Definitely a chick thing to read. -- thecoffeeshop

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Date Posted: 02:19:03 07/24/04 Sat
Author: LaneyLounge
Subject: Definitely a chick thing to read.

A friend sent this to me in an email the other day and it made me chuckle. It also made me realize how really great I have it! May this give at least one of you a giggle and I also hope this finds all of you well and happy. ~Lane :-)

Age has given me what I was looking for my entire life-it gave me me. It
provided the time and experience and failures and triumphs and friends
who helped me step into the shape that had been waiting for me all my
life. I fit into me now. I finally have an organic life now, not the one
people imagined for me, or tried to get me to have, or the life someone
else might celebrate as a successful one. I have the life I dreamed of. I
have become the woman I hardly dared imagine I could be. There are parts
I don't love-until a few years ago, I had no idea that you could get
cellulite on your stomach! But I not only get along with me most of the
time now, I am militantly and maternally on my own side.

Left to my own devices, would I trade this for firm thighs, fewer
wrinkles, a better memory? Some days, yes. That's why it's such a
blessing I'm not left to my own devices. Because the truth is, I have
amazing friends and a deep faith in God, both of whom I can turn to. I've
learned to pay attention to life and to listen. I'd give up all this for
a flatter belly? Are you kidding?

I still have terrible moments when I despair about my body. But they are
just moments-I used to have years when I believed I would be more
beautiful if I jiggled less; if all the parts of my body stopped moving
when I did. But I believe two things now that I didn't at 30. When we get
to Heaven, we will discover that the appearance of our butts and skin was
3,127th on the list of what mattered on this earth. I am not going to
live forever, and this truth has set me free.

Eleven years ago, when my friend Pam was dying of cancer at the age of
37, we went shopping. She was in a wheelchair, wearing a wig and had just
three weeks to live. I tried on a short dress and came out to model it
for her. I asked if she thought it made me look big in the thighs, and so
kindly she said, "Anne, you just don't have that kind of time." I live by
those words.

I am thrilled for every gray hair and achy muscle, because of all the
friends who died too young of heart attacks and cancer and car accidents.
And much of the stuff I used to worry about has subsided. What other
people think of me and of how I live my life-I give these things the big
shrug. It's a huge relief.

I became more successful in my 40's, but this pales compared to the
other gifts of this decade-how kind to myself I have become, what a
wonderful, tender friend I am to myself. I get myself tubs of hot soapy
water at the end of a long day. I run interference for myself when I am
working, and I live by the truth that "No" is a complete sentence.

I insist on the right to swim in warm water at every opportunity, no
matter how young and gorgeous the other people on the beach are. I don't
think that if I live to be 80, I'll wish I'd spent more hours in the gym
or kept my house cleaner. I think I'm going to wish I had swum more
unashamedly, made more mistakes, acted sillier, laughed more. On the day
I die, I want to have had dessert.

I have survived so much loss, as all of us have by this time-my parents,
dear friends, beloved pets. If you haven't already, you will lose someone
you can't live without, and your heart will be badly broken-and the bad
news is that you will never completely get over that loss. But the good
news is that they will live forever, in your broken heart that never
heals. It's like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly, that
still hurts when the weather is cold-but you learn to dance with the
limp. You dance to the music of old friendships and old loves.

I danced alone for a number of years and came to believe that I might
not ever have a passionate, romantic relationship again-and might end up
alone. I'd been terrified of that all my life. But now I know I'd rather
never be a couple again than to be in a toxic relationship. I spent
several years celibate; it was sometimes lovely and it was sometimes
lonely. But I learned to be the person I wished I'd meet-and it was then
that I met a kind man. When we get out of bed, we hold our lower backs,
like Walter Brennan, and we smile.

Younger women worry that their memories will begin to go - and you know
what? They will. Menopause has not increased my focus and retention as
much as I'd hoped. But a lot is better off missed and forgotten.

I know that many women fear getting older. I wish I could gather all
younger women together and give them my word of honor that every one of
my friends loves being older, loves being in her 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s. My
Aunt Gertrude is 85 and she leaves us all in the dust when we hike. Sure,
my feet hurt some mornings and my body is less forgiving than it used to
be-but I love my life more, and I love me more.

It's like that old saying: It's not that I think less of myself, but
that I think of myself less often. And that feels like heaven to me.

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Replies:

[> I'll second that -- Femok, 01:23:00 08/07/04 Sat [1]

Yes, it requires a lot more time to get the kinks out in the morning and I don't play the part of the party animal as much as I used to but, what the hey? I'm looking forward to being one of those crotchedy old hags.

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