Fifty is the New Thirty

What everyone who read my first blog book liked the most were the pictures,  especially the two on Page 20. I had written a post about baby boomers and their refusal to grow old. Unlike the generations before them who went quietly and without a fight through the treacherous gates of aging (once you go through, you'll never come out alive), these young whipper snappers are fighting back with everything they have in their anti-aging arsenal. It appears to be working. Fifty is now the new thirty.

          My Grandmother, Mattie, at age 50               My sister, Lynnette, at age 50                   

The Good News

June, 1976

"You cannot have children, Carol Louise," my doctor said after a physical examination. The announcement that my body would not be able to birth a child was not devastating news to me considering I'd just lost the one and only true love of my life. According to a recent news report, the statistics showed that at age thirty the chances of me finding love again were almost nonexistent; I was destined to be an old maid. An old maid without kids.

September, 1980

"The test is positive," the nurse said. I hung up the phone and thought about the word "positive." Did that mean positive I was or positive I wasn't. I called the nurse back and this time she said, "You're having a baby."

"But, but, but the doctor said I couldn't have children."

"Well, guess what? The doctor was wrong."

I beat the odds. Four years after losing the love of my life, I'd found another and this time it was with a cowboy from the south side of Indianapolis. We were engaged; I was going to be a farmer's wife, the stepmother to two beautiful little girls, and now, with the news that my doctor was wrong, I was going to be a mother.

"I have some good news and I have some bad news," I said but I could tell he wasn't in the mood to pick which one he wanted to hear first so I said. "The good news is we're going to have a baby, and the bad news is I'm afraid you're not going to think that is good news." Silence. He was thinking. This thoughtful interlude led me to believe my concern about him not thinking the news was good might be correct.

Not everyone was happy with the news. My boss said, "Carol Louise. I'm so disappointed in you. I thought you were smarter than that." My doctor said, "You're too told to have a baby." My aunt Gracie said, "That's not how we do things in our family." Mother cried a lot. But the person I most wanted to hear from was silent.

November, 1980

He couldn't stop laughing. The minister stopped the wedding. "That's okay," he said. "When some people are really nervous, they laugh." But the more he tried to stop, the harder he laughed and soon everyone in the church was laughing along with him. All five of us.

Not everyone was pleased with the six o'clock in the morning wedding. My boss said, "Carol Louise. You never cease to disappoint me." My doctor said, "Who gets married at six o'clock in the morning?" My aunt Gracie said, "That's not how we do things in our family." Mother cried a lot. But the person whose opinion I cared about the most couldn't stop laughing.

April, 1981

I'm going back now to that Monday morning, the twenty-seventh day of April, 1981. Thirty-three years ago today. A trip down memory lane. It's seven in the morning and already the sun is bright. The windows in the downstairs parlor (also our bedroom) are wide open, which invites the outdoors inside where we are lying in our waterbed, asleep. The warming ground releases its earthy, rural smells and the chickens and birds cluck and sing outside our window as they go about their business, oblivious to what's about to let loose inside the old white farmhouse.

Ouch! The first one wasn't too painful and it didn't last long. But then after my water broke, it was Ouch! Ouch! and OOOOOUCH! He was incredible. As I whined and moaned and groaned and stood helpless in the middle of the parlor clutching my swollen belly, he, the cool and always calm cowboy, took control, and within minutes we were in the car and on our way to deliver our baby boy.

Not everyone was thrilled about the birth of my son. My boss said, "While you were gone, we gave your job to someone else." My doctor said, "Don't ever do this again!" My aunt said, "This is not how we do things in this family." My mother cried tears of joy, and the person whose opinion I valued the most couldn't stop smiling.

Summer, 1981

Three beautiful reasons to smile

The Perfect Irony

You know how, when you hear someone profess one thing but do the opposite, you feel a nagging urge to say something? You know how, when you're witnessing the perfect irony, you get excited and want to share it with everyone around you at the very moment it's happening? You know how, when you act on those impulses--perfect ironies don't come around that often--you can become the center of unwanted attention? You know how, when everyone is staring at you, you wish you had kept your big mouth shut? No? That's never happened to you because you always think before you speak? Well, aren't you special.

In the spring of 1989 Thomson University hired a very

expensive, self-proclaimed expert on how to achieve

perfection in the workplace. I was at that lecture. It should

have been called "How to Achieve the Perfect Irony."

Emancipation

The day Jason turned eighteen, he informed me that he was emancipated and could do whatever he wanted, and there was nothing I could do about it. He was standing at the bathroom sink admiring himself in the mirror when he saw me at the doorway. He tried to slam the door shut, but my foot foiled his attempt to hide his birthday present to himself: a diamond stud earring. As I hobbled down the hall with my foot pain, he poked his head out of the bathroom and said, "I'm eighteen, Mom. You know what that means, right?" Before I could answer he boasted,  "Emancipation. I'm a free man now."

As I sat on the couch with my foot in a bucket of Epson Salts, I thought about my response to Jason's declaration of freedom. "Oh, good. Now you can pay for your car insurance and half the mortgage and three-fourths of the grocery bill. Now you can cut the grass and take out the trash and... ." But before I had a chance to think of more things he could do now that he was a free man, he darted past me, picked up his cars keys, and ran out the backdoor. 

It occurred to me, as I nursed my swollen foot and wounded pride, that I had lost control of my only child. How did that happen? When did that happen? Was it too late to get it back?

"It's too late," a voice in my head said. "You lost control of Jason when he was a child."

"Is that you, God?" I said.

"Are you serious?" the voice responded,  "Do I sound like God?"

"Well, I'm not sure. You talk to a lot of people, and I sure could use some divine intervention right now."

"I'm your subconscious mind. It's my job to make you feel bad about all of the things you should have done differently in your life. I'm here to make you feel guilt."

"Are you sure you're not God?"

"I'm the part of your mind that needed therapy years ago, way before you gave birth to a child that you were not qualified to raise by yourself, a child that would suffer because of your inability to control him."

"But, but, but...he's not the one suffering. Did you see my foot? 

"Oh, he's suffering all right. Did you look out the window?"

AND NOW FOR THE REST OF THE STORY

My son is a big boy but his cowboy father is bigger. Cowboys don't wear earrings and neither do their sons. News travels fast. Too fast for emancipating young men and their diamond stud freedom. Oh, boy! The cowboy ain't happy. Jason has just been pulled out of the car by the collar on his shirt. He's dangling in midair at the end of his father's big strong arm.

"Are you there, God. Because if you are, I think Jason sure could use some divine intervention right now."

1964 Class Reunion

Click on picture to enlarge

Don't Raise the Flag

If you have me on a list of people you send cards to for such events as birthdays or Christmas, let me make your life a little easier. If you are going to let some stranger at a card factory who does not know me write a sappy, rhyming, out-of-touch-with-reality message for you and all you do is sign your name, then don't bother. Save the cost of the card. Save your stamp. Save your saliva. Don't walk out to your mailbox and don't raise the flag. If you can't think of a few words to jot down to show me your heart and focus on me are also included in the card-sending tradition, then don't bother.

Oh, now I've upset you. I'm really sorry about that but someone needs to tell you about your lack of good etiquette and proper behavior in the social arena.

What? What do you mean I didn't acknowledge your birthday yesterday? Didn't you get my "Hp u hav a gd BD" text?

Earth, Humans, & Impact

Neil deGrasse Tyson, the astrophysicist who hosts the show Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey reports that the rock on which we humans live is about five billion earth years old. Try to imagine five billion of anything. When I was a young child, my Sunday school teacher told me that if I never, ever sinned, I'd go to Heaven where all my deceased relatives and beloved cats would be, and I'd live forever and ever and ever and ever. On occasion I'd force myself to stop long enough to think about what living forever in Heaven would be like. The thought of living, with no end in sight, with a bunch of old dead people and smashed cats--my cats always got run over in the street--scared the Dickens out of me.

Scare'n the Dickens Out of Me 

When I was a little girl, we lived at 16th and Broadway.

Mr. Dickens was an old, skinny, bent-over man with no teeth,

 and a long, filthy, scraggly beard, who would chase neighborhood kids

with a butterfly net. When he caught them, he'd take them inside his

dark, dingy, dirty home and eat them. It was the smallest children who

couldn't run fast who usually got caught. The bigger kids, like me, could

normally outrun Mr. Dickens, but, still the thought of being gnawed

on by such a disgusting-looking, toothless man was really scary.

Since I cannot not tell a lie--it's a human condition; everyone does it and if they tell you they don't they're lying--I no longer worry about living in Heaven in infinity. Now with Neil deGrasse Tyson's new show Cosmos, I have something else to worry about. 

According to Tyson, if the earth was created at 12:00 a.m. on January 1st, then we humans would not make an appearance until December 31st at 12:59:46. That's right. Humans have been living on earth for 14 seconds. If the Timeline pie chart for earth was a big yellow sphere depicting five billion years, then human existence of 14 seconds is shown by a tiny red dot just above the impact (also shown in red) that only a few seconds of human influence can create. I don't know about you but that scares the Dickens out of me.

Earth = 5,000,000 years old
Humans = 14 seconds old
Human impact = Scarey

In comparison, Mr. Dickens doesn't seem that scary.