Month: April 2017

I Wish I Looked How I Feel

April 10, 2017

Have you heard people say that 6o is the new 40?  Yeah right.  You can bet the only people who say that are 60+.  Nobody wants to get old, but Baby Boomers have taken their denial to a whole new level.  There has never been a demographic so strongly opposed to aging in the history of our planet.  You can count me among them.  I think I look 40 when in fact I look my age, 61.  I’m not fishing for compliments. That’s me in the photo with my son and his roommate.  I look my age.  I look like Ryan’s Mom.  I’m OK with that.  While I wish I was one of those women who actually does look 40 at 60, I’m not.  I look like what I am.

Here’s the thing:  I am beginning to realize that people don’t get what they paid for when they take a look at me. On appearance only, I am 61, but in my mind, I am 40.  Imagine me walking into a company that is looking for an intern (yes, I am an intern at a web design firm).  The interviewer is expecting someone who is twenty-something to walk in the door and sees Grannie Clampett take a seat. It’s a little puzzling, right?

I Wish I Looked How I Feel

Not out of vanity, but out of pride (Of course out of vanity.  I wish I had my 40-year-old body and face.  It took a lot less time to get ready back then. Much less spackling and corralling to do.).   I am proud of who I am now.  I am not a bitter old woman (I have to say that I feel that men often seem to be a little more bitter about aging than women.  Maybe it’s because so many of them are Peter Pans at heart and can’t believe that they don’t get special treatment by Mother Nature.).  I just wish the packaging was more indicative of the product.  (OK, this is a little dirty, but it comes to mind.  My mother had a friend who used to say, “I just want a snatch to match my thatch.” Hope no one is offended!)

If I had my 40-year-old body and face I could walk into a room and others would size me up exactly as I feel I am, saving me the time and energy it takes to prove that I am young at heart and in mind.  I wish others could see that the ice cream hasn’t melted in this container!

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Where Do I Fit In at Sixty?

April 2, 2017

 

Being a newly single woman in my sixties leaves me a little untethered.  What I mean is that I don’t feel anchored, I don’t feel like I am the center of anything any longer.  I don’t know where I belong, where I fit in whether it is with friends or out and about where it seems that everyone is a couple.

When I was married, I knew that I was the tent pole of the family.  All my children are adults now and are living coast-to-coast.  I love that.  I get to visit really fun cities and spend time with my children.  What could be better?

But, I always knew that I was the center of the family functions, the family issues, the family travel, the family holidays.  I was the facilitator. When someone was graduating, I pulled the travel together for the siblings so we would all be there.  For the holidays, I made the arrangements for what we were doing. Travel?  Here are your tickets and here is the hotel reservation and this is when we will meet.  I know it sounds crazy but I can even picture myself standing in my driveway, the driveway to our family home, while the kids are pulling in from a long distance drive, or from being picked up at the airport.  That was where I stood 100 times saying hello or goodbye or Merry Christmas.

Now, I am in a small apartment.  Don’t get me wrong, I love it.  But, I am no longer the tent pole, or maybe, there just isn’t a tent.  And, I  can feel that very strongly.  I wasn’t able to verbalize it for a while but something was off, and it was not about the divorce or anything about my day-to-day life.  It is just under the surface.  I am not unhinged, just at loose ends a little.

My Friends are the Best

The other piece to this is that I have lots of wonderful friends who include me in anything and everything.  However, I spend all of my time with couples.  Most of my friends are married, of course, they are.  I was married for all of the years that we have been friends.  We have traveled together.  We have spent holidays together.  Our children grew up together.  I love spending time with them but when the evening is over, I go back to my apartment and they go home.  I don’t feel like a whole team.  They are still the tent poles of their families.   And when it is a holiday, I am either on my own or I am the person they feel sorry for so they invite me to join them.  So nice, but I am used to being on the other side of that.

So, this is not woe is me: far from it.  I am a happy girl.  But I need to find that tethered feeling again.  I am looking for something that I can hang my hat on as I move forward in this chapter of my life.  I know I will, but if you have any suggestions…

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