Sometimes things can get confusing and it's not the early onset of dementia or Alzheimers. I think it's hard for my generation of women. Remember, we invented Gloria Steinem! Are we feminists or are we little girls waiting for prince charming to come and whisk us away? Sometimes I'm not sure.
Growing up I took to heart many of the feminist ideals. I was not going to be "taken care of" by any guy. I would be fully self sufficient. In fact, I pretty much am self sufficient. Another lesson I learned from my feminist sisters was that a guy would not make you happy. The reason is that happiness comes from inside. Another human being can't "make" you happy.
So here's the thing, I find myself suddenly with a need for romance. I'm talking sweep you off your feet on a white horse romance. I'm talking larger than life public display of how much I adore you romance. I'm talking about I would do it all over again and then some because you are the one romance! Are you getting my drift?
Oddly enough and fortunately for me my marriage is one where affection is shown. We hug and kiss, so that's not what is missing.But there it is anyway, I want more! I want the grand gesture. I want the Hollywood moment! Even I know that I can't make that happen. Besides, I want it to happen on its own so it will knock my socks off! In the mean time I ponder the origin of this feeling. Is it age or rather the big fat round number of years I have been married? Do I need to reassure myself that I am still *the one* as opposed to being the *comfy well worn pair of jeans* we all are used to wearing? I guess the answer to that is pretty obvious. I need to know and I need it in a big way.
I don't really know what the trigger was and it's probably buried somewhere deep. Do i really want to stick my hand down there, into that mess, to see what I pull out? Will it change anything? I think the bigger dilemma is not the why but the what if. I hope I get my Hollywood moment one day but what happens if I don't?
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Novices
Oh quit your bitching bitches! Too much? I think so but sometimes you just have to say it anyway. I'm referring to some newly 30 year olds lamenting how old they suddenly find themselves. I really wanted to tell them to just get a grip.. on reality that is.
I admit that for me turning 30 was no big deal. I was bothered by turning 20 because I wasn't a teenager anymore. I was kind of an adult and who the hell needs that! But I get it. You may not be old old but anyone under the age of 20 will think you are and you can no longer be trusted. I forgot, you won't get the reference if you're only 30 because it was my generation that coined the phrase "don't trust anyone over 30!" Now we're all well over that landmark age. Okay it wasn't our brightest moment. Might have been the drugs!
All I'm saying to the latest class of 30 year olds is wear sunscreen and don't get freaked out by your birthday or you'll be a basket case by the time you get to fifty! Have fun, have kids, get married, have fun, have a career and then have some more fun. Oh and stop with that fake I'm so old crap when you really don't believe it. There is a vast difference between being old and being "older than". Yeah you're older than 20 and you're older than you used to be but you aren't old. Lets see a few white hairs and some wrinkles around your eyes and then we'll talk. You won't be old yet either but hopefully life will have made you interesting!
I admit that for me turning 30 was no big deal. I was bothered by turning 20 because I wasn't a teenager anymore. I was kind of an adult and who the hell needs that! But I get it. You may not be old old but anyone under the age of 20 will think you are and you can no longer be trusted. I forgot, you won't get the reference if you're only 30 because it was my generation that coined the phrase "don't trust anyone over 30!" Now we're all well over that landmark age. Okay it wasn't our brightest moment. Might have been the drugs!
All I'm saying to the latest class of 30 year olds is wear sunscreen and don't get freaked out by your birthday or you'll be a basket case by the time you get to fifty! Have fun, have kids, get married, have fun, have a career and then have some more fun. Oh and stop with that fake I'm so old crap when you really don't believe it. There is a vast difference between being old and being "older than". Yeah you're older than 20 and you're older than you used to be but you aren't old. Lets see a few white hairs and some wrinkles around your eyes and then we'll talk. You won't be old yet either but hopefully life will have made you interesting!
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Basic Instinct
Some things are instinctive like how the body reacts to a fearful situation. It's either fight or flight. Well for me it's almost always flight! I start flapping my chicken yellow wings and I am out of there! Another well known instinct is the maternal one. I never thought I had an abundance of this particular instinct. I wanted to have kids which is why I had them and yet I was not the mother who talked about her kids as being "the best thing I have ever done". Looking at them now they are pretty damn great! I think I was a good mother. I got my kids to adulthood safely! As to the rest you'll have to ask my kids.
So imagine my surprise while I was walking through a book fair a few years ago and saw the old standard kids book Pat The Bunny and I had a crazy thought. I thought stop using the word and so much in your run on sentence! Wait no, what I really thought was"I want to buy this book". Why? For my grandchildren! It literally stopped me in my tracks. I wasn't even the big 5-0 yet. My kids were not near the age where I would have wanted them to be having babies. Yet there it was, I wanted to be a grandmother! Now as the years have gone by it is something I am really looking forward to being. Some of my friends have reached grandparent status already.
I will rock as a grandmother because I plan on paying little attention to the rules. Actually I'm not sure what the rules are. Hopefully there will be an owners manual. There certainly wasn't one for owning a kid and I could have used it!
Someone I met once said to me that if he had known that having grandchildren was so much fun he would have skipped the having kids part and gone straight to being a grandparent! Makes perfect sense to me.
PS: Sam there is no pressure. Really. I can wait...and wait...and wait! I'm kidding! I'm a kidder! You know that right? Right?
So imagine my surprise while I was walking through a book fair a few years ago and saw the old standard kids book Pat The Bunny and I had a crazy thought. I thought stop using the word and so much in your run on sentence! Wait no, what I really thought was"I want to buy this book". Why? For my grandchildren! It literally stopped me in my tracks. I wasn't even the big 5-0 yet. My kids were not near the age where I would have wanted them to be having babies. Yet there it was, I wanted to be a grandmother! Now as the years have gone by it is something I am really looking forward to being. Some of my friends have reached grandparent status already.
I will rock as a grandmother because I plan on paying little attention to the rules. Actually I'm not sure what the rules are. Hopefully there will be an owners manual. There certainly wasn't one for owning a kid and I could have used it!
Someone I met once said to me that if he had known that having grandchildren was so much fun he would have skipped the having kids part and gone straight to being a grandparent! Makes perfect sense to me.
PS: Sam there is no pressure. Really. I can wait...and wait...and wait! I'm kidding! I'm a kidder! You know that right? Right?
Monday, August 9, 2010
Boy Meets Girl
It's not everyday you have an anniversary. Okay I know, if it was every day then it wouldn't be an anniversary! Work with me here people! When you have been with the same guy for so many years and he hasn't tossed you out, or you him, it means there is also a lot of history going on. In our case the boy met this girl at the airport in Paris. The year was 1973. He asked me for a match. Those were the good old days when you could smoke anywhere. Luckily I too was a smoker and had a match to give him! The rest as I said is history!
Thinking back on that time period it was pretty much like an episode of That 70's Show! Then came the 80's and with that came marriage. The eighties was not my favorite decade as decades go. Hard to take the flannel wearing slightly hippie chick and make her wear preppie clothes, but preppie clothes I did wear. I didn't know you could just say no! During that decade came the kids. Then things got a little blurry. I was suddenly not me but someone's Mom and dressed like a preppie no less! So there I was, like most Moms, always thinking about someone else. I think that's the reason those years seem so blurry to me. I lost a bit of me.
All hail the 90's. Grunge was here and flannel was back! With this new decade I started to see a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel and it wasn't a train! The kiddies were no longer really kiddies. It went way too fast. I think it speeds up the moment they start first grade. That's when they really go out into the world on their own. We just don't notice how fast it goes because we're all so busy making sure they survive to adulthood. I just know that it felt as if I turned around and they were all grown up.
Finally the year 2000 dawns and a miracle happens. I'm back! Well maybe not in 2000 but during this decade that frankly I don't know what to call. The kids have left the building. Once again it's just the two of us. You never know how that will all work out. Plenty of couples find they have nothing to say to each other. Actually they probably have a lot to say but they're just not saying it! That's the thing about marriage. There are so many ups and downs when it spans so many years. It isn't easy and love doesn't always conquer all. I think it takes stubbornness. Others might say stupidity as in " they were too stupid to split up"!
Whenever I talk about longevity in marriage I am reminded of a real life story. One of my husband's friends had gotten married for the second time. He asked us what the secret to a long marriage was. While I was busy trying to come up with a brilliant answer my husband simply said "Don't get divorced."
Thinking back on that time period it was pretty much like an episode of That 70's Show! Then came the 80's and with that came marriage. The eighties was not my favorite decade as decades go. Hard to take the flannel wearing slightly hippie chick and make her wear preppie clothes, but preppie clothes I did wear. I didn't know you could just say no! During that decade came the kids. Then things got a little blurry. I was suddenly not me but someone's Mom and dressed like a preppie no less! So there I was, like most Moms, always thinking about someone else. I think that's the reason those years seem so blurry to me. I lost a bit of me.
All hail the 90's. Grunge was here and flannel was back! With this new decade I started to see a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel and it wasn't a train! The kiddies were no longer really kiddies. It went way too fast. I think it speeds up the moment they start first grade. That's when they really go out into the world on their own. We just don't notice how fast it goes because we're all so busy making sure they survive to adulthood. I just know that it felt as if I turned around and they were all grown up.
Finally the year 2000 dawns and a miracle happens. I'm back! Well maybe not in 2000 but during this decade that frankly I don't know what to call. The kids have left the building. Once again it's just the two of us. You never know how that will all work out. Plenty of couples find they have nothing to say to each other. Actually they probably have a lot to say but they're just not saying it! That's the thing about marriage. There are so many ups and downs when it spans so many years. It isn't easy and love doesn't always conquer all. I think it takes stubbornness. Others might say stupidity as in " they were too stupid to split up"!
Whenever I talk about longevity in marriage I am reminded of a real life story. One of my husband's friends had gotten married for the second time. He asked us what the secret to a long marriage was. While I was busy trying to come up with a brilliant answer my husband simply said "Don't get divorced."
Monday, August 2, 2010
For The Single Ladies
It occurred to me that I view things from a married perspective. So what about the readers who aren't married? Thinking about this got me thinking about what it would be like to date after all these years. Well one thing led to another and I started thinking of questions I would ask a man in the course of our first few dates. That is if he actually calls when he says he will. That shit never seems to change!
When you're young I think you just need to let things unfold and see where they take you. What about now? I imagine that anyone at my stage of the game pretty much knows who they are and that knowledge means we know what we like and don't like. Of course a pair of McDreamy bedroom eyes could make me forget everything!
I gave myself five minutes (no time to waste) to come up with some questions I would ask a potential date to see if I could stand to spend more time with him once the date masks came off! They're all pretty self explanatory and in no particular order because I'm too lazy to organize them which is a hint to any potential suitors.
1.Is refudiate a real word?
2. Do you know how to do laundry?
3. How far away do you live from your mother?
4. Can you kill a bug?
5. Are you on twitter?
6. Do you like to eat dinner while watching TV?
7. What side of the bed do you sleep on?
8. Do you have a dog or a cat?
9. What was the last movie you saw?
10. Are you sad that Simon Cowell left Idol?
11. What kind of bathing suit do you wear?
12. Could I have a sip of water from your bottle?
13. What would you do with the money if you won the lottery?
Writing the questions was fun. They may say more about me than the guy who would be answering them! None of these questions will tell me if he's a good kisser. The rules of attraction seem to be that there are no rules. The thing about love is that it's unexplainable and that's what makes it so wonderful. So ladies, what are some of your questions?
When you're young I think you just need to let things unfold and see where they take you. What about now? I imagine that anyone at my stage of the game pretty much knows who they are and that knowledge means we know what we like and don't like. Of course a pair of McDreamy bedroom eyes could make me forget everything!
I gave myself five minutes (no time to waste) to come up with some questions I would ask a potential date to see if I could stand to spend more time with him once the date masks came off! They're all pretty self explanatory and in no particular order because I'm too lazy to organize them which is a hint to any potential suitors.
1.Is refudiate a real word?
2. Do you know how to do laundry?
3. How far away do you live from your mother?
4. Can you kill a bug?
5. Are you on twitter?
6. Do you like to eat dinner while watching TV?
7. What side of the bed do you sleep on?
8. Do you have a dog or a cat?
9. What was the last movie you saw?
10. Are you sad that Simon Cowell left Idol?
11. What kind of bathing suit do you wear?
12. Could I have a sip of water from your bottle?
13. What would you do with the money if you won the lottery?
Writing the questions was fun. They may say more about me than the guy who would be answering them! None of these questions will tell me if he's a good kisser. The rules of attraction seem to be that there are no rules. The thing about love is that it's unexplainable and that's what makes it so wonderful. So ladies, what are some of your questions?
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