Afterward and What's Next

On Saturday I went to Dillard’s to get a few items I needed. I stopped at the Clinique counter and asked for a tube of Super Moister Foundation, #18 Nude Beige. Normally, the Clinique salespeople are pretty laid back and just give me what I ask for. But the young woman working the counter on Saturday wanted to upsell me on some fantastic new moisturizer. She said have you ever used such-and-such blad-de-blah and I said, no, I use the Zero Gravity stuff and I really like it. She said, “Zero Gravity! That is really for mature skin” and I said “well I am mature” but she just ignored me and then proceeded to tell me why this other moisturizer was better and more right for me. Then she said, “because the Zero Gravity – that is for like, 50 and over.”

**sigh***....And so it begins.

Actually, I just laughed and said, “well today is my birthday and I just turned 50.” She seemed amazed and said, “Well….how long have you been using the Zero Gravity?”

I did feel different when I woke up on my birthday. I felt calm. I felt awesome, and beautiful. And I’m at peace with being 50.

Writing this blog has been an unexpectedly wonderful journey for me. It was better than therapy and just as effective – I highly recommend it! The thing that made it so special for me and so great was everyone who shared their thoughts and ideas, and traveled the road with me. It really helped.

I know I made a commitment to post one of my secret aspirations, so here you go: I always wanted to be on the radio -- a radio personality. When I was younger and that was something more attainable, people told me “there’s no money in radio.” It’s funny how some things – many things – seem so unreachable to you when you are young or inexperienced, when really they are not. I hate that I was so quick to second guess myself, have absolutely no faith in myself and squelch one of my own dreams. To be fair, I don’t think that children are raised to understand the infinite possibilities that are out really out there. Yes, we tell them that they can be whomever or whatever they want to be. “Set your goals, work hard, anything is possible.”

But I think that is too limiting. I wish someone would have said to me, “You don’t have to know how things are going to happen. You just have to believe they are possible and don’t worry about it too much.” If I look back on some of the really good things that have happened in my life, or even the ones that at the time seemed not so good, I can see that there has been a beautiful harmony happening. Events came together in ways that couldn’t possibly been foreseen or controlled, mostly independent of and often in spite of my efforts.

If I had learned that about life when I was, say, 5 years old, I would be one impressive woman today, let me tell you. I would probably be ruling the world. As it stands, I am still struggling to remind myself of the miracles that are so very possible, still trying to remember to have faith in myself. I think that will be my goal for the next 50 years – to just be open to the possibilities. I figure that ought to be enough.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!

A Few Minutes More

Ladies and gentlemen, we are now less than one hour away from zero hour.

I'm having a glass of wine. Tonight I went to south KC to listen to a fellow singer/songwriter who was playing at a gallery. Simone met me there and afterward, we went for coffee. She gave me a some gifts - a pair of Indian Woman/Native American Storyteller earrings and a sage torch to light and rid myself and my house of any negative energy. We hashed and rehashed this 50 thing over lattes.

One thing that she said and I agreed with 100%, is that there are certain things you just can't "pull off" any more. For example, there are certain fashion looks that - once you pass a certain age - you can't pull off. Consider Cher. At some point, all that leather strapping underpants stuff just looks a tad ridiculous. Nobody wants that to happen. It is important to move gracefully into ..... age without throwing in the towel.

If you're gathering from this that the hour is late and I still don't have all the answers - and that I'm still not okay with this, you have gathered correctly. But midnight will come and I will be basically the same person I was a day ago. It's only that, according to one frame of reference, I will have moved into a different decade, a different life phase, a different group. I will be a member of a different club. Whether I attend the meetings or not, I will still be a damn member.

So here's to tomorrow -- it will be here in 10 minutes now -- and all the tomorrows after. Cheers!!!

PS: I am still in disbelief!

Some Poems For the Final Hours

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Dylan Thomas


To the last, I grapple with thee; From Hell's heart, I stab at thee; For hate's sake, I spit my last breath at thee.
Herman Melville


Bring tea for the Tillerman
Steak for the son
Wine for the woman who made the rain come
Seagulls sing your hearts away,
Cause while the sinners sin,
The children play
Oh lord how they play and play
For that happy day,
For that happy day
Cat Stevens


Ass Ode
Oh my ass you have expanded
In inches exponential
Realized your full potential
I cry tears torrential
Laura Batchman

The Things I Do For Love

I’m spending my final day as a forty-something as normally as possible. Because, by now, it’s all over but the shoutin’. I had a revelation this morning. I have a birthday so that others may have a birthday. Yes, that’s right. I, Laura, control birthdays all over the world. Because when I love someone, I want them to keep having birthdays, because I want them to be here. The only (legal, moral) way I can stop someone from having a birthday is to stop having my birthday which would stop birthdays all over tarnation. Little children would be sadly disappointed, because they would not get to blow out birthday candles or have obnoxious birthday parties at places like Chuck E Cheese. Young men and women on the verge of 21 would just never get to be 21. They would stand outside bars and liquor stores forever. No admittance for you, sorry, you are only 20. This entire planet would come to a screeching halt if I didn’t have a birthday, basically.

So, I will magnanimously go ahead and have a birthday. It is not for me that I do this. It is to preserve life as we know it.

You’re welcome.

Coming Back To Center

The pendulum has to swing, you know.

It has to make the trip from one extreme to the other.

Then and only then can it find peace in the middle.

This is what I advise my friends and my children when they tell me they are acting crazy and they don’t know why, or when they tell me their lives are nuts, just nuts.

I’ve been all over the place this month in terms of my processing of this – AGE thing -- but we all know that my day is coming so it’s time to try to come back to center.

How will I do this?

Perhaps I will run a bath filled with Epsom salts, and light some candles, and drink a glass of wine while reading one of my very favorite passages from The Life of Henry the Fifth, Act III, Scene I: “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more!” It has been one of my favorites since High School when we had to shout it as loudly as possible from backstage as an exercise in speech class. God I love that piece. I may shout it in my bathtub.

Perhaps I will shop for new underwear. How can a woman feel centered with raggedy old underwear – I ask you! No, a woman needs new and matching underwear.

Perhaps I will observe a day of complete silence….... Perhaps not. The point is, whatever it takes is what one must do. One must do what one must do.

But I think I will save my centering for Saturday, the 30th. On Saturday, I shall also reset my odometer. That’s right, you heard me. I’m rolling back the odometer and I am going to be ageless, timeless, and unaffected by such trivialities.

But until then… I'm swinging all over the place.

Hatin' Rant

This is how I feel today:
I hate the thought of turning 50.
Hate it hate it hate it, hate that I don’t get a say in it.
I am pissed pissed pissed about getting older.
I hate that I can’t stop it.
I hate that I get junk mail from the AARP.
I hate that I have to wear different clothes, wear my hair different, because I don’t want to look foolish and don’t have the body for it anyway anymore.
I miss my swimsuit body.
I miss my energy.
I hate being welcomed into “the club” of old people. I’m being SUCKED IN – that’s what.
I hate the fact that I am just going to get older, older, older and then die.
I hate having to give a crap about what I eat.
I REFUSE to get a FLU SHOT.
I hate bunions and corns and calluses and cricks in the neck.
I hate this one way street I’m on!
I hate that I care that I ended the last sentence with a preposition!
I’m mad as hell!!