Archive for the ‘guest poster’ Category
Her face fell
Wednesday, December 21st, 2011
I have this friend Tracy. Well, more than a friend. She’s a sister from another mother. She is the kind of person who will go to bat for you without you asking – or without you even knowing about it. She is loyal and kind and insanely generous and beautiful in mind, body and spirit. Also, she’s funny. Seriously funny.
Her birthday is this Thursday. She is exactly nine days older than me which is almost like being twins, right? I am ecstatic to host my love, Tracy of Sellabitmum, to talk about the joys of 40s.
I’ve been putting off going to the DMV all month. My license expires this month. My birthday month.
I truthfully don’t want to the DMV as I love my current license picture. Damn I looked good at 39.
It’s hard for me to accept sometimes the difference these four years have made.
To my face.
I tell this to my girlfriends who are in their mid-30’s.
“Enjoy your 30’s and embrace those laugh lines you currently sport..because at 39 it pretty much all goes to shit and those laugh lines become crevices and you wonder why your cheeks now seem to fall below your chin.”
Not to say that turning 40 is going to shit. Because it’s not. I love my 40’s.
I’m just trying to be a good friend and warn them that while in your 30’s you can probably pass for a younger woman…without a “cosmetic tuning” – in your 40’s…well..you’re going to look like your are in your 40’s. And if you try to pass for younger, or dress for younger, or act for younger…well you just look like an idiot and quite possibly a drag queen.
And sometimes you scare yourself when you catch a glimpse of that shit in the mirror.
Or when you go to pop a zit – because YAY you still get zits in your 40’s – the line from you nail that you used to pop that zit now becomes a permanent crease in your skin…next to the now larger zit.
So I decided that this year, with my new skin and all, that I would make more of an effort. I would buy the testicle infused anti-wrinkle creams, and foundation laced with hubba bubba, and moisturizer delicately made with the extract of the Heather Locklear flower.
Or maybe I just entered Macy’s and found which make-up counter had the hottest girls and thus walked up to the Smashbox counter for the first time in my life and said “Hi my name’s Tracy and I want to look like all of you, no matter that you are 19, where do I hook myself up to the I.V?”
And do you know what that tight-skinned super model said to me after greeting me and not even asking me what I was looking for that day.
“We have the greatest anti-wrinkle make-up on the market”
When the correct answer would’ve been.
“You look great – you don’t need our products!”
So I spent $200 on valium infused tinted moisturizer and damn if my skin doesn’t look the same as it did last Saturday.
Anyway. My point is.
Ladies. It’s going to happen. You can choose to fight it. Whine about it. Spend an excessive amount of time, money and angst worrying about it.
Or you can embrace it. Love and look your age. Love your lines and your experience and be glad. Be really glad you are not 19 anymore
And just enjoy this time as you laugh in the faces of your friends in their 30′s who never think it’s going to happen to them.
Oh the sweet innocent ones.
And if you want to feel better about yourself…just go hang-out with some 70 year olds. 70 year old men that is. As believe me…70 year men dig me right now.
Tags: aging skin, DMV, license photo, Sellabitmum, women in their 40s
Posted in guest poster, Humor | 50 Comments »
Sinken and Sanken and Sunk – at 40
Wednesday, December 14th, 2011
You all know my love for Julie Gardner. As wonderful as she seems on the internet, I can assure you, it pales in comparison by how truly lovely she is in person. I am incredibly proud to call her my friend and am thrilled she’s sharing a moment from her life at 40.
Sinking and Sanken and Sunk
“I want to run a marathon.”
I said this to my husband Bill over a couple of margaritas in the bar of a local Mexican food restaurant. It was September 21st, 2008; and I was turning 40 in less than two weeks.
Bill smiled at me — I’m sure it was a gesture of admiration and not a smirk of disbelief — as I laid out the bare bones of my idea.
“So my birthday’s coming,” I said, although he hardly needed reminding. His 40th wasn’t until the following April and he’d been acting pretty smug. As if it were some grand achievement to be born five months after I’d already entered this way-too competitive world.
“Anyway,” I continued, “I’d hoped to hit this decade in the best shape of my life. But clearly that ship has sailed.”
Or — as my daughter had recently said in response to my coy admission that perhaps the boat of my youth had left the dock — “Mommy, that ship has sanken!”
“Still,” I said, “I want to do something BIG this year. And as a gift to myself, I figured why not run a marathon?”
Why not?
Perhaps because I had bad knees; or because I’d taken a leave of absence from teaching to write a novel not to run; or because Carlos was delivering another round of margaritas (with salt) and sodium’s not conducive to training.
But Bill didn’t offer any of these arguments. He just kept smiling and nodding.
(I don’t want to give anyone the impression that he’s brainless. In fact, he’s smarter than I am in almost everything besides poetry explication. However, he’d learned that trying to float a word into the hurricane of our one-sided conversations was wasted energy.)
“But here’s the thing,” I whispered, in case Carlos was eavesdropping. “I want it to be a secret.”
I then explained — in greater detail than any man should be expected to tolerate while enjoying chips and salsa — that I wanted to spend the next five months preparing to run 26.2 miles while writing about these travails in what would hopefully be a publishable account of my midlife marathon.
But.
I wasn’t going to tell anyone. About the race or the book. Because, you know. Everyone loves surprises!
(And also I could quit without anyone knowing I’d sanken.)
I admitted to an obstacle or two, then suggested how I’d hurdle every one. In fact, I didn’t stop blathering until Bill stopped nodding. Then, as my husband drained his glass, I prepared to address his reasons against such lunacy; hindrances I’d not yet considered.
He looked me in the eye, waiting to see if I was actually done talking. Which I was.
That’s when he said, “Go for it.” To me, to Carlos, to everyone.
Oh crap! I thought. Is it too soon to quit?
But I didn’t. I couldn’t. I can’t.
Not while my children are watching, deciding what it means to have a goal. Not while my husband’s cheering me on as I chase down every last one of my dreams.
So I write and run; I sink and swim. I fail more often than I succeed. But in the effort is inherent success. And to me turning 40 brought with it an incentive; a motivation to make the most of the rest of my life.
Sure, I’d love to sign a book contract or run another marathon. I could update my Bucket List of wishes I hope to someday make true. But the freedom to try is by far the best gift.
And it’s one I’ve already received.
Tags: Julie Gardner, running a marathon, turning 40
Posted in guest poster | 61 Comments »
About 40
Wednesday, December 7th, 2011
December is a big month for my family and me. We have our anniversary, Sawyer’s birthday, Christmukah, and my birthday, which many of you celebrate under its pseudonym: New Year’s Eve.
In honor of my birthday month, because goddammit, if I have to count down every year the last seconds of my birthday, then Imma gonna take the whole month to celebrate.
Winning!
Anyway. In honor of this special birthday month, I’m excited to bring you essays from a few of my favorite writers – and, more important, favorite people – on the the interwebs, to talk about life in their 40s. Because our 40s? Ain’t our mother’s 40s.
To kick it off, I am thrilled to have one of the kindest people I have ever met, Sherri from Old Tweener. She is incredibly supportive and a fantastic mother and, well, I love her.
The Good, the Bad, and the Forty
I can still remember the day it happened.
A cold, clear Saturday morning in early September. I was coaching my then six year-old daughter’s soccer team in one of those horridly-early 8am games. I remember standing there with my coffee mug in hand, whistle hanging around my neck, just taking it all in. It was my 40th birthday.
So this is what it’s like to be forty, I thought.
Whew, not too bad so far.
I had no idea what the coming decade had in store for me.
Seven years later, I still have no clue what to expect of the next three.
There was a big part of me that was anxious to be 40, to prove that 40 years-old in this generation means something completely different than it did for the previous one.
But some days, I’m not so sure.
I feel like the Age Fairy swooped down and took a few tiny things from me that I used to take for granted. Took them in the middle of the night, quietly, while I was sleeping the very sound sleep of a younger person.
She took my flexibility, which I wasn’t drowning in to begin with but was certainly nice to have. I am realizing this now that bending down to tie my shoes takes so much effort. On a related note, aren’t those Ugg-type boots awesome?
She took away my jack-rabbit metabolism; the one that allowed me to eat eleven pizza burgers on a dare in college, ice cream every day if I wanted it, real cream and sugar in my morning coffee, and any amount of candy or soda I wanted. And still stay thin and have a flat tummy. Please don’t hate; apparently my time has come.
She took my short-term memory. I may remember what my son was wearing the first day of preschool, but why am I in this room?
She took the perkiness I used to have in my face. That youthfulness that borders on a glow, that shouts Card Me! at the liquor store. Replaced with sags and bags, crow’s feet and acne. Um yeah, I don’t get carded anymore.
But the Age Fairy also left some things behind I didn’t realize I needed.
She left me a new voice. I don’t care what others think quite as much as I once did. I voice my opinions more often without worrying what someone will think of me.
She left me realizing that society’s version of perfect isn’t mine. I’ve found a new comfort in my own skin; free from decades of worrying that these thighs or this chest weren’t like Cindy Crawford’s.
I’m left with a new understanding that friends, laughter, making plans and trying new things is the fuel that keeps us young.
I understand now why my grandmother would always watch “her shows” in the afternoon. To see what the young people were doing. Pretty much what I do in the blogosphere. For a few hours each day, I read and I tweet and I laugh with a generally younger crowd than I would hang with in nature.
And I love it. I feel thirty again when I hang with you guys, laugh with you, and read your stories just like my grandmother watched her shows.
Until I look in the mirror. Or hear my hip pop when I get up from the chair after an hour of blogging.
And as I stare down fifty in less than three years, I can honestly say that my forties have been pretty damn awesome.
Fifty? Bring it on…
Tags: being in your 40s, birthday, old tweener, turning 40
Posted in guest poster | 50 Comments »
Crazy Eights
Friday, June 4th, 2010
Today I’m bringing you another guest poster, Kirsten from Nilsen Life. The first time I ever read her words, I thought she was an absolutely gentle writer. Gentle. She has such a gift of getting her message across without knocking you over the head with it. And in that way, what she has to say is that much more powerful.
She’s also brilliant and uses big words which I pretend to understand. She might be on to me. Anyway, she has lived a fascinating life, full of travel, and now brings her sense of wonder to her three kids. She blogs about her life, her faith, her memories – and every post is beautiful. I hope you check out her blog.
Her post today is one to which all of us can relate. Motherhood is so hard sometimes. So hard. Sometimes we just have to remember to be kind to ourselves, too.
I muster every last bit of patience I have, and lean over to give one last good night kiss. I feel long arms around my neck, and a whispered plea – “Mommy – can you stay and cuddle me? Just for a little while?”
My heart sinks.
I remember the exhausting battle it was to get hair washed tonight. I remember the screaming fit the two year-old pitched because we weren’t reading FIVE [Curious] “George stories”. I remember that we didn’t agree on an outfit for school tomorrow, and that means a battle looms in the morning over whether we can wear Hello Kitty glitter shoes and a skirt without tights.
In a split second images flash through my head – the stacks of dishes waiting for the dishwasher, the bills that need examining, my laptop blinking its compelling ’5 new messages’, the botttle of red wine that is waiting its turn to glug glug glug into my glass. I imagine the 5:30 wakeup call that smirks from the far side of the night.
Putting the kids to bed on my own for the fifth time this week has once again reminded me that the ‘work week widow’ gig isn’t always as sweet as it sounds.
No, I say.
No.
I believe – believe with all my heart, in fact – that you should always take the moment to hug them an extra time. I know that life turns on a dime, and that each second is precious. I know that their growing up years will flash by too quickly, and I will find myself wondering where my good night kisses have gone.
And yet – I say No.
Tonight, all I had was the strength to say No. I am not enough, I don’t have enough, and I will be more for you in the morning.
We all need a card to play when we don’t have anything left. A crazy eight, designed to cover for the worst hand. A card that gets us a free pass.
Tonight was my Crazy Eight card.
Posted in guest poster | 11 Comments »
