50 At 50: Looking Forward

This has been a difficult week in Cerveau de Moi. There has been a lot of upheaval, a lot of wistfulness and sadness, and yet some good in it as well. It gave me reason to reflect, and as I am wont to do, I meandered down a few paths.

It is still mind-boggling to think I am going to be 50 in about 7 months. For a couple of decades now, I've been 27 in my brain. There's always been this disconnect with my age and me -- as a kid, I was the little old lady in the bunch. Too serious, too mature. Now that I'm middle-aged, I don't feel it -- I feel much less serious. My body tells a different story, too many years of wear and tear and so so many years of fighting myself. I think I've moved myself up to a mental age of about 33 now.

When I was in my 20s, OH THE ANGST! OH THE EXISTENTIAL CRISIS! OH THE MELODRAMA!! To think of that time in my life, I'm actually quite sad at how much energy I expended in navel-gazing, and about things that weren't worth my time. I read my journals from those last couple of years in college and through my twenties, and I want to both laugh and cry. I laugh because again, THE DRAAAAAAMAAAAAAAH and so much of it self-induced!  I cry because I want to grab my younger self, and to tell her to snap out of it, that he's not worth this much emotion, that your mama is not the arbiter of your worth, that you don't have to live life settling -- DIDN'T YOU SWEAR YOU WOULDN'T? -- and yet, here you are. I wish I could take that girl who was so lost at 23, 24, 25.... and remind her earlier of who she was, and not to lose that person.

But because of that, my 30s were filled with rescue: rescuing my self-worth, my essence, my soul, my health, my career. I started with a slow crawl out of a tomb, shook off the cobwebs, unwound my graveclothes, and started living more. I remembered the young girl I'd been in college and resolved to find her again. I decided my health was worth saving. It wasn't always easy and it was one step forward, three back sometimes, but I arrived at 40 happy and becoming fulfilled. I finally started feeling comfortable in my own skin.

My 40s were life's way of saying, "Mmmm, not so fast there, hoss." Healthy was about to be a relative term. At 42, I had a cancer scare (that ended up literally being nothing, just "smudgy film"). At 43, it was a year of headaches that would not go away and a slew of work stresses that just exacerbated the issue. Worse, I had these nagging feelings that things were not as bright for me as they once felt. At 44, I was under such stress that I broke out in shingles. At 45, I had foot surgery and a continuing downward spiral pas de trois with anxiety and depression. At 46, the losses began piling up: my mother and an aunt in just 8 weeks. And losing my faith in people to do the right thing. At 47, more losses: my dog, another aunt, a beloved artist, and then my brother all within 9 months. At 48, I began holding my breath every time I had a twitch, wondering if I was the next one whose picture would be X'd out in some grand scheme of the cosmos. All along I was again losing my battle with the bulge -- and swearing it was going to get better. Right. I finally turned 49, and on January 1 of this year, I exhaled heavily when I hadn't lost anyone else in my immediate circle that year.

But on the decade as a whole, I gained just as much as I lost: I gained perspective and clarity about what really matters. I gained a completely new appreciation for my family, who rallied around me in my darkest moments. I gained friends for whom music was a lifeblood, as much as it remains for me. I gained a lot of compassion each time my heart was crushed, because it broke up the crusty outer shell and allowed my heart to grow all the more. I gained a sense of now-or-never. I had to really start living again. The years were no longer on my side...... I rediscovered my love for live music. The backbone that finally emerged around age 35 became galvanized.

What do my 50s hold? I don't know. I have some expectations, but if nothing else, I've learned not to count on anything - and not to count anything out either. I'm in this last year of my 40s having literally just gone through another head-spinning transition (one which caused a pretty decent spike in my anxiety). I know that whatever awaits me, I will meet the challenge head-on. What other alternative is there?

Forgive me if.....

Forgive me if I’m not myself over the next few days. This is probably my hardest week of the year, because so many things hit at once.

Today is March 4, 2019.... 3 years since the last time I saw my mom alive. Correction: since I saw her existing. She was on so much pain medication that she was out for all but about 10 minutes of the time I spent with her. I sang to her that day, and the songs “Given to Fly” and “I Am Mine” and “Scar on the Sky” still hold a very sweet place in my heart. They always will.

Tomorrow marks three years since that phone call .... 6:04 am. She’d passed at 5:55. I knew what it was when they wouldn’t speak to me but wanted to speak to Daddy. The resignation of “what time?” and knowing for sure. Dealing with things I never imagined — waiting on the mortuary, figuring out clothes to cremate her in (like it mattered but it was for us to see the body one last time.

The next day (March 6) will be both joyful and weirdly somber — Ash Wednesday and Daddy’s 75th birthday! I’m also getting together with some friends, one whom I haven’t seen in 5 years! I’m looking forward to that and will celebrate with Daddy over the weekend.

March 7 is back to somber — my maternal grandmother passed that day in 1982. There are moments it still stings as much as it did back then. She was the one person in this world who showed me completely unconditional love as a child. I miss that as an adult. We need more Grannies in the world who are here to do nothing but give unconditional love.

March 10 is another hard day, especially this year. My friend Tee from high school would have turned 50. It is still unreal to believe she’s been gone for 13 years now. It sucks that she hasn’t been in the world.....

March 12 will suck even worse. That would have been Richard’s 44th birthday. I am still not over the fact that my brother is perpetually 42 for the rest of my life. That I’ll never get to wish him a happy birthday ever. That I’m an only-again. Is there a support group for oldest-only-agains? There has to be somewhere.....

March 19 is a weird day too. It was my grandfather’s birthday but also the day his sister passed. My great-aunt Mary was like another grandparent to me. Weird to realize that she’s been absent from my life for all these years and yet I still remember how much she impacted my life.

And as always, there’s the 18th and 22nd..... days I never forget.

Maybe someday March won’t be weird......

Shades of Grey

I sit here on yet another grey day. It's been grey most of the winter -- and I mean levels and amounts of grey and rain that we'd normally associate with Seattle or Portland and other places in the Pacific Northwest. Grey, grey, grey. Variant shades of white going into black with occasional hints that there is blue beyond the grey. That somehow, through the veil of mist and fog, there is perhaps life in color and yellow sun. My yard isn't even green -- it's muted green and brown dead grass and pools of standing water. If it doesn't dry out soon, we may have mosquitoes in April.

I miss color in my day. I am trying to wear more color - not necessarily bright ones yet, but color just to break up this monotony of grey. Even my cubicle walls are a mix of taupe, brown, and grey. My phone is grey, the desk surface is sandy grey. The office walls and carpet are grey. Neutrals and blah-ness every-damn-where. I'm using Thieves and "Immunity Blend" essential oils in my diffuser to both ward off germs and to provide a little bit of fragrance to take the place of color. I've found a great rose-oil perfume that does something along the same line, because I need something to brighten things. I'm thinking of getting some sort of tie-dye banner or something bright to put in the cubicle to break up this far-too-dull boxy area. (OOOOH, World Market might have something!)

And if you think for a second that the greyness of the world isn't affecting my feelings and emotions, you'd be dead wrong. Several years ago, I bought a Happy Light (by Verilux) because Seasonal Affective Disorder (along with unmedicated anxiety and depression) made me a virtual monster one very grey autumn. It has paid for itself this year. I use it about 10-15 minutes each day and I swear by it. It may be purely anecdotal but...... I can't ignore the evidence. That and Lexapro have kept me sane this winter.

Punxsatawney Phil, your "early spring" better happen soon, buster. It's been four weeks tomorrow. You owe us.