My Gifts At 50

As I have mentioned a couple of times before, I'm turning 50. Soon. Like, day-after-tomorrow soon.

I have not made plans for a big blowout party, or really any plans to celebrate my birthday officially. What I will be doing on Friday is what I've been doing since last Thursday---taking care of my ill mother-in-law.

My MIL had a very extensive and significant surgery recently and SO and I will be rotating weeks to care for her. While this is a challenging time because we are supposed to be planning our wedding, not to mention that 50th birthday, it feels as if it's a gift of more import to me.

My own mother and I had a complicated and sad relationship, one that left me feeling "less than" in many ways and wondering about my sensitivity and worth as a person. With SO's mother it's not like that because I'm not her daughter, there are no agendas, points to prove, or struggles for power. Though I'm her daughter-in-law, we have more of a friend relationship. We like many of the same things and share some creative tastes, and engage in raunchy girl-talk (much to SO's chagrin).

When SO and I began talking about MIL's care, I wasn't sure how well I'd do; for the reasons mentioned above. I am learning that I am much more caring than I'd thought, more capable than I'd thought, more available to be leaned on emotionally and physically than I'd thought.

While I won't be at an evening soiree' like the one I had for my 40th birthday, or dancing around in a coconut bra and grass skirt at Joe's Crab Shack like I did about six years ago, I'll be doing something equally fulfilling; receiving confirmation that I've grown into a woman that can be depended on and can think of others first; a woman who can be a friend and companion; that maybe in some small way I've paid it forward so that someone can do the same for me one day.

I know I've become a woman of value; that's a fine birthday present if you ask me.

Staying Too Long At The Fair

Have you ever been to a fair or amusement park and had occasion to see a child who has been told it's time to leave, but he doesn't want to? The child is in a fit of pique, maybe he's even throwing a rather showy tantrum digging his little feet in as he's taken from what must be the most fun he's had-ever. If you've been the parent in this scenario then you know what comes later is probably a time-out, a pout, a little person who makes himself sick with anger, or is sick from all the excitement and emotions of the day--someone who's clearly stayed too long at the fair.

Josie's post from her "Picking Up Pieces" blog talks about leaving relationships that no longer serve her and it brought to mind friendships in my past that had turned toxic and caused me to leave. I remember discussing this very subject with a friend. My friend stated that she pretty much knew how to end a relationship with a man that had gone wrong , but what do you do when a friendship is over, but you're still involved in it?

I have a theory about relationships, whether love relationships, relationships between employer and employee, or friendships, there are signs when it's time for it to end. It seems to me that friendships are the most difficult because there are no real examples of how to end one. We know how to look for a new job or breakup but how do you end a relationship with a friend? More than likely it drags on until all the sweetness of the relationship is gone until some catalyst causes it to end.

In my early twenties I had friend I met working as a cocktail waitress. She was effervescent and fun, with that somewhat crazy energy that is so typical of girls that age. We went out dancing, drinking, gossiping, shopping, and endless talk about boyfriends or the lack thereof. I was finishing a term at college and she hadn't finished high school, this didn't bother me because I never saw her as "less than", but she saw herself that way.

One day I had to go to school to pick up something and she came along for the ride. As she surveyed my university I felt a shift in her energy, later on the drive home, she was full of disparaging comments about "those people who think they're better than everyone because they're in college". I didn't address the subject with her, after all wasn't I one of "those people?" That was the first time I felt a thread unraveling in the fabric of our friendship.

We continued to be friends for the next eight years; she married and had children, I moved to another city, married and divorced. The girls who had been "best friends" years earlier no longer existed and there was no commonality between the women we'd become. Still, we hung in there like two punch drunk fighters who refused to throw in the towel. When phone conversations with her would end I'd feel like I didn't want to talk to her anymore, but how could I not? We were friends.

Over the years I had watched her other important friendships end badly; people who had been her "best friend" now were cursed. I knew that one day it would be my turn, and one day it was.

As she stood in the middle of the street literally screaming at me and repeating every painful confidence I had shared, I believe I left my body. I had seen this coming years before, this friendship began to die that day at my college but I didn't know how to stop it before now. There was sadness, but there was also relief.

I can see much more clearly when friendships have run their course now, and somehow they don't end with a big screaming match and such deep pain.

I'm not that girl anymore.

Not the Target Audience.

The other day a friend and I had occasion to visit the local mall. After a bit of window shopping we took a seat and engaged in some "people watching".

My gaze swept the area and landed on a girl of about 11 years old and an older woman, most likely her mother, making their way through the crowd. The girl sported something unidentifiable on the top of her head; my friend informed me that this thing was a teddy bear. I looked closer and determined that the thing was indeed, a teddy bear. The bear was of the medium-sized brown variety and appeared to be hanging on to the girl's head for dear life.

I seemed to have missed the memo that announced it was stylish to wear stuffed animals on your head, I am not the target audience for this trend I believe. I have determined from careful ad scrutiny and commercial watching that I am the target audience for: life insurance, ads that appeal to poeple who want to get their funereal affairs in order,and people who no longer have their music from the 70's and 80's and need to buy compilations from Time Life Music.

It makes me grumpy sometimes to be the direct demographic these companies are directing their advertising to. Think I'll go stick a teddy bear on my head.