I'm not sure when it started but I think it was well before I turned 50 - nostalgia began to color my remembrances. So different than when I as younger and would look back on my, then, short life, turning my nose up at younger me, so certain I had come so far, being so much older and wiser. But over the last decade or so nostalgia's warm sepia has replaced the stark lens through which I look back on my life. I know I often wondered what had become of my first true love, who I dated in high school, some of college and then post-college until I realized we wanted different things from life. The last time I'd seen him was post-breakup, as he was driving by me standing in line outside of the Stone Pony in Asbury Park, waiting to get into a Ramones show. Then he was forever gone. I remember hearing he'd met someone and was dating but I slowly lost touch with anyone we'd had in common until, finally, I could only imagine he'd married and started a family, probably close to where we grew up. I guess most of us get nostalgic as we age. I remember one time my dad was in New Jersey on business from Texas after I'd moved back to the Garden State. We visited Spring Lake and, as we stood on the boardwalk looking out at the ocean, he got misty recalling an old summer fling he'd had there when he was a teen. I was in my 20s and he near 60. I can still see him, standing next to me in the twilight, disappear into a memory. He was right there, but he wasn't. I think now I can almost see where he'd gone. Facebook has certainly had an impact on the nostalgic waxings of my advancing years. For starters, it helped me reconnect with my old beau, through his little brother, as my former bf is not a Facebook kind of guy. (Don't worry, my husband knows all about our correspondence, which is only fair as I seem to run into one of his old girlfriends whenever we visit his home town). It's nice to hear he did find the right girl for him and has raised two sons...fairly close to where we grew up. Otherwise, Facebook helped me reconnect with old high school classmates so I could attend my 35th reunion - the first one I'd ever attended! And, thanks to the soft lens of nostalgia, I think we've all chosen to befriend one another in ways the angst of our youth did not allow. Oh! And I've reconnected with my long-lost best friend, meeting her husband and watching her daughter marry through Facebook photos. I know 20-something me would probably scoff at my softhearted reconnection with my youth. But I don't care. She didn't have a lengthy past about which to be nostalgic, just decades of adventure laid out ahead of her. And no clue about how interesting all that adventure would look in the rearview mirror, through the wiser eyes of one who now knows where life's potholes are. And can better enjoy the journey ahead by driving around them.
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It seems to me that, even in our progressive world in which I struggle to keep up with what seems to be an ever-lengthening list of possible gender identities, we still don't feel comfortable talking about the M word. Menopause. I don't understand why that is. I'm not one to go into gory detail - nobody's got time for that except surgeons and serial killers. But there are things I've experienced that no one told me about. And, at 56 and still in perimenopause, you would have thought I'd have oodles of friends who've gone all the way through willing to share their stories. We all love to share our labor and delivery tales - I know I've got mine at the ready, even though my kids are now adults. Why can't we talk a little more freely about this part of our lives? I know all about hot flashes. I had them at least hourly until my physician made a slight adjustment to one of my medications (another thing I didn't know could happen). But no one mentioned cramps that make my toes spontaneously twist like gnarled old trees. That's fun. Nor did anyone mention restless leg syndrome which has me flopping like a fish all night. In fact neither of those things is mentioned on WebMD nor the Mayo Clinic sites. Although they do mention thinning hair and loss of breast fullness. Yay. So I'm sharing, avoiding the more intimate details here, because I think we shouldn't be shy about helping each other through this weird time of life. I wonder if guys would be more open about sharing such things if they happened to them. And maybe I'm just in the wrong conversations. I do tend to hang out with younger folks. Lord knows, my kids know most of the details of what coming out the other side of child-bearing years entails. There is a celebration of sorts when you pass through puberty. Not so much 30 or 40 years down the road. And for all the decades-long complaining we do about our periods there should be a big fat party when we're done. I'm not quite there yet, but maybe I'll throw one. Assuming I can stand on my gnarled old toes.
I've admitted, as I advance in years past the mid-century mark, to taking note of the growing number of things younger than I. Add to the list this week Chris Rock, Flo from Progressive Insurance and the Superbowl. The SUPERBOWL. The week before, it was my friend Dave, who turned 50. At Dave's birthday celebration, some band mates gave him a terrific gift - a bag full of things also born in 1967 - like Pringles. It was a nice reminder - for me at least - that lots of good things are getting older along with us. So I thought I'd check out things that share a birthday year with me. Here's the list I will celebrate today:
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d.a.meek
Young at heart. Archives
December 2017
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