admit it. At this stage in the game, I know I’ll never be famous nor fascinating enough to warrant a memoir, but I’m going to write one anyway.Just because.
Just because I feel the urge to document my life. Because memory is flagging. And there are no offspring to tell my story.
Just because more than a decade ago I blogged my personal life back when they weren’t even called blogs. And I loved it. Enjoyed it. And found it strangely exhilarating to spell out my life’s minutiae.
Just because there’s something satisfying about reading one’s thoughts several years later and discovering how much I have changed or how much I haven’t.
Just because it's therapeutic.
Just because I can.
Just because I want to.
And just because sometimes I don’t want to, but still do.
So where do I start? I start with now.
43 years, 3 months, 3 days and so many hours.
Hurtling towards middle life. Oh wait, when I do the math, this is middle age. Insert horror movie sound effects to indicate shocking revelation. Dandandan.
Alternately denying and affirming all the perks that come with this scary phase in a woman’s life. The word perk should never be in the same paragraph with the phrase middle life. It sounds so much like pert. Pert is what I wish some of my body parts are. But back to perks – what are they? Wisdom? Experience? Respect? Confidence? Maybe all of the above. Hard-earned all of them too.
Wisdom? How many stupid acts before the lessons were learned, allowing wisdom to finally set in so that I can charge everything to experience, maxing out that account. Who am I kidding? Some of those lessons are still not learned. But I hope that somehow I am wiser than I was 10 years ago, 10 minutes ago.
Respect? Maybe for the first five minutes when those younger folks look at me thinking maybe I know better. And then I open my mouth, and they realize age does not equate with maturity, respectability, dignity.
Confidence? Easily faked. But not easily maintained. Not when 20 something dynamos are making more money than I do, while their body parts are still pert.
It’s easier to inventory the non-perks. The effects of gravity on my body. Dark circles around the yes, and not because I’m goth. Groaning muscles. And the paranoia of disease and being deceased. The longing gaze at nubile lasses, not in a lesbianic way, but in a I-want-to-look-like-them way.
43 is not just a number. It is not the new 33. Middle age is not just all in the mind.
It is real. My driver’s license says so. My body says so. The pictures of my youth mock me so.
It brings with it aches -- bodily and the kind of ache that comes from somewhere near the gut. It brings with it sagging body parts and hearts sagging with unfulfilled desires. It brings with it 12.7 million terabytes of memories yet it comes with a loss of memory that says undeniably that age has started addling my brain.
And yet, I can say there is a certain degree of pride. Of being halfway there. Of surviving. Of failing and falling and standing up again with a harrumph and a smug, “kaya niyo yon?” (Can you do that?) Of all the wandering years that have not robbed me of the ability to wonder. Looking back at a life well lived, well loved. Well done. And looking forward to more of the same. More of the same, only better. And believing in my heart that the best is yet to come.
How do you like your life done?
Well, I'd rather have it raw, fresh, with no burnt parts.
But I'll take medium well done too. Seared on the outside. Juicy and vibrant on the inside.
Steak image stolen from here: http://badfiction.wordpress.com/2009/02/08/bad-fiction-exercise-dinner-time-by-kieran/
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