Thrivival Mode

You know you’re old when…

You get all the points

And proud of it!!

Say it out loud

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTLQsj2p3/

“At 50 I started saying things out loud” Hoda Kotb

When she first said this I thought- fuck yeah! I’ve started doing that already!

Tired of “holding my tongue”

Enough of “just take it”

No more “being polite”

But also sharing – sharing my wisdom – yes, after 27 years in the workforce I have some wisdom to pass on

Sharing my experiences – yes, after one marriage, two children, one divorce, dozens of relationships, two moves abroad, four moves alone to places unknown, two degrees – yeh I have shit to share

Sharing my memories- fun times, sad times, lonely times, hard times, successful times- lots to reflect on

Sharing my thoughts – I’ve read, I’ve witnessed, I’ve participated, I’ve learned, I’ve created, I’ve destroyed and I know things and have opinions that matter

Say it out loud.

So I do.

But she goes on to discuss that at 50, saying out loud what it is you want out of life, what it is you can contribute to this life, what is just…you.

Saying it out is not only manifests it.

It’s owning it.

Say it out loud.

So here goes…

I will make a living as a writer.

I will get my script optioned and made.

I will be on a stage somewhere sometime speaking to some audience about my journey and my writing.

I will live that coexistence between quiet, quaint home writing from dawn to dusk to traveling and exploring and getting paid to…

Say it out loud.

Hypothesis: 80-90’s movies ruined Gen-X relationships with unrealistic expectations

Case in point:

Best Friend turned true love trope.

Arch enemies turned true love trope.

Never met in person but fell in love across a room, in passing trains, through email, one night wandering around a foreign city.

Nerd guy crush on hot girl gets surprise makeover and they fall in love.

Nerd girl crush on hot guy gets makeover and he confesses his love.

Smart girl assigned to tutor football star/new student/wanna be rockstar and they fall in love.

The two never actually meet or are together too much and fight or are separated by an ocean or kept apart by feuding families or they come from different classes, they are different races, they speak different languages.

The rollercoaster begins, will they, won’t they, why aren’t they, why should they, how can they, what are they?

There’s music.

There’s crying.

There’s some listless driving around the city or pithy jokes from the ever single best friend.

Then.

Lightbulb moment.

Love gets requited by running across a field, an airport, a school cafeteria, a beach toward each other.

Love gets requited by them being trapped together in a basement, an empty school at night, on an island.

Love gets requited by a comedy of errors leading them to discover each other’s affection by finding a letter, a mistaken email or overhearing a conversation.

Love gets requited by one confessing their love under a bedroom window, during a wedding, in the middle of the school play by singing a song, bringing them flowers, interrupting the show for their own speech and then the two run off together in a hot red sports car, walk slowly down a dimly lit street, sit holding hands on a hilltop watching the sun set and ‘The End’ comes up on the screen and it’s done- relationship status solidified.

Cue cool music – roll credits.

Hypothesis proved.

Fatigue

I missed my post yesterday

Because I crawled into bed as soon as I got home and was in and out of sleep starting at 7pm

My body shut down

My brain shut down

It’s still down

It happens

To me, to all of us, more than most admit

Five years ago when I was in the midst of the divorce and the investigation and dad’s cancer I went through a few weeks – not days, weeks – where I could not stay awake.

I would come home and sleep

Wake up make the kids dinner and sleep

Get up for the kids baths and bed time and sleep

Go to work and sneak off to nap in my boss’s office or my car

I thought I was severely depressed

And I was

But bloodwork showed I had mono

Mono!! What, how, uh?

Well it wasn’t active mono, it was a condition where the mono left in my cells from when I had it as a teenager reactivated and the fatigue set in.

The treatment – rest.

The cause of reactivation – stress.

And overworking and all that comes with it.

Other symptoms, swollen glands, body aches – overall feeling shitty.

Since then I’ve been diagnosed w Chronic Epstein Bar Syndrome.

Yeh, just fancy words for “you work yourself to the bone and your body says no more and shuts your shit down”.

Treatment – rest and no stress

Ha! I may can squeeze in the rest but the stress , yeh that’s just life’s permanent disease.

It actually hits more often than I admit.

If I was another person I’d go thru the whole FMLA process and get my accommodations and all that shit but I don’t — I’m just too tired to deal w all that.

Most times I power thru.

Big girl panties up. Coffee and sugar my way through.

Sometimes the body revolts and forces the rest.

Sometimes my common sense and pending schedule prevail and I take the rest knowing there’s more to come.

Either way, it’s a thing.

Another thing I manage.

And in the grand scheme of all things medical I could be dealing with, not a big deal.

And thus, it just is.

But what occurs to me is there is a societal condition, a universal female disease of work to the bone, work thru the bone.

Chronic fatigue- sure

Chronic stress – of course

Chronic guilt – yup!

Chronic debilitating mental load – humm

Chronic shittiness.

And I may explore some more of that later, how we women got here, how we can get out of here, how the current societal system is dysfunctional and ultimately infecting us all.

But right now, I’m just too damn tired.

Closer I Am to Fine

Well, it was the second last song.

Which is ok since the last song was one that I really wanted to hear.

But many more before these two I didn’t know or only vaguely remembered – and yet, it was just as magical.

Listening to live music – for me – is magical.

Watching the Indigo Girls – with just their guitars and an amazing violinist – sing and tell stories brought me right back to freshman year Anderson Hall laying on pillows on the dorm floor with my roommate Ellen and listening to the album and singing along while “studying”.

Like I said, magical.

And even though there was no drummer, which usually captures my attention because love of percussion is my inheritance, I was still transfixed in their playing, their singing, their movement, their unison, their ease.

Magical.

In their authenticity.

Magical.

In their ability.

Magical.

In their captivity ( a full house!)

Magical.

In my memories – like pearls on a necklace – they strung them together as effortlessly as their playlist.

Magical.

In their emanating energy of friendship, love, acceptance, peace.

Magical.

In the realization that I truly am, closer to fine.

Than I was before.

Maybe ever before.

But definitely than I’ve been in years.

I am fine.

I am, magically, fine.

You Know You’re Old When….

It’s 8pm on a Tuesday and the intermission in the show that signals there is going to be another hour before you can go home fills you with absolute anguish.

Why?

Well,

You’re tired

Because after all, it is the second day of the work week and so you’ve already mentally “been on” for like 20 hours.

You’re hungry

Because after all, one glass of wine, a piece of cheese, three crackers and a brownie bite from the hors d oeuvres line doesn’t cut it anymore.

You’re cranky

Because after all, you are still wearing the cute strappy black heels that matched your work/cocktail dress and they haven’t stretched to fit the width of your swollen feet after 12 whole hours.

You’re distracted

Because after all, the kids are home on their own and though they are perfectly fine on their own and would be totally ignoring you if you were there you still worry and feel guilty that you’re not there.

You’re jealous

Because after all, most of your friends are home, bra-less and in PJ’s.

And you’re emotional

Because after all, you’re there with one of your best friends and your parents and their best friends and everyone is happy and healthy and the kids really are just fine and you realize how special this all is and one day, in a blink, you won’t be doing this anymore with your parents and the kids will be long gone and as exhausted as you are you know this is the good stuff – and you’ll miss being this kind of tired.

My legacy.

I’m watching the biography on Jon Bon Jovi and he says something about in your 20’s you want fame and fun, in your 30’s you’re all about success, in your 40’s you’re all about settling into yourself and your 50’s is about your legacy.

And that has stuck with me.

Not just because the irony of it coming from a person who arguably already has a pretty damn good legacy – but more just the word – as an adjective, as a noun.

Legacy.

And I don’t recall ever thinking about or working toward or even fathoming anything like a legacy.

If you were to ask me what is my legacy I’d answer you in 3 seconds without even blinking.

My children.

Of course, it’s my children. That is what I’ve left behind for this world.

That is my purpose – biologically speaking of course.

And sure there are my friendships and relationships and all the other “ships” that fill platitudes at your retirement party or get inscribed on your headstone.

But that is not legacy.

A quick google search defines legacy mostly having to do with money, real estate, or that which you leave behind for others.

But it also means,

“The long-lasting impact of particular events, actions, etc. that took place in the past, or of a person’s life.”

Right, there’s the legacy.

The long lasting impact.

Could be anything from building a $20 million transit center to cutting off someone in traffic and delaying them getting to the hospital in time for their child’s birth.

Could be anything from writing the great American novel to breaking someone’s heart in college.

Long lasting impact.

Who defines that?

A building. A book. A broken heart. Which is it?

Who gets to choose if it’s a positive or negative impact?

What if a positive impact for me could have been a negative impact for someone else — there are a lot of those in my journey. And vice versa.

Without a doubt the worst things that have happened to me have had the greatest impact – so in a sense those were all legacies left for me.

So what will be my legacy?

I don’t think I’ll ever really know.

I don’t think I really want to know.

Nor do I think my next decade will be spent in search of that – to activate that – to leave that.

I do know this decade will yield many accomplishments.

That building will get built.

I will become a fully published author.

My children will grow and be healthy and successful, as will my relationships.

And I’ll continue to mindlessly or mistakenly do something or say something or not do or say something that will have larger impacts than I can imagine.

And all that may or may not be considered my legacy.

I laugh a little because it occurs to me that in the end, I won’t be here to know and thus, it really won’t be my problem.

In the end, maybe the greatest legacy is just being a person, the type of person, who stops and thinks about it.

Maybe the legacy IS just the being part. Legacy IS that I lived at all.

Legacy is simply the waves of energy left behind in the wake of life.

And if that is the case, then I have a lot more energy to release and shitton of waves to make before I go.

Peace of mind.

One of the many themes I’ve been chewing on this past year is the aging process – physically, mentally, emotionally – and as you would expect I’ll explore each of those some more — but other variables in the outcome of aging are profoundly striking and easily missed — socially, spiritually, financially to name a few.

Today let’s lean in on the search for peace.

Peace of mind.

This need, this search, this active choice to protect one’s peace dramatically shifts as humans age.

No easier way to see this evolution than in the car after I’ve picked up the 15 year old boy and the 11 year girl after exhausting days at school and work.

She is full of piss and vinegar- rattling on about this drama and that conflict that even in just 5th grade is already producing factions of mean girls vs emo girls.

The boy is quiet, as freshman boys are, and will talk about class and school work and the drama and conflict around this teacher or that test.

And when asked about my day, I say it was hard – cause it always is- I’ll say I made it through – cause I always do – and that’s usually where I end.

Once in a blue moon I’ll share something that happened or something about someone but usually it’s in a context of a life lesson – like “don’t be that asshole who flakes out on the group project and then takes credit for it!”

But more times than not I’ve already jammed away my stress to some loud music and I’m ready to disengage from my work world and lean in on my home world.

This is an active approach to maintaining my inner peace.

There are thousands of moments in a given day/week/month that I choose peace — most revolve around keeping my mouth shut and not telling off someone, or texting someone, or seeing someone.

But it’s other ways – choosing songs to listen to that spark good memories instead of melancholy, reading articles that provide useful information instead of dread and angst, accepting an invitation to a social thing instead of retreating to my couch, heck even choosing to wear flats to work instead of heels because I just want to be comfortable.

And more importantly to this whole point it – these choices to act or not act – to preserve our inner and outer peace – are made instinctively and without doubt or remorse.

That is the difference in age.

That in other decades I would wrestle with saying no to a friend.

Today I say it and I move on.

In other decades I would hip check someone in a meeting who offended me or belittled me.

Now I inner laugh and move on.

In other decades I would fight the fight – whatever the battle, I was in it to win it.

Now, I let the battle run it’s course knowing there really is no victor.

Do we get this way because we are wiser?

Do we get this way because we are more emotionally and hormonally balanced?

Or do we get this way because we are just tired?

This meme was posted today by an elected official who often promotes the need for compromise and accountability and acrimony. And I respect that approach to politics and to life more and more.

But it’s not just respect – it’s understanding, in my being, that peace of mind is in of itself an active choice.

So to that I end with this:

May peace of mind be with you.

Set the intention.

As I creep closer to the celebration of my five decades, I find myself not only musing about my life and its lessons, but wanting to somehow make those thoughts, those mistakes, those lessons, those moments more concrete, more.. permanent.

I suspect this is natural and normal.

I am not unique.

I may have a unique perspective.

I certainly have a unique style of expression through writing.

So maybe I can write, and make concrete, things other people only feel or think or do.

And maybe there’ll be an audience interested enough to read it.

Maybe they will read it only to judge it.

Maybe they will read it only to identify with it.

Maybe they will read it to pass the time while taking a shit.

Or maybe they will never read it at all.

All of the above is part of the plan.

I write this for me

For the next 50 days I will share tid bits, lessons learned and random musings from a half century on this planet.

No formal structure or length or agenda. Just the documentation of the processing journey toward that monumental birthday.

Let’s see where this road takes me…us.

How does it all come together?

You wonder.

When it’s all said and done and the light in the living room light of your life is turned off, how does the puzzle on the floor you’ve been toiling at look?

Is it a complete work? A picture ? A moving hologram?

Are the edges smooth and crisp with lines perpendicular to one another?

Or are they jagged and piecemeal – curvy gaps left open, craving for closure?

Ah – and the ultimate question, are the lines supposed to connect, revealing a picture complete in its finality?

Or are there supposed to be jagged edges?

Is the puzzle supposed to remain unfinished, ever looking for that final piece?

And as we stand up to gain the higher view, the outside upward perspective of the picture that is our life – what is it that we see?

More work to be done.

More pieces to collect.

More angling and fishing and finishing and solving.

Or are we satisfied in our achievement?

Is whatever it is- enough ?

Can we see the beauty we created ?

Can we appreciate the complexity of the effort, the momentum of the task, the joy in its completion?

Not me.

Not matter how hard I try.

No matter how often I coach myself.

I will already be looking for that piece I lost somewhere under the couch.

I can’t even tell what the shape is supposed to be or where in the picture it is filling the void.

Like a shadow, it’s just there, behind me, over my shoulder, out of my reach.

The lost puzzle piece that is you.

That is what was.

What’s supposed to have been.

What will never be.

Always close but elusive nonetheless.

And somehow, someway, at some point before the end table lamp of my life extinguishes the light for the long night ahead – I will hold that piece in my hand and I will know.

I will know if it was meant to be lost all along.

Or if it truly belongs, in my puzzle.

And then, there will finally be peace.