Do I Get Change With That?

Started by Chelemar, May 01, 2011, 02:08:28 AM

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Chelemar

Musings On A Life Half Spent:  Do I Get Change With That?

Middle age.  A good deal of this blog is going to be about middle age. Not the Middle Ages—you know, the black plague, Knights, etc... not those ones, but the middle part of one's life span. Oh eh yeah, that one (it's got it's own kinda plague.)   Forty-four.  Everytime I hear that number, I think, I can't possibly be!  I have to be still in my thirties.  I want to shout, "Forty-four? Forty?  Fight!"

Really, I don't feel forty-four—however old that must feel, I can't feel that way.  Yes, sure in the morning when I wake up everything aches.  It takes my feet at least twenty minutes before they even feel the ground under them.  So what if I weeble when I walk? There's still a giggle in my talk.  And, I started going gray young.  I did too!  Sigh.

Alright, yes.  I am middle aged.  How I realized it for certain was when I was looking through old photos found put away in trunks in the basement.  We are getting new water lines put in the basement this spring so have been cleaning out the unnecessary things, (let's make that years of garbage)  four households of women have aquired over three generations of combined lifetimes.  If you aren't gasping in horror, it's ok, we all still have perminant jaw drops from the ceiling high stacks of needless nic-nackery ourselves. 

But, I digress...I'd been wanting to show Jated (my life mate) a picture of my father's mother.  I had many of my mum's mum, but none of Dad's.  They'd all been put away when we had others move in with us, but I couldn't find where I'd put them. (Early onset?  :o )  To my delight I had found some in an album.  While I was looking at the photos, I was chatting with Dad over facebook. 

“Oh, no no no!”  I typed furiously, not believing my own eyes.
“What?”  Dad typed back.  I added anxiety to the flashing curser, sure he was worried.
“I have become Gramma!”
“What???”
“No really, I just looked at Gramma's picture at your twenty-fifth with Mum.  I am Gramma”  Tears were running down my face.  (OK they weren't, but it did add to the drama!)
“Oh, come on!”  He typed. 

I quickly took a photo  of myself  and sent him both mine and a scan of Gramma's picture. 

“LOOK!” I demanded all in caps.  “Remember how everytime we tried to decide who I looked like, and everyone said they couldn't figure it out.  I looked like you, yet I looked like Mum, yet...”
“Yeaaaas.”  He drew out.  I could picture him nodding—thumb on his chin, forefinger on his upper lip. 
“Well, ok look at the pictures now.”

His curser flashed at me.  Winking, “You're your own Gramma; nener ne ner neeeee ner.”

“Well???”  I asked.

“I don't believe it... You ARE Gramma!”

“I told you!  See.  Well don't think you're getting off light.  I look like you too, so you look like Gramma too.  At least I'm a girl.”  I stuck my tongue out at him. :P

Dad sent me a grin.
 
Gramma was a lovely woman.  What startled me the most?  How my face now looked like the face of a woman who had known pain, suffering, loss and love.  My face knows age and wears it, not so much in wrinkles, but in the shadows and vales of it's ansesterage of canvas.  I wanted to jump up and celebrate!  Oh, ouch...my knees.  I gotta remember to get up every hour and stretch!


--Youth is the period in which a man can be hopeless. The end of every episode is the end of the world. But the power of hoping through everything, the knowledge that the soul survives its adventures, that great inspiration comes to the middle-aged.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

Please feel free to comment.  Although rude ones will be bleached. XD

Jated

**raises hand and vouches...*  you are amazingly beautiful.  You have the heart and spirit of your grams.  Your positive thinking, and special ways you have taught not only me, but my son, that everything is going to be okay.  You shouldn't have to worry about getting older, everything ages better with time, especially you my sweet.


I have a few fears about getting older, but all of that goes away, when you look at me with your beautiful eyes.  I believe that we all have a few fears, getting older should be pretty low on everyone's list.  We all know that one thing is true, day by day, we shall get older.  It is women like you, that make getting older, a precious gift. 


Chelemar


SweetJane

No matter how old you feel, I am and will always be older than you!  ;)  And so allow me to share the fact that when you are MY age (pushing 60, baby girl), being 44 seems young and carefree.  That said, some of us are just born "old souls" and I think that's a good thing.  An old soul knows who she is, who she was, who she is yet to be; she is awake and alive to every moment; she has forgiven herself for the missed moments, and eagerly searches for the new challenges.
And besides, you are forever ONLY as old as you want to be, in your mind.  Don't let anyone tell you different.
"Anyone who's ever played a part wouldn't turn around and hate it...Sweet Jane...ahh, sweet sweet Jane".

Chelemar

Quote from: SweetJane on May 07, 2011, 03:14:43 PM
No matter how old you feel, I am and will always be older than you!  ;)  And so allow me to share the fact that when you are MY age (pushing 60, baby girl), being 44 seems young and carefree.  That said, some of us are just born "old souls" and I think that's a good thing.  An old soul knows who she is, who she was, who she is yet to be; she is awake and alive to every moment; she has forgiven herself for the missed moments, and eagerly searches for the new challenges.
And besides, you are forever ONLY as old as you want to be, in your mind.  Don't let anyone tell you different.

Do I hear an Amen!

Amen!!!

SweetJane

 :D Thanks for the "Amen!", Chel...I'm loving it here in E-land so far.
"Anyone who's ever played a part wouldn't turn around and hate it...Sweet Jane...ahh, sweet sweet Jane".

Chelemar

#6
What I didn't know!

Why is it that at forty-four, I seem to know so much less that I did at fourteen?  I remember being quite sure that I knew a lot back then.  Now, it seems I know less and less every day.

I felt certain that at fourteen by the time I was anciently old at forty-four, I would know just about everything there is to know.  I would have this thing called “living” down.  Wow, was I wrong!

I am not implying that I suck at living.  Nah, I'm not willing to go that far.  It's just that, I guess I expected there to be this sea change moment.  Some heavenly choir filled, “Ahaaa”  Gloria in excelsis Deo wink that transformed me from a stumbling bumbler through to one of the “in” crowd.  But, um, no.  I turned eighteen, and while I had already been working, I still  felt pretty much as I had always felt, someday, the bulb will go off and I will understand the world.

I went off to college, but times and situations being what they were, waited until I could afford to pay my own way, so that happened at twenty-three.  Still, no clarifying epiphany.  While I could ascertain that I was more educated, I felt no smarter than I had as a fifth grader.  Being on the other side, the side that knows everything, and all it's intricate foot work still danced by me in a sublime quick step that was both dazzling and complex, and beyond my comprehension. 

Life, the sneaky thing, just doesn't play nice.  There is no “yay, you're a grown up now” switch.  Subtle shifts in how we see things, often so subtle that we don't even know that they've occurred, overtake us, mold and change us. Drat their cagey insidiousness anyway!  Still, even at forty-four, I am shocked at being middle aged without ever having felt really as thought I got to be, “Duh dah dah!”  the adult, after all.


Imogen

I hear you, Chele! Since I've turned 40 I've always like this quote :

QuoteI'm not 40, I'm eighteen with 22 years experience.  ~Author Unknown
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Oniya

How about:

Quote
Forty is the old age of youth; fifty is the youth of old age. French Proverb
"Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women.~*~*~Don't think it's all been done before
And in that endeavor, laziness will not do." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think we're never gonna win this war
Robin Williams-Dead Poets Society ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think your world's gonna fall apart
I do have a cause, though.  It's obscenity.  I'm for it.  - Tom Lehrer~*~All you need is your beautiful heart
O/O's Updated 5/11/21 - A/A's - Current Status! - Writing a novel - all draws for Fool of Fire up!
Requests updated March 17

Chelemar

*grin*

Yes, I do have to agree with both of you. ;D

I will remember both of those!

wolvenrogue

Chele:

I cant help with the fears, but I can help with the feet! I had the same problem at the same age, but now I'm 14 years older and they don't hurt anymore. I got some great advice from a doctor who treated pain through a special kind of deep muscle massage.
She didn't need to help the feet with massage though she just had me lay in bed each night and morning on my back , legs straight and try to point my heals down and toes toward my head and do that ten times for 20 seconds at a time

The pain was gone in a week and never came back... I still do the exercise.

Wolvenrogue

Chelemar

*hugs*

Wolven, thanks. :)

I will have to try that.  I've taken to sleeping on the couch so that I do sleep on my back. :)  It stops me from rolling onto my sides.  The only bad thing... The lab sticks his blankey in my face every morning when he, with some sort of doggie telepathy, realizes I am about to wake up.

And, blankey, smells ... nasty, no matter how many times, or when it gets washed.

:D

Cheers and thanks again,

Chele

Chelemar

Kitten.

A few days ago, a friend asked me to kitten sit for her while she ran some errands.  It was a total set up.  Yes, there was a kitten, and yes there were errands, but it seems I now am the Mama to a little fluff ball named SuzieQ. 

It's been well over ten years since I've had a kitten.  I've had cats yes.  But I'm talking adults here.  Not quite the same thing. 

Suzie loves everyone and everything, and of course they all belong to her.  It's amazing to watch he8/r -=2555555555555555550

That little segue, that was brought to you by Suzie.  She "hides" behind my monitor while I type and ninja attacks my fingers.

Be right back... she's got herself stuck in a plastic cup.  (You know, the one she's just knocked off Jated's desk.  Yeah that one.)

Ok, after chasing a spinning kitten across the floor much to the delight of the Collie, I'm back. 

She loves the Collie and the Black Lab, but the little dog, the one that is closest to her in size, oh, they are rivals.  The little dog, Sadie, have a penned play area in the family room since she has not progressed to going potty 100% of the time outside.  She's getting there, but she doesn't quite manage it yet.

SuzieQ crawls up the side of the plastic pen and strolls across the top edge while Sadie acts like a bejerker jack-in-the-box and bounces up and down trying to get her.  Even at fourteen weeks, Suzie already knows her power.  If she wants down from the couch, she thinks nothing of jumping on the Lab's head, then back, to land on the floor.

You're sleeping?  Favorite target.  She loves to nip noses, lips, eyelids.  Just to let you know she's there and plans on sleeping with you.  So be mindful of her.  In a few minutes you hear her little motor engine purring away in your ear as she's curled up in the curve of your neck. 

I'd forgotten how rotten kittens could be.  Oh, I love them.  :)  Love, love, love.

"Hey Suzie!  get out of the toaster!"

Gotta run!