Maturity @ MindSay

The other day a young person asked me how I felt about being old. I was taken aback, because I do not think of myself as old. Upon seeing my reaction, she was immediately embarrassed, but I explained that it was an interesting question, and I would ponder it, and let her know.

Old Age, I decided, is a gift. Mind you, I am not quite there, but I am now, probably for the first time in my life, the person I have always wanted to be.  Oh, not my body!  I sometime despair over my body, the wrinkles, the baggy eyes, and the sagging butt, etc.  And often I am taken aback by that older person that lives in my mirror,but I don't agonize over those things for long. 

I would never trade my amazing friends, my wonderful life, my loving family for fewer gray hairs or a flatter belly. As I've aged, I've become more kind to myself, and less critical of myself. I've become my own friend. I don't chide myself for eating that extra cookie, or for not making my bed, or for buying that silly cement gecko that I didn't need, but looks so avante garde on my patio.  I am entitled to a treat, to be messy, to be extravagant.  I have seen too many dear friends leave this world too soon; before they understood the great freedom that comes with maturity.

Whose business is it if I choose to read or play on the computer until 4 AM and sleep until noon?

I will dance with myself to those wonderful tunes of the 60 & 70's, and if I, at the same time, wish to weep over a lost love ... I will.

I will walk the beach in a swim suit that is stretched over a bulging body, and will dive into the waves with abandon if I choose to, despite the pitying glances from the jet set.

They, too, will get old soon enough.

I know I am sometimes forgetful.  But there again, some of life is just as well forgotten. And I  eventually remember the important things.

Sure, over the years my heart has been broken.   How can your heart not break when you lose a loved one, or when a child suffers, or even when somebody's beloved pet gets hit by a car?  But broken hearts are what give us strength and understanding and compassion.  A heart never broken is pristine and sterile and will never know the joy of being imperfect.

I am so blessed to have lived long enough to have my hair turning gray, and to have my youthful laughs be forever etched into deep grooves on my face.  So many have never laughed, and so many have died before their hair could turn silver.  

As you get older, it is easier to be positive. You care less about what other people think .  I don't  question myself anymore.  I've even earned the right to be wrong.

So, to answer your question, I  like being older. It has set me free.  I like the person I have become.  I am not going to live forever, but while I am still here, I will not waste time lamenting what could have been, or worrying about what will be.  And I shall eat dessert every single day. (If I feel like it) ;)

~B

P.S.  I just made my travel plans to go for another visit to Charleston ... with a stop off in Savannah to see my soldiergirl!  YAY!!!  :D

Last night my husband observed that I am very animated and  outgoing even with people  do not particularly want to be friends with and that trait sometimes leads people to think I like them more than I do. He on the other hand is very good at discouraging relationships.   So we started thinking about how/why I developed this trait and I actually managed to do it.

In my family of origin my major survival tactic took several forms. Don’t cause trouble  (keep a low profile, be good) be charming and suck up to others (in order to avoid their wrath)  and give the family a cheerleader peppy front that looked like forthrightness while hiding my real feelings from them.

It made me survive a crazy mother and narcissistic father and three grabbing siblings who all were trying to get by. And it made me a teacher’s pet so I got many strokes from school life. Plus I was bright and cute and let me go pretty far without much family support for the many dreams that children have.

And then I found that I continued to do it as an adult because it had worked so well. It is the trait that permitted me to marginally survive in the deep south and get jobs easily and  become involved in community activities and essentially not live in a cave.  Alone.

With my husband I did not do the “thing” I was taught. We were great non romantic friends long before we dated and so our exchanges were based on relentless honesty. Besides as a young woman I trusted men more than women ( one mom and two sicko sisters always wanting a chunk of you ya know? )

My recent self examination with a psychiatrist- the one with the toe fungus and poor eye contact has been really helpful. She is bright and quick and remembers things and doesn’t analyze till the just right moment and then very gently. She helped me identify how compliant a child I was when I grew up thinking I was so difficult, and how generous and nice I am when I thought I was selfish to want anything for myself.  By now you are thinking and this woman did therapy? Hahahahaha yes one can be quite aware and blind in a personal spot and help others deal with it quite well. Besides I was mostly cognitive behavioral anyway.

So when a woman from Alabama called me and I groaned because I didn’t see any  point in continuing a relationship with a nice but not much in common with her other than Judaism woman, Jim pointed out that I mislead people unconsciously into thinking I wanted to be with them more than I actually did and maybe it was unfair of me. Yes. And no w that I am conscious of it I need to take responsibility for it. Shit.

So I washed the wool a second time and will probably have to wash it one more time before it is useable. I am going to wait till spring before I clean the other two bales.

I've been looking back on my life again, which seems to be something that I've been doing far too much this last year, and in about 3 more years I will look back on all this and realize that I was probably losing my mind or some shit along those lines.

I went out with some friends from high school today. Well really they are from that infamous Senior year, that year where I now know that I was nowhere near being myself. And my day today only proves that Senior year and basically all of 2005 was nothing but a load of crap. It was Kat going around pretending she was someone that she most definetly is not. And these people that I attached myself to today only helped me to see that. They act nothing like I do anymore, and it makes me wonder if I acted like them before or if I am merely looking back and thinking that was the way I acted. It's stupid things like this that run through my head when I am trying to think of what's going to happen to me in the future. It's stupid things like this that make me realize that I am forever destined to be a recluse, I can't handle people, I can't be around someone without wanting to imprint themselves upon me. For some fucking reason I just can't find myself, and at first I would tell myself that I am too young to worry about all that shit, but truth is I know that I am not too young--I am just too damn apathetic. And with all that shit lifted off my chest I am ready to end this rant and move onto a more meaningful task.

Only two brief weeks it was, but I achieved more than my fair share of drama and angst, and came out of it all with absolutely nothing... except a dose of humility and some life lessons. Here be the lessons:

1) 17 year old girls are immature. OK, that's a little unfair - 17 year old girls CAN be very immature, and it is always worth considering this before embarking on any kind of relationship with one.

2) You can try to be as rational about a relationship as you want, and spend hours analysing it - and still be completely wrong about it.

3) Pay no attention if a girl drops hints. Don't believe something to be fact unless she comes right out and says it to you. If that happens, still be skeptical.

4) Words and expressions are often meaningless, and if the speaker/writer seems young and immature, take such words with a grain of salt.

5) If it's obvious that there's no chemistry between you and the girl after the first couple of meetings, don't bother pursuing it any further. She's not going to change overnight.

What really frustrates me about this whole affair is that I was able to misread the situation the way I did. True, Aimee seemed to drop plenty of hints that she was interested in me, and when she changed her relationship status on her internet profile from 'single' to 'in a relationship' just six days after we had kissed in the cinema, I don't know what else I was supposed to think. It was more a combination of things: it was clear she thought she was in a relationship with someone, and the way she talked to me at times made it seem very likely, even from an objective point of view, that I was that 'someone'.

Of course, it was something of a farcical situation. Although she is a very attractive girl, and we had a couple of good outings in the first week, I realised very early on that I felt nothing for her whatsoever. So, I didn't feel terribly upset last Tuesday night when she told me that she had slept with her ex-boyfriend the day before - indeed, it was more of a relief, as it stopped me from having to break the news of my own feelings to her.

What did hurt me was when I found out later that night that she was not interested in me anyway, and was seeing someone else. Even so, and taking my own feelings into account, why should I have cared anyway?

I think it was the fact that I thought she was interested in me. I've never actually had a girl like me that way before, I don't think, and well, it gave me an ego boost. Kind of made me feel a little bit better about myself. This whole thing came at a time, too, when I was at a very low point. So to have that all taken away was a little hard to accept.

But, life goes on. I haven't really lost anything... all I can do is chalk it up as one more false dawn, and fortunately I did not invest too many emotions or feelings in the whole thing, as I have unfortunately done in the past in similar situations.

As for Aimee, I don't have any hard feelings towards her - why should I? If she was at fault at all, it was due to her immaturity, and maturity is something that comes with time... she's not to blame for her lack of it. And, I was hardly the innocent victim, anyway - perhaps I treated the whole situation somewhat immaturely myself.

There is always the possibility of something else, though - what if she WAS initially interested in me, but after she got to know me, she lost interest? Or, maybe, more positively, she came to the same conclusion I did and realised it wasn't going to work out after a few days? Who knows?

At the moment, I just want to forget about it. I kind of humiliated myself, really, but that is nothing new. While it would be nice to have learnt something from this, all I really hope is, when something good does eventually happen, I won't have become so cynical and disillusioned that I can't even enjoy it.