“Si la jeunesse savait, si l’age pouvait.”

If youth knew, if age could.

Better in French (it rhymes)! Essentially, Carpe Diem while you can. Might not be able to later.


I turned 64 a couple days ago, pretty quietly but MOST satisfactorily. Had drinks and snacks with 11 women friends, then made lobster tails and shrimp for dinner while watching the Survivor finale. It doesn't get much better than that!

Been reflecting tons on this Old Woman thing. Never thought I'd make it this long. While I know every day should feel like a gift, it does take an hour plus mornings for my body to buy into that hype.


I'm becoming more aware that there are SOME perks to being old. Time, for one. When young, life seemed so busy and rushed, not enough hours. So much to do, and a feeling of disquiet when I finally fell in bed at night. Never enough rest.


Well, I sure rest now. Can and do nap anytime I want. Turn down commitments with alacrity. Have become quite professional at saying No. Most days are a blank page when I get up, and most stay that way. I do NOT want to leave this world thinking "If only I'd worked harder, longer."


Along with age, simplicity's arrived. Minimal effort required when I do decide to go somewhere. And that's almost always food-related. Having acquired a haircut that looks the same when I get out of bed as it does after I "fix it", and comfy yoga pants with voluminous long tops, it takes very little time to add a bra, pop on a fresh Teva pad (leaky bladder) and grab my phone and car keys. Simplicity.


Pajamas. Last thought every night: Wonder if tomorrow can be a pajama day? I shoot for 4 PJ days a week. Today is not one, because we go eat at Panchos every Friday. My laundry basket is mostly pajamas.


I've become a bit starved for cerebral stimulation, learning new things. Not things to DO, horrors. Things to know, curiosity satisfied. Sometimes I log 8 hours or more daily just googling stuff. Yesterday I learned you really can't make an unbaked cheesecake without Cool Whip, AND the Salvation Army has made some positive efforts to dispel their anti-gay rhetoric. I also spend an hour daily flagging backyard breeder ads on Craigslist, probably futile I know. They repost within an hour. Just hoping if they decided they couldn't post free ads to sell these babies, they might actually spay their pets and find some other scam to make their crack money.

Having not blogged since May (!), a quick dirty recap:


Bought and furnished a decrepit mobile home in Minnesota near the kids to spend summers.

Old mobile home

Craigslist and some yard sale finds to furnish it:

Craft room with hide-a-bed for grandkids

Watched all 7 seasons of The West Wing FOUR TIMES. And Sopranos once. (Had unlimited bandwidth in Minnesota).


Learned to make Cornish Pasties, a meat and veggie-filled pie in a crust.


Worked hard over the summer assembling my Halloween costume for the party here in Kino, which I won once. I was Daenerys, the Mother of Dragons from Game of Thrones. Sadly, most people here don't get HBO and haven't seen it, so nobody knew who I was parodying.



My assemblage and crafting hobby has slowed down, mostly because I can't unload them as easily any more because everyone already has one. Here are my newest ones.

Dragonfly: ceiling fan blades and bedpost.




Steer Skull


Old faucet handle flower


That last one seemed to resonate with lots of people on Pinterest, kinda went viral. I think I DO need to get back into the crafting thing, might keep me out of my computer chair more.

We had planned to drive up to Minnesota for the holidays, but shit happened, as it tends to with us. My husband has this thing where he gets dizzy and falls down. This time he landed on the point of his chin. Broke his jaw in several places, smashed his dentures to smithereens, broke 4 ribs, and blew out his eardrum. Had to have his jaw wired shut for 3 weeks, and dentures are still a few months away. The VA has never been able to work up the fainting thing, but since they transferred him to Banner University Hospital for this, we're now in THEIR system on the VA's dime, and they're re-admitting him this Monday for a 5 day complete evaluation. He'll be wired brain, heart, video, audio the whole time to try to witness what's going down when he goes down. He has one of these "spells" almost daily, no way will it not happen there in 5 days.

So looking forward to him getting fixed, our Christmas Eve party here where we steal each other's gifts, new dentures for Ron (although I think he's actually gained a few pounds drinking high-protein smoothies), and headed north to our summer place as soon as their ice and snow goes away.

Validation!

Mother's Day (admittedly merely a HallMark Cards holiday) is finally a happy day for me. I have a son I love intensely, and grandchildren who light me from inside, and they Skype'd me on Mother's Day.



Jon Mark, with Dylan and Miss Nora

But it's been a flawed holiday, in part, because of my inability to come to terms with my own mother's abuse of me.

Just saw this article from 2013 re: children of abuse and what (if anything) they owe the abusive parent later when they need help. It's long, but by the time I got through it AND the over 200 comments, my face was tear-streaked and I was feeling an overwhelming, shuddering relief that there ARE people like me, that get it. 

Article: The Debt (click)

Here are some excerpts from the article and comments, followed by my own:

"How about a problem parent that is nice as pie to non-family, so everyone in the community thinks they're wonderful, and that there must be something wrong with you - and you can't, and don't, tell them the truth?"

"My mother is the same; to everyone else, she appears to be loving and caring, helpful and supportive, but what no one seems to recognize is that what she is actually doing is constantly belittling and undermining me behind my back. 'Poor daughter, she has so many problems, it's really sad,' and there's no way to defend yourself against that. The bottom line is that appearance is everything to people like her, and if you get ground up under the wheels, well, bummer for you. The only way to handle it is to stay away as much as possible and live your life to make yourself safe and happy."

Up til the day my mother died, that was my chosen method of preserving my sanity.

A few of my friends and my own family knew my mother was emotionally abusive to me, but publicly she was a paragon of goodness. I finally found the strength (at 30 years old!) to physically remove myself and my own family. Moved 2000 miles away.

"...keep yourself in a shark cage with no opportunity to let that person take a bite out of you..."

We moved back 15 years later when my dad started having health problems, but I was strong enough by then to not be affected much by mom. Lost dad (AND only sibling) a few years later, and mom's dementia surfaced right away.

"Those who refuse to make peace with a failing parent may also find themselves judged harshly."

"Telling children of abusive or neglicful parents to find closure and forgive and let these people back in your life is like telling an alcoholic one drink won't kill you."

I lost most of my brother's family over my refusal to move in to care for my mother after dementia took over. It wasn't her asking (dementia precludes self-awareness), it was family, who could not abide having a court-appointed guardian when there was a perfectly capable daughter around to do it. They never did believe she was abusive to me, so of course there was no excuse whatsoever. My niece chose to be her guardian, did a fine job, and I lost them.

"I have often felt alone in the choices I've made. Not many can understand them."
"There should be a level of Hell reserved for parents who betray their own innocent and dependent children; ignoring these worthless creatures in their old age or infirmity is the best means of self-help imaginable."

"I am well aware that she had a crappy childhood, but I
don't give her a free pass because of that."
"I am at peace with the choices I made"

Until today, I wasn't. All I knew was I couldn't forgive and could never forget, and was consumed with guilt over that.   Emotional see-saw has always been my norm when thinking about her, but after reading this article I feel OK now. 

(And as always, thanks for being there for me J'net!)