Tomorrow, Mar 01, is my 60th birthday......here is something I put together....sorry it is so long........
I have been sitting here for days wondering what I could write about my life and turning sixty.....I thought it would be easy. And I have been scared about it.....I thought about the different approaches I could take....you know, how it feels to see your hair turn gray, your hips expand, your boobs go south, or hear your grand kids say that your tummy makes a good pillow.....that sort of thing.
60.......six-----ty........SIX......TEE!! Where has the time gone? I don't feel any older....I take that back......I do feel older. Especially today. My joints are stiff. I think I remember that person in the mirror......its just that the person I remember didn't have gray hair peeking through........
When we were kids we always thought that by the time we were “old” we would have all the money in the bank that we would ever need. We would have all our goals accomplished. We would have found the love of our life and live happily ever after..........we would know all there is to know, have the best house on the block with the best car and the best kids ever.
I feel like I had a good life growing up, despite the little things that happened like divorce. How devastating it is for children to have to go through that with their parents and not really understanding why and wondering what they did wrong to cause such atrocity........no one ever explained it to me so why not be my fault?
Oh the tales I could tell you about life and her fickle ways.......for some reason just when you think things are going oh so good, life throws a monkey wrench into it and boggles it all up.......along the way come the high points in life.....love, babies, rainbows......really the ups in life almost make you forget about the downs, which hopefully I have learned from........
I dropped out of High School and ran away from home when I was 17, it was an escape from a home that I was not happy in...... my mom didn't know where I was for a long time.....I think I broke her heart.......I can't go into all the details of what happened to me during that time but it was my worst nightmare....I will just say that at one point during this time I didn't think I would be alive to enjoy the rest of my life. Then I met the man that I would eventually marry.....he saved me from an untimely death, my hero and savior........we did eventually marry and we had four beautiful children together......I went back to school and graduated and got my certification as a Nurses Aide, then he got sick and in 1987, after 17 years of marriage, he passed away. My dreams were shattered and I knew that my life was over at that point.....how could I go on without him? I started drinking, something I am not proud of and then one day I stopped and I looked at my kids and then I decided that they deserved better.......so I pulled myself up by the bootstraps and tried to make life better for my kids. My oldest was 13 and the baby was 3 when their daddy died. I lost everything despite trying so hard to keep things together....then in 1988 I met my second husband.....he was wonderful, and he treated my kids good.....we married and were happy. Damn it felt so good to be happy....then the unthinkable happened again......he was diagnosed with cancer and within a week he to was gone.....how much more can I take? That was 1999......oh I have seen more death....I lost 2 baby grand daughters, my dad, and eventually my daughter in April 2011. I did marry again but was divorced after 5 short years when he was not being very honest with me and I caught him doing things he should not have been doing......I think of this as one of the mistakes I made in my life and do not reflect on it at all.........
My son eventually got me interested in playing MMORPG's and it was in one of these games in April of 2009 that I met my real hero......the only problem was he was half a world away.....so what do you do? He is disabled and I knew he could not make a trip to meet me so in November 2009 I boarded a plane destined for England. I was only going for 2 weeks but ended up staying for two extra weeks......it was the happiest 4 weeks of my entire life, not counting when I gave birth to my kids........it was so hard to go back to America when the time came and I cried because I had to leave him.....god it felt like my heart was being ripped out of my body............I got back to Idaho, spent a lot of time on the game and phone with him...I was so depressed without him......so we decided that I should go back to England......and on February 3 2010, with all my children's blessing, I again boarded a plane for England........we had to eventually rent a flat as the B and B was getting to expensive to live in and so in March 2010 we moved into our flat in Tunbridge Wells.......we discussed getting married but I think at the time both of us were a little gun-shy........and we both knew that 6 months would pass by fast and we had to do something.......after much discussion and interviews with officials from the Church of England we were married in May of 2010.....nothing fancy with just his mum, brother, sister-in-law and a couple of good friends of ours. We then had to go back to America and get the spousal visa and here I am living my dream, in the country of my forefathers.........with the man I love and who makes me happy......happier than I have been in a long time..........
I could go on and talk about the circle of life. Tell about the wisdom I've gained as a daughter, mother, aunt, grandmother and friend......or how it really feels to have raised four children, watch them grow up and actually survive and have families of their own.....I could share how being a grand mother feels.....how it feels to see little pieces of my parents, myself, and my children, running around tearing up books or unrolling the toilet paper down the hall......Mentally I still think the same as I did in my thirties.....when I was in my twenties I thought I knew everything......then I realized I didn't and tried to correct my thoughts. This has been a lifelong project, because you see, people are complex.....just when you think you have them figured out.......WHAM! Something unexpected happens and it's either you change the way you think, which is way easier, or force them to change....bottom line....ACCEPTANCE is the key.....if you can accept the changes thrown your way and deal with them, you have won the battle.....now, after all that thinking, I realized that turning sixty isn't so bad.....I am worried about nothing.....forty was worse....at 39 I was still a hot mama but when I turned forty I was someones grandma!!!
There were not so many gray hairs at forty but it was then that I found my first one and that was freaky......I wasn't so worried about heart disease and diabetes, because I was to busy watching my family die from some of those degenerative diseases.....now it is me being told the same things I heard the doctors say to some of them.........
I have learned a lot of cool things over the course of my years but it only seems to come in handy when Jeopardy or Who Wants to Be a Millionaire is on television.....and I CAN say to my grandchildren with confidence “I remember when”.......oh boy that is scarey to hear yourself say.....at fifty I got used to all the changes in my body, my mind, my soul.....now I can relax and enjoy the ride even if it is all downhill from here......I still worry about my mortality but I am not that old yet....at least that is what I tell myself......DANG!!!!! I still listen to the top forty, remember the words to songs and sometimes I have exchanged CD's with my kids and grand kids.......I even have a heavy metal collection......does Led Zeppelin count?......now in 10 years ask me to write something about how it feels to be seventy and I may have a real problem.......
Yes, I feel like I have lived a good life despite all the lemons I have been dealt.....all the hurt I have felt.......emotionally I have more time to stop and look at the roses.....The thorns hurt less nowadays.....and the smell is OH so sweet......what I am trying to say is I guess I have calmed down a lot and take things in stride more.....I try to see the humor in situations.....and I love my kids, grand kids and great grand kids....UNCONDITIONALLY!!!! I have embraced life so far and I intend to live it fully..........
