What They Don’t Tell You About Getting Older

It’s actually reinforced quite often. People tell you that time moves like a roll of toilet paper, disappearing faster as you go. They tell you that your body starts to hurt in odd ways and then in painful ones, that it’s harder to get a job and that your face gets wrinkled and that your relationships change and that suddenly you don’t recognize the celebrities du jour.

They also tell you that you gain wisdom, that you stop concerning yourself so much with the opinions of others, that some financial stability goes a long way and that each milestone age is the new 30. They tell you that if you’ve chosen what and who you love, then there’s nothing better than looking back on a life well lived.

What they don’t tell you is that no matter how much you’re told, it all comes as quite a surprise. The wisdom gained is hard fought, the body aches appear suddenly, the relationships change in devastating ways and the looking back on one’s life is as much a reconstructive exercise as a reflective one.

Few things that matter make sense. The joy lies in the doing despite of, even if, and again.

Quality of Life Determinants

1. Ability to make your home warmer or cooler

2. How often you eat what you’d like to eat

3. Flawless plumbing

4. Fast wifi

5. Friends that will answer your call

Rearrange

The fantasy of starting a life anew overlooks the reality that we can really only build new lives with pieces of our old ones. With each move we bring all the things that made the previous home feel as such. Bruises and scratches and losses ensue. Days and weeks and months are spent rearranging the new place to feel something like the old, the same paint on a new canvas.

The real fantasy of transformation is one only realized subtly and slowly. It’s found in the gradual shifting of one’s orientation to the world, from one of defense to one of curiosity.

I have no idea if this is true. But as I write amongst all my earthly possessions strewn about, I couldn’t help but wonder.

Beginnings

Hugs

Well wishes

Small gifts

Short speeches

Last walks

Last looks

Goodbyes

Doors

Locks

The bumpy, bumpy road it takes to soar.

Air Traffic Control HR

Team,

As you know, we are closely monitoring the ongoing government shutdown and continue to be appreciative to all of you who continue to show up to work without pay. Rest assured that we remain hopeful that back pay will one day be issued - though, like anything in life, this is not promised.

For those of you who have not showed up for work, please continue to do so. We just got word that we need to cut some of our staffing numbers. Your chronic absence is actually a welcomed convenience in this instance.

Many of you may be wondering what lies ahead for the holiday season. I advise you to start now in embracing and promoting manufactured platitudes such as, “the holidays are really about being at peace in one’s own heart,” because no one is going to be able to travel anywhere to see anyone.

None of us ever planned to get into this career. In that sense we’re not unlike adult film stars or drag queens. The only difference now, of course, is that those guys are still working.

Happy holidays to all. I’ve be laid off until further notice.

Safe(?) travels,

Deb

How I Feel About Everything

A plan in advance is nice, but so are good surprises. Bad surprises are bad.

I like to know when someone is meaning what they’re saying. It’s okay when they’re not sure what they’re saying. It’s worse when they know what they’re saying but not saying it.

The morning is for business and the evening is for pleasure. The middle is dealer’s choice.

Thursday night is better than Friday night, though Friday night is very great. Certainly better than Saturday.

Feelings are like the weather and the ocean and sometimes they’re incredibly beautiful and give you reasons to gaze with hope toward the future and other times you wonder when their torment will end and how will you possibly recover.

Money is a very important element but becomes more abstract the more there is. Remembering the real impact of money is important.

Relationships are our only forever homes, and the most challenging and rewarding one of all is that which we cultivate with our own self.

Bigger Fish

Yesterday I visited the Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame and Museum in Hayward, Wisconsin.

It’s main attraction is a giant fish statue the size of two or three school buses, one you can walk up into the mouth of much like the crown of Lady Liberty.

At the top I observed the humble but manicured grounds of the outdoor exhibit sprinkled with plaques and other larger-than-life lake fish. Beyond sat the weathered Hayward water tower, and to my right the still waters of the nearby river.

I had gone there by the recommendation of a friend and presumed the giant fish would be unmistakable from the road, but it really did blend in. The browns and reds and yellows and oranges of the trees hid the monstrosity. It almost looked decent.

The indoor exhibit included walls of fishermen holding giant fish of varying species. You could almost smell them.

It was a nice reminder of the legends among us.

Victor’s Secret

The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show has struck yet again, proving that as long as a woman’s face and body are perfectly symmetrical representations of her particular demographic, she, too, is beautiful.

If one aspired to present a similar spectacle featuring men, I think it’d be most compelling to have the various sections be task-oriented. First, we would have incredibly hot men be asked questions about geopolitics (not the obvious ones, either). Questions like, “What’s going on right now in Syria?”

Next would be the guys of mid-tier hotness (think Junior Varsity captains turned middle managers) casually yet confidently approaching women at a bar.

Finally, we would have the uglies. These men would be tasked with conducting in-depth interviews with the Victoria’s Secret Angels, getting to the heart of their interests, aspirations, and true feelings about being so, so beautiful, and so, so silent.

Life Sentence

Life is a life sentence, not a because it’s a prison, but because it’s a thing you write.

Profession

What makes something professional is that it’s expensive, considered, and standardized. Such is the predicament of the professional artist, writer, singer, actor, or person that deeply hopes to make such activities their “job” when the act of doing them rarely, if ever, moves the needle of capital.

Yet the allure of a profession divorced from the need to produce, communicate, sell, and transport products at scale continues to endure.

A day spent writing the next chapter of one’s life, painting a representation of one’s interiority, singing one’s song in the shower and pretending to be anyone but one’s self seems not far off from a perfect day.

Professional work continues to move ships. But the days of not doing, of not professing anything at all, is what brings life to life.

Guided Rumination

First of all, thank yourself for showing up for yourself today.

We’ll do one big inhale through the nose, exhale through the mouth.

Now I want you to picture that person from work. Can you believe they’re still doing that thing?

Are they ever going to learn how to function in a workplace?

I mean, really, is it your job to teach them proper etiquette?

Is it even etiquette, or is it just basic human decency?

Did they even go to kindergarten?

I mean, you spend your whole life trying to do the right thing, not ruffle too many feathers, keep your head down and do your work, make pleasant conversation and have it go off without a hitch, remember major holidays and pick up a gift and get there on time and send the full information and have an outfit on and don’t make too much noise and speak confidently and listen closely and love fiercely and party hard and rest easy, and yet…

Some people will never learn.

But you will.

You do every day.

You are the mountain.

You are the morning and the evening star.

They’re the worst.

It sounds like you handled that perfectly.

Endings

They are so bad.

They are so good.

​Celebrities But Only First Names

Ralph hosted a show and I saw Catherine and Elizabeth there. Miley wasn’t able to come, though I did see Giselle and she seemed to be alright since everything went down with Tom. I think she’s with Brad now.

Anna finally showed up and then the show started, though I couldn’t take my eyes off of Allen across the way who was with some girl I didn’t recognize. SJ and Kristin said her name was Ashley but I am skeptical as I though she was already married to Evan, Diana’s son.

Donatella never showed up, but she sent flowers. Julia confirmed they were real. Jenna left quickly and I couldn’t get a word out of Stephanie about when she and Michael are finally going follow through with it. Anyhow, seeing Cynthia was fun.

The afterparty was the best part. I ran into John, Amanda, Rachel, Robert, Amy, Bob, Amber, Emily, and even Jane.

Cher, unfortunately, was nowhere to be found.

Nature

Nature never stays the same, even as we insist upon life maintaining consistency. So often we want the same temperature, the same food, the same movement as before, and yet with each moment of each day nature tells us, “no.”

There are measures we take to avoid the trouble. We create air conditioned boxes of comfort, fridges full of produce imported across seas, cashmere sweaters and swim trunks and running shoes and sunglasses. All of these accoutrements smooth out the edges of an unavoidably inhospitable world.

But beauty, so often, is created in those moments where the dynamism of nature is met in compliment with the fabrications of man: the boots that got you to the top of the mountain, the glass of ice water that cooled your throat on a warm day, the quiet warmth of a building lobby as you come inside from snow blowing sideways. Both need the other, and all of us need them all.

Holiday

The Tuesday after Labor Day is more January 1st than any other date. A luxurious marking of the most luxurious season’s end, nothing quite matches the melancholy and delight of a whole day to accept summer’s passing.

No more white, no more late sunsets, no more beachside weekdays and no more meandering by. In walks real life, real time, real action and real plans.

Christmas is the next thing, and yet there is still so much to happen before.

Worse Things

Yesterday I found myself sweating in dress clothes. There are only a few things worse on this planet (below).

1. The loss of a family member or friend

2. The threat of nuclear war being realized

3. An unexpected phone call or door knock from a sales professional

4. Grief showing up because of certain smells

5. Taxes

6. Eating healthy consistently

7. Running into an authority figure from childhood as an adult in your hometown grocery store

8. Arriving at your destination in aforementioned dress clothes and waiting for the sweating to stop

And Just Like That…

As of last night, And Just Like That…, the Sex and the City spinoff, is over. With it goes my hopes of following these women forever, praying that their lives will resolve in some cohesive and neat narrative, and that they will finally relax into a life of true leisure: one so boring that there is actually no show to be had.

The manufactured drama of the series often feels like watching life unfolding far too fast. Only it’s the more real life that passes that makes one realize that it is more documentary than melodrama. Each conversation, each scenario, is one to come up in our own lives, even if only in conversation with our girlfriends.

While attaching my emotionality to this superficial show is a dubious endeavor at best, my loss is less the entertainment value it provides and more the psychological continuity it offers. Its ending forces me to accept that these women, and our lives, go on. After the unimaginable, comes the next day. And just like that…we continue.

Right on Time

I joined Gumpy in the boat for a fishing trip, just down our side of the lake and back. I read my book on the way there, the warm sun beating down on my shoulders, my head getting heavier and heavier. Soon I shifted to the hull of the boat (or whatever the bottom is called) so I could rest my back against its side. Soon we were humming back to camp. My eyes fluttered open just as we were turning into the dock. Just in time, right on time.

Trees and Lakes

When we try so hard and things don’t happen, maybe it’s because they shouldn’t. No one begs a tree to grow or a lake to freeze. It is simply the way of things.

Human behavior so often gets in the way. Our ideas about ambition, worthiness, justice, and peace so quickly become commingled with those of others that our own internal arbiter becomes more an accountant than artist.

August is the best time to lay back. To see what keeps growing, what emerges, and what approaches.

That which you move closer to becomes larger.

Emptying the Bottle

Emptying the bottle of a skincare product, however basic, is a rare and satisfying sensation. The procurement, the placement, the adoption, the utilization, the consistency, the routine, the just-enough results all culminate in that final pump or swipe or pad.

Such events also grant one the space to ponder. Is this the same journey I want to have for another six weeks? Wasn’t that last thing a bit better? Should I try combining this thing with that other thing, and if I do, should I remove something else?

Having product left in the jar or bottle or pump means that you still have a commitment to honor. Throwing away a half empty bottle, or any bottle not fully depleted for that matter, constitutes an uninspiring admission of defeat.

But one always has the choice to choose differently. From the first smell to the last dosage, a cream is only as good as it does for you.

If you reach the end and your first thought is to get more of the same, that’s an awfully good sign. Because the only feeling better than finishing an old bottle of something you love, is opening up a brand new one.