A few weeks ago I walked into church and saw a woman I know vaguely sitting alone. I knew, because of her strained relationship with a much-beloved member of the church, she likely was going to continue to be alone if I didn’t offer to sit next to her. I have nothing against her, and I admired her for having the courage to show up on a Sunday morning when she had to know it would be challenging and probably lonely.
It’s not that other members of my church are cold. There’s a lot involved here I won’t go into. As a result of my reaching out to her, though, I got to know someone I otherwise had found to be distant and hard to reach. I knew others might ask me what was going on, and I said as much to her and asked what she’d like me to say in response. She told me, and I agreed to leave it at that.
I’m proud to say no one in my church asked me a thing, and I was able to send her a message on Facebook later that day saying as much.
I didn’t do any of that because it was the Christian thing to do, or even the right thing to do. I did it because it was important to me. Whether or not I perceived her feelings correctly, I have no idea.
Here’s the thing: I think this revealed a side of me many don’t easily see to some people who’ve become important in my life now. It helped pave the way for a closer relationship with those who can help me through a challenge I’m facing.
Sometimes it’s the little things in life that give us faith the bigger things will work out.
Years ago, fresh out of college and discouraged because I couldn’t find a job in my chosen field, I was debating accepting a lesser job, the kind of work I’d spent years pursuing my degree to get away from. I had been an “adult student,” someone who went back to school later than usual and took classes part-time instead of enjoying the luxury of being a full-time student (well, it seems like a luxury when your options are bit more challenging, as mine were).
However, I needed to pay my bills, not to mention buy groceries. I was talking to a close friend about it and she said, “Take the job. We don’t know what the future holds.”
I’ve remembered those words ever since. I wish I could say that job ultimately led to a position with the best company ever, but it didn’t. Eventually, however, I did work somewhere I was able to fulfill my dream. More or less, because reality usually falls a little short.
Now the phrase has taken on a new meaning. I have multiple friends facing chronic, progressive or terminal illness, and they’re still young. Loved ones are frightened by the loss, emptiness and responsibility that lies ahead. Once again, I’ve come to realize, we don’t know what the future holds.
It is what it is, and will be nothing else than what it’s going to be. I fear what looms ahead for me, and I don’t even know yet what will happen. The challenge is something I’ll have to take on, though, because I will control what I can and accept what I can’t. It may take time to get there, but it is a road I’ve come to know well.
It’s coming soon for many of you. I may get some too, but it’s a little different here. I won’t experience anything like what surrounded me during a situation I once thought of as the most embarrassing moment of my life, a story I knew better than to tell. Until now.
It was my first significant snowstorm
since moving to Minnesota, and light, powdery snow was piled high all around. Stir crazy and not particularly savvy about wintery road conditions, I bundled up and blithely took a walk a few blocks down to the grocery store.
Not a good idea.
Sidewalks were snowed over, so on my way back, rather than walking on the street, I chose an obviously safer route across the parking lot and down a hill. Obvious, that is, to a lifelong Californian.
What I foolishly didn’t calculate
was the three feet of snow now jutting out from the side of that hill. As I plowed through the fresh powder on the ground, suddenly the earth gave out under me and I dropped five feet straight down.
Damn. What to do now.
I waited until I was pretty sure all current traffic at that stop light had passed before working my way out. Then, with as much dignity as I could muster, (which is to say, not a whole lot) I proceeded home.
Fortunately, I was new to the area, not to mention bundled up and resembling a cookie jar, so likely no one recognized me.
Seriously,
that’s my most embarrassing moment? OF COURSE NOT. Comical, perhaps, and a good mental laugh-inducing picture, but I’ve lived through a lot worse since then.
But you won’t hear about those moments from me. It’s taken me decades to tell this story, and it’s more funny than embarrassing. No doubt you’ve lived through one or two of your own, and I’m always up for a good laugh.
Some of the other moments, well, best to lay those memories to rest.
Which makes me wonder how many really painful memories others have that they wisely don’t tell, except that sharing them might make the rest of us fools feel a little less lonesome? I’m talking those times we behave outside of our own character, seemingly controlled by demons unknown to us.
If that resonates with you, those demons, if it wrenches your heart, then you know what I mean, the divide within yourself.
I’m not promoting a soul-wrenching, innermost-self baring session for anyone with anyone except on your own terms in your own time. You need to guard your heart.
But every once in awhile, I’d like someone to say the words, whatever they are, that would tell me the anguish of my most humiliating moments isn’t mine alone. Maybe each of us, most of us, or even just some of us, go through the same thing at times in our lives.
I’m glad fall is near for one simple reason: I look so much better in fall & winter clothes.
I’m not particularly thrilled my ego is that sensitive, but at the same time, I dread the day I no longer care about my appearance at all.
It would be nice to start caring a little less as a I get older, and I think I probably already do, or I’d be in a panic as I watched the signs of aging creep in on me. I don’t recall ever believing I’d get this old. Not that I thought I’d die young, I just didn’t think I’d ever age. Yes, logically I knew I would, but my mind generally wouldn’t go there.
It still doesn’t, until I look in the mirror and can no longer deny it. I’m in my 50s. How the hell did that happen so soon? It’s not going to get better, so I need to figure out how to deal with the disappointment. Just why does it bother me?
Part of it, I suppose, is being single. Like it or not, how you look affects your ability to captivate the opposite sex, and I’m not feeling the same power I used to. Not that I ever felt powerful, but still, on a good day I felt competitive.
So to keep from getting lonely, I need to look good? I don’t think that’s a truth I want to start believing.
But here’s the other thing: aging gracefully is a requirement for people older and wiser than I (believe I) am. The driver’s license isn’t letting me get away with thinking I’m any younger, but wiser is harder to assess, and I just don’t know if I measure up.
I don’t want to be an old fool. I know a few of those, and becoming one probably scares me more than anything else.
There is one piece of wisdom I’ve acquired. All the plastic surgery in the world isn’t going to keep you from looking older. It has its benefits for some, but it’s not likely it will ever be something I’ll consider. I’m looking for other alternatives, including attitude, to take its place.
Apparently, by modern definition, I am a cat lady.
I have two, and according to a recent New York Times article, that’s all it takes. Back in the day, it was somewhere in the double digits. Okay, maybe less than that, but having two cats then was called being a pet owner.
Walter, the cat who melts in your lap
So now, add “cat lady” to never married and avid knitter. Let’s not forget I lived with my mother for a time. Laughably, I fit a stereotype I can only hope is now as outdated as the former definition of “cat lady.”
If not, so be it. I fit it on paper only. I’m not to be pitied or mocked. Yes, I do get lonely at times. Everybody does. I remind myself then how many people my age are single for one reason or another, or worse yet, in bad marriages. Quite frankly, my situation is better than many, and not worse than most.
It took me years…
…to genuinely realize I’m valued and appreciated by others, and how essential true friendship is to contentment in life, how key it is to have people around me I can relax with and not fret about whether I’ve said or done the wrong thing.
I’ve learned to stay away from people who make me feel bad, whether or not it appears to be their fault. Sometimes I’ve taken the blame for things I’m not responsible for and find myself crashing and burning trying to right a wrong situation when the blame lies elsewhere.
In the past, and to a lingering extent still today, I tended to focus on the negative and be suspicious of sincere offers of friendship. What’s more, I always believed it was impossible for a man of worth to love me. Now, I apologize to any man out there who may have wanted to date me but didn’t because of the wall I put up. I never considered it this way before, but that’s a pretty rude attitude on my part.
I’m a bit offbeat, and happy about it.
There is somewhat of a dichotomy here, a flip side to that deeply held insecurity. On my best days, after a little mirror time, I’m confident in my appearance. I know I’m personable, kind, and empathetic. As one former boyfriend once told me (and although he meant it as a slam, I took it as a high compliment), I’m also a bit offbeat, and happy about it. In other words, I do have a fair amount of confidence in myself when I call on it.
That growth in attitude doesn’t change what I’ve done to get me where I am today. I can walk out the door, spinning on my heels with the belief I’m a brunette heartbreaker with the intellect and wisdom of, well, None Other, and thinking, men, I challenge you to be strong enough to take me on. (I have to clarify – I absolutely do not do that, and if I did, I can guarantee you with my next step I would, characteristically, slip on a banana.) It wouldn’t instantly bring me what I may desire at that moment.
Here’s the thing:
I like cats, love mine, and I love to knit. I wouldn’t give them up, the cats or the yarn, just because they might make me look laughable to someone cocky enough to think he or she will never be an object of scorn.
I am where I am because of who I am, along with the choices I’ve made and the choices made for me, twists and turns in life I have no knowledge of because they took place before they could be visible. I’ve made the life I have the way it is in part because that is the life I’ve wanted.
I believe in the power of subtle changes…In the meantime, I’m content.
A few years ago I had a glimpse of what it would be like to have someone in my life to be a support when I needed it most. I’ve handled sad and difficult situations on my own for so long that having someone by my side was new to me. It turned me around in the way I think about relationships, and I started to open up to the whole idea of something permanent.
Of course it doesn’t change the route I’ve taken to get where I am today, the reasons why and the consequences thereof. Being open to something doesn’t mean it will or even should happen, and I’m still not sure what I ultimately want. I have a comfortable lifestyle created from living alone.
Some of my family who have always been there — and always will be.
Yes, there are days when I sink into sad thoughts, but I know enough to realize a little time and maybe a good night’s sleep will bring me back to myself.
I believe in the power of subtle changes. In the meantime, I’m content with what I’ve been given, the friends and family who never fail me.
Just don’t expect me to ever change how I think about my cats. Only two, mind you, only two.
It would be nice to start caring a little less as a I get older, and I think I probably already do, or I’d be in a panic as I watched the signs of aging creep in on me. I don’t recall ever believing I’d get this old. Not that I thought I’d die young, I just didn’t think I’d ever age. Yes, logically I knew I would, but my mind generally wouldn’t go there.
My World With Words 
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