I've Completely Changed My Mind

Screw this whole idea about growing older = gaining a valuable wisdom that, in the end, makes it worth it.  I'm starting to see that growing older = hearing news that gets progressively worse. 

My dear aunt got some bad medical news.  My friend's father is struggling more and more with his Alzheimer's.  A neighbor is facing bankruptcy because of the costs of her husband's mental hospitalization.  Another friend just buried her mother, who was laid waste by Huntington's.  Yet another friend's cousin, a youngish mother of four, has seen the return of her Stage IV breast cancer. 

Now, someone who sees each day as a gift would point out that, number one, I am blessed with friends and family in the first place.  The same person might say that with each breath there is hope and in death there is peace.  He/she might add that the joy is in this journey.  To all this I reply, "Well fuck that."

I would very much like someone to change my mind about this.  Personally, I don't think it can be done.

The Girl on the Plane

Flying back home from our summer vacation, we squeezed ourselves into one of those planes so small even I almost hit my head on the ceiling.  I sat next to my older daughter, with my husband and younger daughter in front of us; next to me sat a girl I used to be.  In many ways she was foreign to me:  her purse was heavily logo-ed, her skin tanned, her hair blonde.  Most notably different was that, despite being a good size or two larger than optimal, she had no qualms about scarfing down a Wendy's burger and fries right before take-off.  (For us problem eaters, such public feeding is reflexively avoided.) But, as I listened to her talking at her friends seated behind me, I recognized her as myself when I was, like she, in my early twenties.

Apparently, she and her friends were returning from a friend's wedding.  Among other things I learned during the trip, she loves her job, she's miffed that her mother posted a family portrait that was rather unflattering, and she golfs.  She was me because she was certain her glittering young life both charmingly fascinated and inspired twinges of envy.  She spoke as though to the room (or the cabin), neither lowering her voice nor allowing interruption of her performance.  I so remember being her and my certainty that any sane person would want to be me - young, pretty, smart, my life ahead of me - and even more certain that a captive audience would be appreciatively amused by my ruminations.

Now, as the captive audience, I know different, since I wasn't charmed as much as mildly irritated.  Even my eleven year-old, who had at first been watching the show with undisguised fascination, became bored with the self-absorption.  Since I often recall the girl that I was with a great deal of wincing, I didn't mind being reminded that the behavior of many, many girls that age is worth wincing over.  On the other hand, knowing that she viewed me either a) with pity for my bland existence as a middle-aged mom or b) not at all because to her I'm invisible just made my cranky (it had been a long travel day). 

When I was a freshman in college, I wrote an essay for English about how awful aging would be.  I got an A on a treatise discussing the loss of passion and vitality that each decade of life would bring.  I preached that I was enjoying the best time of my life (when I was in fact not all that happy) because the highs would never be as high (despite the lows not being so low), and all the true adults I knew seemed so lacking in intensity.  My roommate, who didn't even like me particularly, asked to make a copy of it, because my realizations were so tragic and so true. 

Sheesh.

We just watched a relatively new movie called "According to Greta" with Hilary Duff and Ellen Burstyn.  Hillary Duff is Greta, a teenager with the melancholy self-absorption that first arouses empathy but then just exasperates.  Ellen Burstyn is her grandmother.  Greta assumes that life is downhill after seventeen, because nothing will be as exciting as it was then.  Her grandmother explains that when she herself was seventeen, she didn't even know who she was, that it's the learning you do each day of your life that makes the next day even more valuable.   I've learned enough to know I could never tell that to the girl on the plane because a) no one asked me (and you wouldn't believe how long it's taken me to learn that my wisdom is not appreciated when unsolicited) and b) you can only really believe it by living it.

Father's Day

I'm always touched when really bad people show a glimmer of a soul.  In this case, Glenn Allen Jeffries, a fugitive from drug and assault charges, saved his 11 month-old daughter from their burning home.  Perhaps also relevant to his character, he served time more than ten years ago for shooting, dismembering with an axe, and burnng the torso of John Keane (for reasons I cannot find, although one could argue there really isn't a good reason for such behavior).  He and his father were convicted, each pointing the finger at the other.  Dad got 30 years, son only 10 for third-degree murder.  Not germaine but intriguing to me is that Dad, at the time of the crime, was living in a cave.

Anyway, Glenn Allen was released early from prison in 2002.  Since then, he's run afoul of the law and ended up on the lam.  He was staying with his wife and baby daughter when their wood-burning stove set the house ablaze.  Glenn Allen saved his baby girl and, along with his wife, made it out safely.  After being assured that his daughter would survive and although burned himself, he ran.  The baby's burns were so severe that she needed to be airlifted from the Pittsburgh area to the Shriner's Hospital for Children in Cincinnati, a five-hour drive away.

Despite being the kind of guy who, following some home butchery, can pick up a torso and shove it into a wood burning stove (not the same stove that turns up later in the story), he's a daddy who loves his baby girl.  After saving her life and then fleeing, he couldn't bear to be away from her.  Knowing he was wanted (and presumably bright enough to realize cops would be watching the hospital, though perhaps no level of brightness should be presumed), he still made his way to Cincinnati and visited his little girl.  There he was captured. 

Perhaps not enough to be Father of the Year, but at least he deserves a card.

PSA

If you can't remember the last time you changed the toothbrushes, do it today.  You might be thinking, "Hmmm, good point.  But why should I change his toothbrush?  Can't a grown man be responsible for the basics of his own personal care?"  The short answer is, "No."

Turkey on Your Birthday

As my birthday neared (after which I could still be considered middle-aged but just barely), I was getting my hair colored and cut, so I could face the world with a dazzling smile.  I'd been sporting a coif reminiscent of a dowdier Laura Bush (I know) but was updating to what I term a Full Pelosi.  That was when I saw it.  The turkey wattle.  Now, I'd been noticing that my dear husband has been hanging low around the jawline for a while.  I felt a little bad for him, because I knew he'd be upset if he realized, though I couldn't care less.  Since I'm younger than he (by nearly 1000 days), I also felt a little smug, proud of my taut mandibular.  That was then.

As I sat before the salon mirror, I could have gasped.  Normally before I catch my reflection, I arrange my face and stretch my neck.  At a quarter profile and without my glasses, I look like I have for the past twenty years (I thought).  Once you're wattled, though, that's pretty much that.  This is how old I now am:  after my horrible discovery I (no lie) thought, "Oh well, maybe I can get a quick nap before she needs to wash out my color."

Later, while in line at Kohl's, I studied the woman checking out in front of me.  She was probably 80, with bleached blonde hair, lots of make-up, a newsboy cap, and leather pants.  Leather pants!  I snickered to myself, because a) at least I'm not that old, and b) what a get-up.  Then it hit me that she got up in the morning and made a bit of an effort.  Though my hair was freshly done and I do wear eye make-up every day, I pretty much have thrown in the towel.  From then on, I've been trying to keep that towel picked up.

I've always liked this quote by Isaac Mizrahi that I clipped from a magazine in 1998.  He said:

I don't care.  I don't judge.  Like, I was at a dinner one night and somebody said, "Look at her," and I said, "She's having fun, what's wrong with her?"  She looked a mess, but she was having a lot of fun, and she thought she looked great.  And I wasn't having a lot of fun, and I thought I looked great too.  So there was something she was doing that I was doing wrong.  And this guy said to me, "We are men of taste."  And I thought, "Not me, honey."

Fancy Seeing You Here!

Having taught high school social studies for ten years before my older daughter was born, I often run into former students.  Even if I don't remember the name, I almost always feel a familiarity for the face.  I see these kids everywhere:  one was a server at our favorite restaurant, one worked at Walmart, another at Pier One, another is now a teacher at my daughters' school.  One girl (woman) even got my attention at a red light, rolling down her car window to give me a shout out (which is one of those trendy terms that I might not be using quite appropriately).  Now normally when I run into a student, they give me the whole, "Hey, Mrs. Howland! I loved your class!" kind of deal (okay, not always the "loved your class" part, but there's always definite enthusiasm).  But not last week.

I'm at the gynecologist's, ready and in-position for a Pap smear. The doctor calls the assistant in, and I recognize her as a former student, though I don't remember her name.  Let's call her Suzi Slackjaw.  I chirp, "Did you go to Lincoln High School?"  She flatly replies, "Yeah, you were my teacher."  "Chilly" is a word that could be used. "Uncomfortable" works on many levels.  Needless to say (and I say it anyway), it's humiliating enough to be greeted with less than apathy when you're fully dressed and standing up.  Splayed and covered in paper, it's quite the vexation.  Moral of the story:  Be nice to everyone you see on the way up, because they could end up seeing way more of you than you ever imagined.

On the other hand, Bruce (last name not remembered) who works at Pier One was happy to see me, reminding us all it's always better to be a customer than a patient.

Honey, I Wrecked the Kids

My sister has ruined two of her three children.  I know this for a fact because she's told me so.  And the only reason the third one hasn't been wrecked yet is because, as the youngest, there hasn't been enough time.   I have wrecked my kids as well, and it can all be traced to the game Hot Potato.

This past Christmas while I was volunteering for the holiday party in my fifth-grader's classroom, I had to direct the kids in a holiday game based on the whole Hot Potato idea, where an object is passed around the circle until time is called and whoever is left holding the object is out.  At eleven years of age, almost none of these kids knew how to play, including my own.  This is why:  when the girls were little, I would have their birthday parties at home, which always included a craft, games, and cake.  Because parties are supposed to be happy and because I couldn't bear to make a kid sad (and, let's face it, because it's annoying when kids cry), I'd always plan games where everyone was a winner .  And that meant no games of Hot Potato.

Fast forward five years filled with trophies given for showing up and games where everyone's a winner, and you get a bunch of kids afraid to fail because they didn't learn to fail when the stakes were low.  Or you get a bunch of kids thinking they're good at lots of things that they're not.  Or sometimes both.   As the old saying goes, "My bad."