed and sold in coordinating Lilly Pulitzer cases. 

Thankfully, the Goose never even suggested that I should drive a mini-van.  I believe this is responsible for the wrath of lots of women.  It’s too much to ask.  I think they should carry a warning that driving a minivan will cause you to lose your soul.  Also sensible shoes, rooms painted taupe, children’s programming on tv, and wall to wall cut pile carpet in a color that hides dirt.

Authority?  Can’t do it, can we?  I find myself mentally flipping off policemen, store clerks, school administrators and neighbors alike. I heard myself actually tell my husband he wasn’t the boss of me.  I said those exact words. I have my theme music all picked out for my police chase the next time someone attempts to give me a ticket. 

If I call a friend and want to rant, I can’t even get the first sentence out without them jumping on the bandwagon and asking if they can lock and load.  All they’re waiting for is a super hero costume and really, who among us isn’t? I just want it to come in Spanx material. 

We’re angry, we’re ready to party and we have the shoes and the wardrobe to do it with gusto.  We have the education and verbal skills to decimate the fool who attempts to argue with us.  We have American Express cards, AAA and, some of us, friends in AA who can drive us home.  It’s our time for fun.  We see the light at the end of our mommy tunnel and I, for one,  feel it’s now my children’s turn to take care of me.  Before I even conceive of the thought, I want someone to pour me a wine, put it with a box of Triscuits and send them to me on a Roomba, which is doing my vacuuming for me. 

I have no idea what kind of grandmothers we will become.  It’s safe to say this isn’t going to be the generation that takes kindly to someone spilling a juice box on our Seven jeans and 6” Betsy Johnsons!

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