So, I woke up this morning, my birthday morning, as an older woman. Older than yesterday when I was 59. And somehow jumped into another decade as I have just turned 60. Ok, now I can tell you that I was being kind of optimistically frivolous when I made up my 60 reasons I am excited about turning 60. It's more like, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.
I say it – 60 years old – and think to myself, uh, no that's not me. That is not who I am. Age doesn't describe the inner me. I am ageless in my mind – and you ask my two sons and they agree. I'm playful and goofy and pensive and romantic and introspective and soul searching. Has nothing to do with age.
Several years ago, my coworkers started a tradition of "60 presents for the 60th birthday." Little things. So for the past five days I have received 10-12 little presents every day – books, cards, plants, candles, soaps, energy drinks (which seems to draw every single person and they all want to try it). Does an energy drink counter the effects of just plain being old? Inquiring minds want to know. It says it has no caffeine and no sugar. So, if you come to my cubicle and I'm not there, look up – I may be on the ceiling, having sampled some of my energy drink supply, called "Orange Explosion." If that doesn't work, I have several latte gift cards so I can get my double caffeine, triple shot chocolate, Grande latte. Fat, hot, and a hell of a lot.
How do I feel about 60? I didn't notice a big drop in brain cells, so I think the "senior moments" are still in the future. Maybe if I keep working, I'll keep my brain active, and I won't have those moments. I'm playing Sodoku frequently over the last year because I have heard that it improves the mind. However, it hasn't improved my balancing-the-checkbook skills, at all. Instead of a savings account, I have a slush fund in my checking account, to account for my not accounting my account.
Age is relative I suppose. I remember when my grandmother turned 95 years old, still living on her own. Her son-in-law asked, er rather shouted to her good ear, "So, how do you feel today?" to which she replied, louder just for the heck of it, "I'm 95 years old. How the hell do you think I feel!" When you are 95 years old, you can be cantankerous and ornery just for grins and giggles and nobody will fault you. When you're 60 and act like that, well, you're just being a brat and a pill.
So here I am – 60 years old. Am I better? Older? Wiser? I like to think wiser, finally, after many false starts. I'm an all-around better person, through time and through events and experiences. I'm just not older. I'm definitely not elderly – although were I to trip and fall in the street and a reporter happened by (and I'm only a block away from the S-R building), the article in the paper would read "Elderly Woman Breaks Hip on Riverside and Monroe; Traffic tied up for hours trying to get her, screaming and clawing, into ambulance for ride to nursing home."
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Showing posts with label 16 years old. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 16 years old. Show all posts
4.29.2009
3.31.2009
29 and hanging on by my fingernails
Oh, you wish!
I have a reverse calendar at work, ticking off the days to when I'm turning the unbelievable age of SIXTY. Why is this unbelievable??? I look in the mirror and I see maybe 40. I don't feel this new age. So, anyway, yesterday it was 30 days to 60. Today it's 29 days. Twenty-nine. I remember that age – vividly. 29 was hard to leave – I went kind of kicking and screaming. The 20's are such exuberant years. You are finally out from under your overbearing parents. You are on your own. Got that apartment. Then married with children. The house.
The 30's came and GAACK, you were really an adult now. All that responsibility. All the decisions with nobody to back you. Everything was a drama. Bills to pay, parent teacher conferences, doctor visits for the kids, hospital treks for the kids, Disney once for the kids, if you were lucky and could afford it.
When I was 39, I worked for a selfish, egotistical, full-of-himself jerk who sauntered in one day and tossed a Reader's Digest at me and said "Here. Type this up for me. It's my motto. It's why I'm who I am. It's why I have made it today."
I glanced at the article: "Success by the Age of 40: Ten Steps."
I started typing and thinking – hoo boy – by 40. I'll be 40 in ten months. I remember it almost exactly to the date – it was the end of June. Success by the age of 40 – I'll never make it. I got more and more depressed and for the next ten months, I spent the whole time being almost 40. I stopped being 39. I kissed the 30s smack down goodbye. I was almost 40.
The 40s are kind of a blur. Kids are growing up and you're worrying about college or they're going off into the service and you're worrying about war spots around the world. The mortgage has been refinanced, credit card companies know you by name and send you deals every day, every single damn day, and at no interest for six months, hallelujah.
And suddenly you are 50. Half a century. And you realize that, gee, I don't think I'm even middle aged. I think I passed middle age five years ago, maybe longer. Holy cow – I'm over the hill and THAT means it's down hill from here, at an ever increasing faster, and faster, and faster rate.
Now I'm turning 60, feel like 30, look like 40 (ok, maybe 45). And I'm thinking – you know – this ain't bad if this is what 60 feels like. I'm still roaring like a lion, getting myself into trouble by pressing buttons I'm told not to, and I'm still creating new friendships, starting new projects as if I'm going to live forever.
I have thought that it might be a good idea to stop reading the obituaries. I find myself looking at the ages in the obituaries and thinking, boy is he old looking or something similarly derisive. And then I'll look in the mirror and think – eek – I'm his age. It gives you pause at any rate.
So – in 29 days from this moment, I will turn 60. Wow.
I have a reverse calendar at work, ticking off the days to when I'm turning the unbelievable age of SIXTY. Why is this unbelievable??? I look in the mirror and I see maybe 40. I don't feel this new age. So, anyway, yesterday it was 30 days to 60. Today it's 29 days. Twenty-nine. I remember that age – vividly. 29 was hard to leave – I went kind of kicking and screaming. The 20's are such exuberant years. You are finally out from under your overbearing parents. You are on your own. Got that apartment. Then married with children. The house.
The 30's came and GAACK, you were really an adult now. All that responsibility. All the decisions with nobody to back you. Everything was a drama. Bills to pay, parent teacher conferences, doctor visits for the kids, hospital treks for the kids, Disney once for the kids, if you were lucky and could afford it.
When I was 39, I worked for a selfish, egotistical, full-of-himself jerk who sauntered in one day and tossed a Reader's Digest at me and said "Here. Type this up for me. It's my motto. It's why I'm who I am. It's why I have made it today."
I glanced at the article: "Success by the Age of 40: Ten Steps."
I started typing and thinking – hoo boy – by 40. I'll be 40 in ten months. I remember it almost exactly to the date – it was the end of June. Success by the age of 40 – I'll never make it. I got more and more depressed and for the next ten months, I spent the whole time being almost 40. I stopped being 39. I kissed the 30s smack down goodbye. I was almost 40.
The 40s are kind of a blur. Kids are growing up and you're worrying about college or they're going off into the service and you're worrying about war spots around the world. The mortgage has been refinanced, credit card companies know you by name and send you deals every day, every single damn day, and at no interest for six months, hallelujah.
And suddenly you are 50. Half a century. And you realize that, gee, I don't think I'm even middle aged. I think I passed middle age five years ago, maybe longer. Holy cow – I'm over the hill and THAT means it's down hill from here, at an ever increasing faster, and faster, and faster rate.
Now I'm turning 60, feel like 30, look like 40 (ok, maybe 45). And I'm thinking – you know – this ain't bad if this is what 60 feels like. I'm still roaring like a lion, getting myself into trouble by pressing buttons I'm told not to, and I'm still creating new friendships, starting new projects as if I'm going to live forever.
I have thought that it might be a good idea to stop reading the obituaries. I find myself looking at the ages in the obituaries and thinking, boy is he old looking or something similarly derisive. And then I'll look in the mirror and think – eek – I'm his age. It gives you pause at any rate.
So – in 29 days from this moment, I will turn 60. Wow.
7.06.2008
When Your Children Drive
There is an urgent need for rules for your child to get his first driver’s license.
Yes, I have rules. I have two sons 17 months apart and I knew deep in my heart that when it came to the driver’s license season, I would be in deep hurt with trying to pay for my sons’ driver’s training, license fee, insurance, gas, and, and, and….. not to mention the worry involved in keeping them afloat. You see, mothers have a DNA code that is part of their brain, where they must visualize their baby child driver-wanna-be actually driving safely, following the rules, and NOT talking on their cell phone because you are positive they cannot multitask at the young age of 16.
So – my rules were modest and simple:
Earn at the very least a C average per semester. I know - low, low, low – but it takes the pressure off so they can concentrate on all the busy roads, crazy drivers, and all the spontaneous combustion that goes along the highway – jaywalkers, sirens, road rage, elephants falling from the sky (it could happen!).
Have a job to pay for the gas.
Have a really good job to also pay for the insurance.
Do the grocery shopping for your hard working mother.
Never drive after dark.
Never drive with someone else in the car with you unless they are old enough to be your parent, and then only if your actual parent gave permission.
No girls.
No boys.
No food, beverage, or any other item that might take your eyes off the road and your mind off your driving.
So, both boys opted to just not get their license nor drive until they were well out of the house, in their mid-20s.
My oldest joined the Army right out of high school. This is another story – but all their life I teased them that they would have to join the Army in order to pay for college. I was TEASING! But my oldest took me seriously and of all things he went into the Infantry. Shooting guns. Tell me that I didn’t just ramp up my scale of worrying to a fever pitch. Bad enough I worried when they would be driving – now shooting guns! Anyway, I was slightly mollified by the fact that he still didn’t have a driver’s license and therefore didn’t drive. But his buddies in the Army talked him into buying a truck, which he kept on base and the buddies spent their spare time tinkering on it. They taught him how to drive and so he drove around the barracks until he ran out of gas. They would pool their money and fill it with gas and he would venture to the other end of the base and back. Finally got his license when he was 24 years old.
My youngest knew how to drive; he would sneak out to my car and drive it around the block, until I caught him one day and grounded him for the rest of his natural life. He finally got his license when he was 26 years old.
Now that they had their licenses and their own cars, my mothering skills hyped up a notch, and I had to mentally focus on their driving skills by osmosis. It’s a mother’s duty. Drive carefully, I would say. Don’t pick up hitchhikers. Pay your insurance. Follow the rules. Don’t speed. Don’t tailgate. Don’t pass or turn without your blinkers. Be courteous. Drive defensively because all the other drivers on the road are maniacs.
The boys would tolerate me. They would nod their heads in agreement and then peel off down the road.
Even today, however, I “worry” them to safety. I always, must tell them to drive carefully. It’s like a spell I put on them that protects them. If I forget to tell them, I am in a total panic mode that something terribly awful will happen to them (I also tell them they have to call me when they are safely home – to which one or the other will say, "Mom! I’m 35 years old!") And I say that doesn’t matter. Call me! I have to sit on my hands to NOT call them on their cell phone, because they might actually answer the cell phone and be driving their killer car in traffic while talking on their cell phone! My work is never done!
.
Yes, I have rules. I have two sons 17 months apart and I knew deep in my heart that when it came to the driver’s license season, I would be in deep hurt with trying to pay for my sons’ driver’s training, license fee, insurance, gas, and, and, and….. not to mention the worry involved in keeping them afloat. You see, mothers have a DNA code that is part of their brain, where they must visualize their baby child driver-wanna-be actually driving safely, following the rules, and NOT talking on their cell phone because you are positive they cannot multitask at the young age of 16.
So – my rules were modest and simple:
So, both boys opted to just not get their license nor drive until they were well out of the house, in their mid-20s.
My oldest joined the Army right out of high school. This is another story – but all their life I teased them that they would have to join the Army in order to pay for college. I was TEASING! But my oldest took me seriously and of all things he went into the Infantry. Shooting guns. Tell me that I didn’t just ramp up my scale of worrying to a fever pitch. Bad enough I worried when they would be driving – now shooting guns! Anyway, I was slightly mollified by the fact that he still didn’t have a driver’s license and therefore didn’t drive. But his buddies in the Army talked him into buying a truck, which he kept on base and the buddies spent their spare time tinkering on it. They taught him how to drive and so he drove around the barracks until he ran out of gas. They would pool their money and fill it with gas and he would venture to the other end of the base and back. Finally got his license when he was 24 years old.
My youngest knew how to drive; he would sneak out to my car and drive it around the block, until I caught him one day and grounded him for the rest of his natural life. He finally got his license when he was 26 years old.
Now that they had their licenses and their own cars, my mothering skills hyped up a notch, and I had to mentally focus on their driving skills by osmosis. It’s a mother’s duty. Drive carefully, I would say. Don’t pick up hitchhikers. Pay your insurance. Follow the rules. Don’t speed. Don’t tailgate. Don’t pass or turn without your blinkers. Be courteous. Drive defensively because all the other drivers on the road are maniacs.
The boys would tolerate me. They would nod their heads in agreement and then peel off down the road.
Even today, however, I “worry” them to safety. I always, must tell them to drive carefully. It’s like a spell I put on them that protects them. If I forget to tell them, I am in a total panic mode that something terribly awful will happen to them (I also tell them they have to call me when they are safely home – to which one or the other will say, "Mom! I’m 35 years old!") And I say that doesn’t matter. Call me! I have to sit on my hands to NOT call them on their cell phone, because they might actually answer the cell phone and be driving their killer car in traffic while talking on their cell phone! My work is never done!
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