The Early-Mid-40s

Holla! Tomorrow is my first day in my early-mid-40s.

I have this system, see: When you turn, say 40, you're 40. Then 41-43 is the early 40s, 44-46 is the mid-40s, and 47-49 is the late 40s. 41 is the early-early-40s, 42 is the mid-early-40s, 43 is the late-early-40s, and so on. Anyhoo. Now you know.

I'm in my early-mid-40s.

I'm hitting the middle of the decade of official Middle Age.

And stuff is changing, man.

Old folks say things all of the time. Stuff like, "I still feel like a teenager inside; it's only when I see myself in the mirror that I realize..." And you think, "Sure you do, oldie." It just doesn't sink in. Until it does.

There have been several things I've noticed over the past few weeks and months that have really sneaked up on me (yes, that's grammatically correct), and it's shocking how freaking typical I am in this whole thing. I don't love being "average." Yet here I am.

In no particular order:

#1) Number One. This is likely a mixture of age and having recently had a kid. Gosh, I hope. Anyway, the thing is this: I have to sneak to the restroom without letting my body know that's where I'm headed. I can't even think, "Oh, good! It looks like I have a moment to go to the --- WHOOPS! NO! NOT NOW!!" Seriously. My eyeballs register the outside of a stall door and before I've even reached out to open it, it's like, "Release the Kraken!" Good gravy, Mabel! We still have a good six or seven seconds before it will be safe! So I can't share this information with my body, really; unfortunately, I don't know how to get my brain to cooperate with me on this one.

#2) Close-in Vision. I've been myopic enough to require corrective lenses since 1977 (which was 2nd grade, for those of you who, like I, hate unnecessary maths). This has rarely been a blast, especially as a small child and awkward teen, when glasses were either strictly utilitarian or just purposefully ugly. That's the only thing that makes sense.

However, my close-in vision has always been incredible. Without my contacts in, I can read the microprint on checks. I can read tiny print on anything, including pictures of stuff. And as long as my vision is uncorrected, I can still do this. However, if I'm trying to read anything smaller than regular book print, it's becoming more difficult to do so in less than perfect light, or with writing on a less-than-strictly-contrasting-colored background. It's frustrating because I could read this stuff with my contacts in/glasses on like FOUR SHORT MONTHS AGO. So what the heck?

James said it's because our lenses thicken as we age, rendering us less able to focus with the acuity we once had. I'm sure he's right, but that's just plain dumb. I exercise my eyes. They should repay me by staying fit. Jerks.

#3) Post-Baby Spread. I am not sure how much of this is strictly age and how much has to do with that plus having a baby. I'm going to blame it all on my little kid, because it's not a deal-breaker, and it makes me feel like less of a senior citizen to think I had some help.

Anyway, after I had Daphne, I just gained a bunch of weight and was generally fat. Then I lost the weight. That makes it all sound a lot simpler than it was. There was drama, there was work. Sure, all of that. But my weight gain was all-around and my weight loss took a bit of time and discipline, but it happened within less than a year of my deciding to fix things.

With Mal, my body is actually changing. The distribution is not typical for my body, and I don't know how to handle it.

First, I've never been very busty, and this nursing thing is keeping me plenty filled in up top. Next, apparently breastfeeding melts gluteal fat, so my posterior, in addition to getting a lot of use during frequent floor play and nursing sessions, is actually flatter because some of the fat is outta there. So that's weird. Mom butt. And THEN there's the tone I lost (YES, I HAD SOME) during the pregnancy, what with the stretching of the belly area, and its shrinking back down. There is also some left-over layering that is still there and I've read doesn't want to go away as long as I'm still nursing. I PROMISE YOU, BODY, I'M NOT IN DANGER OF STARVING.

Le sigh.

With this stuff, though, I know it's just a matter of making good choices and waiting it out. I have zero desire to do sit-ups or go to the gym at all. I love walking with my people, and I'll love riding my bike again once we get into a neighborhood where that's feasible... and I replace my stolen bike (grumble grumble grumble).

Still, it's weird not to know your body. It's expected during pregnancy, but now...

#4) The Sweating. PEOPLE. I have never been a big sweater. Austin is certainly hot and muggy, but even the first summer we were here wasn't that bad. Now, I sweat most of the time. I don't necessarily feel overly-warm. But my face is almost always shiny (and we'll get to the face thing in a minute), and especially when I get super stressed (which is several times daily due to my precious little boy), I find the flop sweat to be present in rather alarming quantities.

Also, the area under my eyes... sweats. A friend teased me about whether I had eye bags so this was the facial equivalent of under-boob sweat. It's not. And it seems to be "a thing." Seriously. I just Googled it. Don't, by the way. The recommendations are ridiculous. I don't use regular antiperspirant. Why would I use under-eye antiperspirant?

If it's this bad now, I shudder to think about the lake of steam I'm going to be when I actually start having hot flashes.

#5) My Complexion. Oh, goodness, this one hurts the baddest of all. My skin has always been pretty dang fabulous, and it's something I mostly took for granted except when I was in high school and realized I was fortunate only to have a few major zits rather than constant full-facial flare-ups. Even now, I'll get the cycle-related blemish every now and then, so that's not a huge problem. But, heaven help me, the discoloring! My skin isn't the same uniform color anymore. Some of the skin on my left cheek is, well, I guess there's nothing to call it but a giant age spot.

This is to say nothing of the status of my pores, of random facial hairs, and of the colorless permanent bumps that are cropping up across my forehead. Oh, and did I mention that many of my freckles are becoming three-dimensional? Yeah. Skin tags. Never had those before. Mal appreciates these, though. They give him something to play with when nursing. He's actually excised one of them and is working on two other ones. And, yes, it hurts like the Dickens.

#6) My Flexibility. I always swore that I'd be able to do a cartwheel and the splits forever. And I could. Until my ruptured disc. I can still cartwheel (though I get more dizzy now than I enjoy) and can mostly do the splits. I am working on those, trying to get a full split complete with my laying down flat on the floor, which I could do until four years ago. I blame this on my injury, and a lot of my loss of flexibility is due to this, but I didn't injure my back ever until I was just a couple of weeks shy of my 40th birthday, so this, too, is probably age-related.

I can get some of this back, but some is permanently gone. For example, I can bend over and touch my right toes without bending my right knee. I cannot do this with my left leg; the injury and sciatica messed that stuff up forever. So it's official: I'm past my prime, people.

#7) The Upside. I'm writing this blog post. Do you know how self-conscious I might have been about all of this stuff in the past? Do you know how little I wanted to expose any vulnerability?

Also, this stuff? It doesn't make me feel worthless or "less" anything. It's just reality. And I think that sort of emotional maturity is worth the price of admission.

Last week, my mom took a picture of me that I absolutely hated. She posted it on Facebook. At one time, I might have been tempted to ask her to take it down. I wasn't. I have too little time left to worry about petty crap like that.

Back to what the "old people" say: I have asked around recently, just to see how many of my contemporaries feel like they're actually truly responsible adults maneuvering through their lives, and most of them agree that they don't. I feel most like a grown-up when I'm actively parenting. Otherwise, I sincerely feel like a 16-year-old kid driving around town, just wanting to be happy and hang out with the people I love, and hoping not to do anything too stupid.

What's the cut-off age for stupid kiddy hairstyles?

It's official: We have a teen in the hizzouse!

Yesterday was D's 13th birthday!

First, she got an extra hour to celebrate, thanks to the end of Daylight Savings Time.

Then, when she got up, she got to see me.

Well, you'd think that was enough, but no. We had ordered her a cake from Polkadots Cupcake Factory (they make more than just cupcakes!) just a few blocks away at West Campus. She'd requested Bill Cipher, and I wanted to make her a cake, but given our current lives (and, honestly, Saturday was hugely challenging with Mal, but we're figuring it out), I knew that wasn't a given. The bakery did an AWESOME job with it, and she loved it!

Also, their fondant is delicious! :)

The T-shirt I got her isn't here yet, but will be either tomorrow or Tuesday, and James is getting her a wired keyboard and mouse (I know some people swear by wireless, but if you're gaming or drawing, they can be a PitA), but wants her to shop with him so she can pick them out. She's gotten cards and money from grandparents, and her dad gave her a beautifully-bound and illustrated copy of "The Hobbit."

When Daphne was born (which you can read about here), I had no idea what I was doing. I was freaked out and had some pretty intense postpartum depression, even though I didn't fully recognize that that was a "thing" until I was over it.

After the first eight months, though, once we got free from Boys Town, I hit a parenting stride. Throughout problems with my marriage, financial uncertainties, and all sorts of "life" things, I always felt like I was a pretty good mom.

Having only one child was easy. Well, Daphne was an easy child. For the longest time, were together almost all of the time, and I loved it. Then Daphne started doing gymnastics four days a week, and then I started working, and sometime around the age of 10, she started liking to stay home and do her own thing. By the time we moved into the Nuthaus, Daphne was ready to be pretty independent... and maybe I wasn't so ready.

Over the past year and a half or so, I've realized several things:

1) Although I sincerely did not realize it, I bullied my child at times. I used my authority and size to force her into compliance because I was too lazy to use relationship and discipline. I have apologized to her about a lot of things, namely that, as the first child, she was kind of like a beta testing of my parenting, and how although I appreciate that this release will hopefully be better, I regret having made my mistakes with her.

2) The things about Daphne that bother me the most are the areas in which she is most like me. She has an opinion, she has an attitude, she is a bit profane, and she wants to be in white-knuckle-hold charge of everything about herself.

3) Daphne has become a completely different person since I stopped "strongly suggesting" that she do things she doesn't want to do. For the most part, she's settled comfortably into being an introvert. This is not surprising, given how artistic and creative she is. And her art has improved incredibly. Also, sometimes, I feel like I don't know her, and that makes me a little sad. She reminded me the other day, "Did you used to be worried I was too attached to you?" It's true; I did. I have always pushed her to be independent. I just didn't expect so much so soon, I suppose. I am grateful, though, that she's becoming who God made her to be without my interference.

Halloween night, after I went to bed early as usual with the baby, Daphne stayed up talking with James until 3:30. So while I miss being her go-to, I am glad that she has someone else she trusts and whose opinion she values right here in the house.

Yesterday, I was going through my memory banks, thinking about D's previous birthdays.

Her first year, we had a party at my sister's house; I'd made a boom box cake with a small remote control for Daphne's "smash cake." She was barely interested in it, but held on to the Winnie the Pooh spoon Pappy and Nana gave her all day. (Literally. Even when she was in the swing outside.)

Her second birthday, I made Bob and Larry chocolate chip cookie "cakes," and we had the party at the "butterfly park" near out house in Las Vegas. I hid some treasures in the sand box and the kids loved that. I remember it being very cold and windy.

We'd just moved to Sherman in the July before Daphne's third birthday. Since we had a bunch of left-over July 4th decorations, we had an American-flag-themed party, and I made a flag cake. Two new friends we'd just met since moving to Sherman came over and celebrated, and my parents visited from Las Vegas.

Daphne's fourth birthday was at Old Settlers Park in Sherman, and was Clifford-themed. This time, it was 84 degrees, and the red icing melted off of the cake!

I'm completely blanking on Daphne's fifth birthday. How weird is that? Time to pull out the Maxtor external hard drive ($100 for 8mb of memory!) and figure it out. (I did, and this is why I have all of these pictures. Still haven't figured this one out, though!)

Okay, weird... I guess we just took her to Chuck E. Cheese! :)

For D's sixth birthday, we rented out the skating rink and had a Harry-Potter-themed party. She was skating twice a week there for a while. She loved it!

Oh, my goodness, these little kids aren't little kids anymore!

When Daphne turned seven, we had the party at our house. I made a jungle cake and a snake cake. A whole bunch of homeschool and church friends came over, and the kids played outside the whole time.

When her eighth birthday rolled around, we went to Herman Baker Park and tried to slide down the grassy hill. I bought a delicious Dr. Pepper cake from Yahoo! Bakery and decorated it with an owl, since the theme was "Hoot," a book by Carl Hiaassen. We also had pancakes, in honor of Mother Paula's House of Pancakes. Now I want to read that book again!

I might have geeked out a little bit on the invitations.

Both Daphne's ninth and tenth birthday parties were at Gymnastics Sport Center, and they were loads of fun. Tian and Travis were there for her 10th, and they rode around the gym on their Striders. One year, I cut the cakes into individual servings and made them look like sponges, because Daphne had wanted sponge cake (and, yes, it was actually sponge cake). The year before that, I made her cake look like a gym mat, and I used the topper to one of her trophies as the gymnast.

We moved to Austin right before Daphne turned 11. We had a party at Mueller Lake Park, and I tried to make a 3-D Tardis cake, but I used a bad recipe. The cake wasn't dense enough and it fell over, so I made a GIANT "cake pop." It was messy but delicious.

Then last year, we had a scavenger hunt out of our house, with Minecraft-looking snacks.

So... This year, D didn't want to "do" anything. We had cake, we had presents, and she was happy. Her online friends feted her, too.

I cannot tell you how much I love this kid. I love that she knows who she is and she's comfortable in that. I love that she can't be bothered by a lot of distractions typical to teen girls (yet and ever, Lord willing). I love her snarky personality, even, sometimes, when she turns it on me (I can take as well as I can give, I hope!). I love her laugh and her smile. I just love her tons and will forever. Glad she's my girl!

It's Time!

The midwife has our room ready, and it's time to make our way to the birthing center!

Oh! But we need the diaper bag!

That'd be the breast pump.

*sigh*

Seriously, I could get the bag myself, but James really wants to help.

Yea! He found it!

Daphne tells us to call her when something exciting happens.

And we're off.

It's a short walk; less than 1/5 of a mile. But there is quite an incline.

James happily leads the way, making sure there's no traffic or anything dangerous on the sidewalk.

He flags a little on the way up, but I'm able to help him.

But we *don't* have time for a reading break!

Sometimes, you just have to do whatever works.

Finally here!

We'll let *you* know when something interesting happens, too! :)

Thanks for the pictures, Jana!

Lunch Date

This afternoon, James and I went to Souper! Salad! because I was craving a giant plate full of greens with all kinds of things that I didn't want to go to the store and buy (oh, and some other stuff and then a bowl full of strawberry shortcake topped with ice cream, chocolate syrup, and crushed Oreos. Of course.). While we were sitting there, I remarked that as of this time next week, we'll have been married ten months.

Then I realized this: If we had had the baby with which I became pregnant in April, we'd have a newborn right now. I can't imagine. As disappointed I was in the moment not to have a viable pregnancy, I have so enjoyed this first year of getting to know my husband. Being married to James has been such a blessing, even more than I could have imagined when I said "Yes." (Sort of. He didn't really "ask," per se.) I love him, and I love our little family. <3

My Best Friend

It's taken me a while to get this all settled, but it's finally happened: I have the world's greatest best friend, and he happens to live with me... AND that will be true forever. I cannot even describe what that's like, coming off of four decades of wanting this exact thing, and finally getting it. It's incredible.

My best friend might not be perfect, but he is absolutely perfect for me. He knows just how to be with me when I am experiencing big emotions. He doesn't ask, "What's wrong?" or force me to name feelings I don't recognize yet. Also, he doesn't run away. He sits with me. He is patient. He is quiet. He waits. And eventually, I am able to pinpoint what I'm feeling, and then I want to tell him. I want to share everything with him. Even though it's sometimes silly or baseless or overwhelming or just wrong, he wants to know.

He never makes me feel like I'm broken for the things that I think or the feelings that I have. He might be flummoxed. He might disagree. He might even offer me an opposite viewpoint. But then he puts his arms around me and assures me that we are a team and that I am loved and that he is mine.

Sometimes, I am concerned that the cost is too high; that I am exhausting and eventually he will tire and I will lose him, even if not physically... that he will just spiritually drift away, and I'll be all alone again. But then, the way he looks at me... I know that this is real and this is forever and, God bless him, he feels like he's getting something out of this, too.

I hope that he is. Lord knows that I love him more than I love my own life, and I would do anything to help him, to please him, to serve him. I try every day. And I do it happily. It is an honor. I am so fortunate to have the greatest friend ever right here, that nothing feels like a chore. It all just feels like happiness.

Writing again! Part II: This time it's different.

For more than ten years, I had a pretty steady writing gig. It didn't pay anything, but I loved it. I wrote short sketches for the various churches I attended across that decade. I'd come to it in a church that produced in-house-written dramas at least a couple of weekends a month. These weren't the "youth group Christian skits" I knew from growing up... You know the treacly, sappy ones where there's a very overt message with which you are beaten repeatedly over the head? Things like the lady who wants to take up her cross like Jesus and goes into a shop but thinks the actual cross is too cumbersome and keeps talking the salesperson down until she walks out with a cross necklace. Or the one with the girl Jesus is trying to follow around and hold in his arms, and she keeps yelling at him to leave her alone, which he won't, so she finally holds him in place by tacking his hands up in a crucified position? Yeah... ugh. No.

The philosophy at the first church that I attended was that the dramas were to open up a can of worms, and then it was the preacher's job to fix everything. Basically, we used drama or comedy or whatever storytelling mode was appropriate to ask a question in a very real, very raw way. Some people even hated that, but it's okay. Music doesn't touch everyone, but it touches a lot of people. I think that drama is the same way. It breaks down walls.

I had an incredible writing mentor in Las Vegas, and he helped me hone my craft so much. I would send him a script (he's a performer and would often be off on cruises or performing in Los Angeles) and wait in nervous excitement for him to write me back... Always encouraging, always gracious (but not to the point of exaggerating the merits of what I'd done), but also always quick to get to the business of, "You missed a huge opportunity for a joke here," etc. He helped me learn how to rabidly attack my writing, getting rid of excess without mourning my precious "babies." His guidance taught me how to relish constructive feedback without having any negative feelings or insecurities about it.

So I wrote. I wrote a lot. I tried to worm my way into whatever arts programs that churches had when I'd go, and if there wasn't one in place, I was always game to give it a go.

That all ended a the beginning of 2011. When the cracks in my marriage were revealed and the whole thing crumbled, I was relieved of my responsibilities so that I could focus on reconciliation of my relationship. What actually happened came as quite a shock to me...

I know, or I acquiesce to this in theory, that my identity is found in Christ alone. It is God's creation and love that gives me worth, and no one can take that away from me. Not the opinion of others, not my own poor choices, and certainly not what I do or don't do. But what I realized had happened, once this was removed as an outlet for me, is that at some point, I'd mentally shifted from being a child of the King to being that child of the King who writes stuff. When the "writing stuff" outlet was taken away, I found myself not understanding where I fit into things, and I did not "feel" as close of a relationship to God. I think that I was mistaking the momentum of output in an area I adored for an intimacy with God.

To be certain, I know that any ability I might possess to write comes from God. Like I mentioned in the last post, the story came to me, not from me, and I was overjoyed by the process. I was mostly grateful for the opportunity to write *for* something again. I'll write, anyway. I'll blog. I'll observe. I'll make you all sick of my words. It's already happening, right? But to have a goal, a reason, and to be able to share with other people... It's what I love.

And maybe I'm doing it for the love of writing from now on. Maybe God doesn't want me to confuse so personal a passion and service with a closeness to Him. All I know is that I was shaken to my foundations when I was pulled off of the short film we'd begun to work on, and it took me a long time to figure out where I fit in with God again. I had been so certain that using whatever talents I had in church was how God had planned to "redeem" my otherwise fairly useless liberal arts education, and maybe it was... for a time. I think maybe now, there is fulfillment to be found in writing wherever the opportunity arises, and in believing in earnest that all is sacred.

I'm okay with that.