51

On the morning of my 51st birthday I walked into the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror. It was stunning. I looked like hell, in so many ways. So I went and got my camera and took a photo, then I posted it on face book. Along with 9 other photos of me from kindergarden to a couple of years ago. I am proud of myself for revealing myself. I am also amazed that I was brave enough to do it.

I am coming to grips with the fact that I am on the downhill slope. And that is amazing, and scary, and exciting, and exhilarating, and terrifying, and DEPRESSING. I look at where I have been and realize that I am nearing the end. An end I never thought would happen to me. But with the death of both my parents there is nothing standing between me and my own death.

I know the next part of my life is mine to control and to live in a way that I want. I also know that I am moving into a time when I will no longer accept things because I am afraid, or allow things to happen to me. I also know I couldn't give a flying fuck what people think of me, because that is what freezes me in my life. Having my sister in Seattle has proven that to me. So worried about what she thinks of me that I am frozen. There is a reason why I like traveling alone, no one knows me or judges me.

So with the posting of that picture I think I have taken some of that "who cares what you think" attitude and presented it to the world.  As I stated in the posting, "This is the face of 51. Ah, fuck 'em if they can't take a joke."

The end of the world as we know it...

And I feel.....

I wish I could say fine, but I can't. This new year January was one of the most impossible months I have ever experienced. I have had illness, injury, emotional break down, anger, fear, rage, hatred, sadness, and all the other things I want to avoid, pile up on me.

I work too hard, I always have. This pattern has decided to come home to roost. And I am paying for it.
When I have gotten sick in the past I just pushed through it. Pushed Through! In my forties it began to push back. I joked that I was like a wildebeest getting hit with a tranq dart. I drop to my knees, fight a bit and then hit the ground with a thud. Being that I have lived most of my life alone, I just sleep until my blood sugar drops and I become dehydrated. Then I sit on the floor in the bathroom and chug gatorade, and eat crackers. There is always intestinal distress and a face on the cold porcelain of the tub.
This goes on for a couple of days. Then I drag my ass back to work and recover completely a month later. I never get a cold without a sinus infection. My Doctor just calls in an antibiotic. I never get a flu without loosing 10 pounds and having a fever over 101 degrees. I never get through the winter without going down to illness. One of my friends gets a cold once a year for a week. And he can still work.

I work in retail in a video store during the day. I am the place people stop on the way home from work as they are sent home for being too sick. I am the place where parents bring their plague riddled children who are home from school. I am the place where people come to sneeze, snot and generally infect me with the outside world. I want to put up a sneeze guard at the store, and if someone comes in sick, I want them to walk through a decontamination shower first. I wonder if I would get as many viruses if I was a receptionist in a doctor's office? Or was a kindergarden teacher? Or worked in hospital inCalcutta?

This year was particularly difficult. During the holidays we are very busy. And my back up person came down with a plague like illness that put her out of the store for the worst of the busy times. I had to handle terrifically hard days alone. And I had that Danny Glover in Lethal Weapon realization that I am officially "too old for this shit"! I wore myself out in the name of making people happy with 2 videos and a bit of candy. I exhausted myself to the point of making myself sick every night.

I have a Theatre background, so when I say I can usually deal with stress, I am not kidding. But this was like Finals week in college and tech week for a musical put together. It was terrible. And I suffered a lot. As I look back on this, I realize the wildebeest analogy works best if I think of myself as a newborn kitten, running as fast as I can ahead of the herd. Their thunder shaking the ground, the noise is terrible, then I feel the heat and dampness of their breath on my neck. The first wildebeest has arrived  and it steps on the back of my knees, and drops me. I then just curl up, trying to protect my head as the herd tramples over me. Kicking up so much dust I can barely breathe. The noise and motion unbearable. And it goes on from November 15th to January 15th.

When I attempted to emerge from this chaos this year, my legs did not work. I had a series of massages and physical therapies that left me crippled ( having to use a cane). I am recovering from legs swollen to the size of basketballs, and hips that snap and crackle when I move. I broke my arm 3 years ago, but not being able to walk is devastating.  I have had to sit. And mull. And be with myself. And that has opened an even worse kettle of fish.  Fear.

So on this first day of February, 20 days before I turn 51 years old, I am trying to cut myself some slack. Give myself permission to be a fuck up. Unpack the word Fear into smaller more digestible words that I can process and rid myself of. Today I sit in my living room, wrapped in a blanket, and I sneeze and my legs throb, but I also think the worst part has passed.

I have to think this, or the stampede will have won.

Narcissism

I wonder if this crop of fifty year old women who are recovering from growing up with narcissistic mothers should have a sit down with Gloria Steinman. Thank her for paving the way for our sisters, but wish that she could have helped our mothers find the strength to move into themselves, without leaving us as the collateral damage.

Slowly I turn... step by step...

This is what was in my head this morning. Something I remember from my childhood, but have absolutely no context for. None.

And yet, it feels right.

I had a 2 hour massage yesterday. Seriously. The woman who does these massages actually changes your life! She did mine anyway.

Three years ago, on my mothers's birthday, I fell down some steps and broke my arm. It was one of those moments in your life when all things around you crash in on you, and you just sit there and think, "nothing is ever going to be the same after this." I was right, it wasn't. It was far enough into my mom's alzheimer's that she could barely carry on a conversation with me on the phone. It makes my stomach hurt to even think about that conversation. I went out that day to walk over to the gym, I was working on getting myself healthy. As I started down the steps, this voice inside me told me not to do it.  I ignored the voice, and fell down the steps.

Three years have passed and though my arm is strong and recovered, the rest of me is not so much. The massage yesterday was a force of change that I still cannot believe. In releasing my muscles, she was able to realign my femur, which was trying to poke out my butt. Then she released the knot in my knee, my shoulder, and both my feet. When I went to stand up I was overwhelmed by this feeling I had forgotten, standing in my body and not being in pain. I had forgotten that you can actually be in your body and not be in pain. I FORGOT THIS! How is that possible?

And so, slowly I turn, and step by step I move myself into a place where my body and I are not at odds. Where I can walk again, and be in the world again, and not have to pretend that everything is alright and that I am just like everyone else, except that I am miserable.

I actually smiled yesterday, while I was standing up.

Awesome.

January 3, 2013 Holy Crap

This morning I woke up with a little more hope. A little less pain. A whole lot of anxiety. But a feeling like I may be able to survive.

This is something I have not had in what feels like a long time.

I HATE that I am an Eeyore. I want to at least be moving toward Rabbit or Piglet. I understand anxiety and fear. But this Eeyore hopelessness is just draining.

I wonder what it would be like to be a natural Tigger? Or just a comfortable Pooh Bear?

Did I work at the Disney Store too many years?

Here is why I don't Blog more often....

.... I do it so rarely, that when I want to blog I can remember how to get on line and then create a new entry...it is VEXING!

I have cried a  lot today. Happy new year, crazy crying lady. I think it may have just hit me that:
1. Like Danny Glover in "Lethal Weapon" I am too old for this shit. Being that working 10 hour days in retail with only one potty break and not eating actually makes me sick for a few days.
2. That it is already 2013 and I did not do anything to celebrate or acknowledge it's passing, besides
calling my sister at 3:30am to hold my head as I threw up and shook from exhaustion.
3. That there was actually someone in my life for the first time in WELL over 20 years who would do that for me.
4. That no matter how well I do at work, I have a belief that everything is going to drop out from beneath me and that I am going to be homeless, jobless, and have to tape my shoes together with duct tape and hold up signs at intersections that read "have a degree in theatre, music, film and yoga. totally, unemployable, please help".
5. That my parents are dead. Now this is not news. Dad died 8 years ago, Mom a year and change. But for some reason this just kinda snuck up on me and hit me like it was new today. Might help explain the crying. Or some of it. But suddenly I feel very old and very mortal and very sad.
6. That I am afraid of being old, mortal and sad. I am afraid of the pain I feel in my body and in my heart. I am afraid that I will wake up tomorrow and not know how to answer my phone, or I will be confused about how to reply to e-mail....

.....or worse, I won't be able to figure out how to use my blog. And that will mean I am old, broken, and a waste of viable human organs.  This is not a happy spot for me. And I have decided that I am going to try to get myself acting "as if" I was happier. With the idea that acting will actually lead to being.

So today, I am sad, and leaking from my eyes and my chest hurts and my brain is foggy. But tomorrow when I wake up it will be a little better. See, I said, "when I wake up"! Things are getting better already.

z

Twinkie the Kid

Twinkie the Kid.

Twinkie Shortage? Shoppers Stock Up As News Of Hostess Bankruptcy Spreads On Twitter

This news came to me yesterday in the Safeway as I was shopping after work. The jovial woman on the loud speaker said,"Yes, those are all the Twinkies we have folks. It is going to be it for a while, but you can still get Twinkies on E-bay, and if you are a hoarder that is good news, cause they last for like 10 years."

I was raised on Twinkies. Ding Dongs. Snowballs.They have been an integral part of many many phases of my childhood. I grew up and out on Hostess products. And I feel a strange loss today. 

Now, granted, I have not had a Twinkie in probably 20 years. But as a kid, they were the snack that I got in my lunch. They were special for me since I am not a big fan of chocolate. Everyone in my family ate the chocolate, but that creamy fluffy vanilla goodness was all mine. When I was in middle school Hostess introduced Twinkie the Kid. He was a rootin' tootin' cowboy of a cake, and someone I could relate too. Cowboy on the outside, creamy on the inside.

In college I was in the musical Grease. I played Jan (the fat girl) who ate Twinkies all the time. I wandered all over stage with a Twinkie in my hand. I only probably "ate" 1 a night, but after the run of the show, I had a hard time looking at them. 

Then there is the movie Twinkie. Ghostbusters with Egon holding a Twinkie and comparing the ectoplasmic energy to it. Or the quest  Tallahassee is on for "just one more Twinkie" in Zombieland. 

I worry now that Twinkies are going to be impossible to find that there will be rampaging in the streets, looting, anarchy. Let's face it they are about as good for you as say, crack. But they are important to the flabby fabric of American life. 

Is this just one more step toward the End of the World as We Know IT?