i felt compelled to tell him. the models in the bra commercial? they are not me. i do not resemble them in any way. not their perfect hair. not their perfect skin. not their perfect…yeah…anyway… “that’s not me,” i told him. he stared at me.
choosing things to wear – particularly to special occasions – is a big deal. we women take that seriously. it needs to be just right. not too much. not too little. not too overstated. not too understated. not too fancy. not too plain. not too overdressed. not too underdressed. there are just sooo many parameters, so many things to consider, so many unknowns…which adds up to much pressure.
then…drumroll…add to all that the factors of menopause and aging and whatever-perfection-there-was-giving-way-to-gravity and you have one helluva what-to-wear predicament.
so, this should never be underemphasized.
the grading curve of how-does-this-look is an absolute modifier.
particularly for partners of women who ask for an opinion.
we want the truth – don’t let us wear THAAAAT – but we also want some grace.
i mean, we are NOT the glamorous bra models in the commercials. we are real-life women who have had real-life physical challenges and babies and stresses and aging and a few too many chips and too few protein drinks, not hydrated enough and overly saturated with the emotions of modern day life, with chutzpah and flexibility and many, many plates spinning at the same time.
we did a triple-feature of romance movies last night. friday-night-date-night. it was cold and rainy, too foggy and dismal to go anywhere. we ordered fried rice and eggrolls and poured a little wine, settling in for a cozy under-the-blanket viewing.
there are sometimes these moments – moments when you just realize that you didn’t realize. last night was one of them.
after the guy told the girl that the other guy had done “a take” – and after we figured out what the term actually meant – i looked over at d and asked him if he ever did that, ever does that – a take – of me. his answer brought tears to my eyes.
shopping is not really the joy it used to be. i haven’t kept up with the fashionistas and i have a tendency to wear the same thing – some iteration of jeans and a black top – so it sort of limits the options i give myself.
but, there comes a time…yes…i have reached that time…when some of the clothes in your closet no longer fit – shall we say – properly. it sneaks up overnight, season by season. and suddenly, you move into the next season and have nothing but your grown son’s hand-me-down basketball shorts to wear. these do not generalize to every occasion. as a matter of fact, these don’t generalize outside the house and the backyard, though i did wear them hiking in hot and humid north carolina mountains last fall. so there is a bit of an exception to the basketball-shorts-caveat: if you know no one and there is no chance of knowing anyone or any chance of meeting someone you might want to know, it is ever-so-possible to wear the hand-me-down shorts.
regardless, it was time to shop.
i groaned as i entered the department store. one must be in the right frame of mind to try on clothes. one must be out of one’s mind to try on bathing suits, so that will have to wait for a whole ‘nother day. i went to the rack with bermuda shorts and capris. and discovered this newfangled-to-me thing called “comfort top” or some such lingo.
now everyone knows that the button-zip fly on jeans (and shorts and capris) wreaks havoc on whatever top you choose to wear – no one really wants to accentuate their midsection and yet, the zipper-button combo does just that. tunic meets zipper-fly. not good. so, there was merit to this comfort top premise…no buttons, no zippers. just a “smooth slimming panel” – that made me think of both maternity clothing and the elastic-waistband-pants i vowed never to wear.
nevertheless, i tried them on.
i will not burden you with the rest of the shopping experience.
suffice it to say, i left with the comfort top capris.
i have yet to wear them, however…it’s the beaky rule…save them for a bit…
i’m wearing the hand-me-down basketball shorts right now, trying to deal emotionally with the move i have made into “comfort top” wear.
he’s being quiet about it all. that’s probably a good thing.
one time – probably about eight years ago – we had a giant argument under this vast ceiling. giant. there are not many places to go stew when you are at olgivie – it’s the terminal chicago station for the metra we take to the city and full of people. an uncomfortable time at best, it basically forced us to look at each other, invite in a little grace and figure it out.
one time – probably last week or so – we had a tiff on the trail under the bluest-blue sky. it’s not like one can go steaming through the woods, looking for a place to sit and sulk. one has to keep moseying on, down the path. and so, seething for those moments, we linked arms – as is our custom – kept walking, invited in a little grace, figured it out.
one time – ten years ago now – under the dropped ceiling of o’hare’s gate f8 – having both just flown in from different places in the country to meet there – david got down on one knee. never-minding the zillions of people walking by, pulling luggage, toting backpacks, crying children, coffee spilling, overhead flight announcements, we started the next part of our journey together – already in grace, already figuring it out.
when we go to chicago, we either drive the backroads or take the train down. we never drive the interstate there. it’s just too much – too frenetic, too rushed, too busy. we both feel that part of getting there IS the getting-there.
so that must translate to relationships as well. part of getting there IS the getting-there. and that includes the tough moments as well as the really easy ones. it includes the times when you are “ucky” (as the guy at the oyster bar said the other night) to each other and the times when you are generous. it includes the times you wonder what you’re doing and the times tears of gratitude rush to your eyes. it includes the times you know very well that your best-neighbors-to-the-west know you are arguing and the times that people-you-don’t-know stop you to tell you they love watching you wander the neighborhood arm in arm. all of it.
the architectural ceiling of ogilvie makes me smile. though we don’t live in chicago, the many times we have exited metra into the station have given us easy time downtown. the getting-there was simple – sit on the train and watch the outside woosh by. and each time we exit onto the platform and head into the atrium of the station, every moment we’ve spent there suspends from the high rafters. the good ones and the rare-but-admittedly-not-so-good ones.
and then we walk out into the day, under expansive sky, arm-in-arm, and get about getting to the next.
there is a scene in “sweet home alabama” when – as a little girl and a little boy on a beach – he tells her he wants to marry her so he can kiss her any time he wants. later – after the whole circle of the story plays out, the camera returns to the two of them, grown, on the beach in a pouring-rain-lightning-storm. he asks her why she would want to be married to him and she responds, “so i can kiss you anytime i want.”
it is a classic moment.
were we all able to stay in that simplicity, relationships between two people – any two people – who love each other might have a better chance in this complex world. so much work goes into our love relationships, and sometimes we all forget they are about just that – love.
yesterday a friend told us that – during covid – after her husband had a heart attack – along with many other serious difficulties – she was unable to see him for weeks. and then. now, she is grateful to be able to touch his skin. simply that. touch his skin. it doesn’t take away the tough moments or the potential arguments or slights or angsts, but she tells us – eyes glistening – that, for her, it is about touching his skin.
sometimes it is simply a kiss. sometimes it is touching skin. sometimes it is a dance.
middle-aging is tougher than you think. it’s a time of tinylittlechanges and some prettybigchanges. your body starts to betray you, despite your best efforts to keep it going. the messages all around us are dedicated to making us feel that Youthful is the only worthy look, that fit and slim and silky is the only worthy body. our body image begins to slowly sink, just as our blue jean waistline begins to rise. it’s all one big test – and it’s prettydamndifficult sometimes to stay centered and grounded.
lingerie is one of those testing devices. just at the time you may be leaning a little less two-by-four-pancake-flat and you suddenly have a tad bit of – whoa – cleavage, and those sweet and sexy b-cup (wow! b-cup? seriously?) brassieres might be an option, your upper arms begin doing the whinga-whinga thing. i mean, really? there is no justice there. and here – raised in these body-conscious-united-states – it all becomes a disappointment.
try starting a new relationship in middle age. there are many challenges – people become more and more engrossed and invested in their own “way” of doing things – so that is obvious. but then, there’s the thing…you pull out old photographs and say, “this is what i used to look like in hiphuggers, in a bathing suit, in silk. i just wanted you to know.”
we were watching something on television the other night. the skims commercial came on. kim kardashian was the model. suffice it to say this is most-definitely-not dedicated to the older-middle-age gal watching. their other iconic top fashion models are no less fetching. though, truth-be-told, this is no different than other sexualizing advertising campaigns – like kate hudson’s fabletics or victoria’s secret. sigh.
in the meanwhile, i’m grateful to have fallen for a guy who is steeped in reality-based bodies, whose approving glance i see time and again, and who, clearly, loves burlap.
on this day – ten years ago – i was in anticipation. after about six months of letters via email, we were about to meet in person. we talked about it over glasses of wine on bar stools in a real bistro last night.
i can remember wondering. what this guy – who i had virtually shared my days with – would be like. would he be sincere in person…would he be fun…would he be as easy to talk to side by side as he was in writing and, the big one, what he would look like, what i would see in his eyes. i had seen the tiniest of tiny photographs – a thumbprint size – and that was it. i was looking for a man in the great big baggage claim of o’hare airport who, in all likelihood, i would not recognize.
and yet…
there he was, jeans, boots, black shirt, backpack, rollybag. i knew him right away.
it hasn’t been a piece-o-cake ten years. there have been roiling rapids in the river and hidden boulders of challenge. we have faced down storms and weather systems. we have had our share of loss. we have gone from truly-middle-middle-age to a-wee-past-middle-middle-age. our bodies show it. our priorities show it. we haven’t the shared luggage of a journey before this decade together; instead we have separate baggage of tens-of-years long before we met. we have learned the skills of listening to all these stories, to generously entertain redundancy, to compassionately help each other sort. we have learned the complexities of a middle-age relationship, for there are many. you arrive where you are and that is a little further down the road. we have learned that dancing in the kitchen is tantamount to happy-making. we have learned that cooking – together – is affirming and feeds us in more ways than we realized. we have learned that walking arm in arm – with a skip every now and again – centers us.
time will continue to fly by. our dogga will soon be ten and we all miss our babycat. together we have seen my sweet momma on to the next and we have seen his dad on. we have moved children and criss-crossed the country to see them. there will be loss and there will be elation. the ribbon we carry in our pocket ties us to gossamer reminders of each and of our capacity to adjust.
there are those of you out there – who are trying this all on for size. trying on middle-age relationship, trying on new relationship at any age. there are times that it may seem insurmountable, maybe even sooo-not-worth-it.
there is always time. nothing we do is more important than the time we spend together. all of us.
my sweet poppo always said, “you can’t take it with you!” and was referring to money. but it generalizes to pretty much everything. in the end, you can’t take your possessions, your achievements, your investments, even your failures, with you. they will stay behind and it’s love that will carry you on, love that you will carry with you.
so even in the middle of important checklists of chores, work tasks, more achievements and more failures, more, more, more anything – cars, clothes, houses, boats, snowblowers and appliances, shoes, hairdos, all the fancypants trappings of “made-it” – there is time. to walk and talk and be silent and swish your feet through crunchy fallen autumn leaves.
cause you can’t take the other stuff with you.
my dad’s last words to me were, “i love you, kook.” my last words to him were, “i love you, my poppo.”
he’s watching us swish our feet through the leaves now. and smiling.
i’m caught in the onslaught of wistful; fall is here. and the on-and-on thoughts in the middle of the night include a zillion questions, all unanswered.
we took a walk in charlotte, on the way to a pedicure with my girl. i wanted to run to the door of the house-with-this-fence and hug the person who painted it.
where else can we be but where we are? marcel reminds us, “the real voyage of discovery consists, not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”
today is our anniversary. it’s been seven years since we had seven days in a row of parties, were surrounded by family and friends for seven whole days. oh, to relish something like that again! daisies and food truck burgers, heaping plates of pasta and sweet potato fries, cupcakes and gluten-free brownies, bottles of wine from ann’s corner store. we picked pumpkins and danced on the patio and bonfired on the beach. it was a giant celebration and we reveled in it all.
in the middle of middle age we somehow found each other – across the country from each other. we both had been married before – to extraordinary people who have also found a beloved with whom to share life. we often ponder together the “had we been smarter, more capable, wiser” questions, but the “réview” mirror is not where we are going and here – in our 60s – it’s full-steam ahead. we feel fortunate. we are able to share our time together, our growing-old, our foibles and messes and the successes that brought us to now. this time hasn’t been a cakewalk. it sure hasn’t been fancy. coming together in middle age has its challenges and we have had a few extras tossed our way through these years. we sort through the weirds and stand in the wonder. and we know we are where we are supposed to be. maybe there is some sort of design in this universe.
20 gave us a card. like most of his cards, he made it for us. it reads, “love isn’t something that happens to us. it’s something we’re making together.”
tonight we are going to bring happy hour up on the roof. because the very first day of making-this-story-together-the-day-we-met-in-person, that’s where we sipped wine under blankets as the sun went down on a cool may day.
this was last night. this was sunday night. this was monday night. this happens allthetime.
how is it that you can be yawning-up-a-storm, tired-tired-tired, yet, you go to bed, sink under those yummy covers and are wide awake? or…you wake up after the first sleep cycle and nothing – absolutely nothing – will let your mind rest.
random pieces of life pass by in ruminating-world: memories, questions, ponderings, worries, conversations. bits and snatches of life from waaay back, from yesterday, angsting about tomorrow or the next day.
i had a dear group of girlfriends who tried to meet up once a year (or as close to that as possible). we had lots of shared history and shared lots of the ups-and-downs of life from our little corners of the world – each of us with different paths and challenges. we all had nicknames. mine was “fretta”. i don’t have the opportunity to see them anymore but i’d say the nickname is generally still fitting. i do fret.
now, david, on the other hand, sleeps.
i’m not foolish enough to think he never frets, but when he lays his head on the pillow and pulls up the blankets? he is gone. i don’t know where all that ruminating stuff goes at night. i am guessing to where the wild things are.
me? i carry my wild things with me. we fret together.
reverse threading 