Oh, Oh, Older

I dropped the gratefulness ball. I'm back with Oxytocin but I couldn't write intelligently about it at all. Neither Oceans, which I love. Nor obstetricians, whom I also love and respect. Thank God for obstetricians, who save mothers' and babies' lives every single day!

But, today I am grateful for getting Older.

Babyhood was probably a hoot. I was born in Uganda and spent much of my babyhood on someone's back, and the rest of the time naked learning how to dance or playing in the sand. But I remember nothing before I was three.

Then young childhood was spent trying to avoid having to speak to anyone, and learning the joys of reading and using my imagination.

And being a kid was pretty ok I guess, I was taken for fun hikes in the Rockies and we went to England for a year. I learned to play the piano and the clarinet. I loved doing homework. Still terribly tormented by shyness, and self-conscious about my crooked teeth, frizzy hair, and knowledge of words with more than two syllables.

Adolescence? Terrifying, creepy, and awful, mostly. I was the weird kid in school, never had a date. But I still loved reading, which kind of saved my life, except when I got a little Older I started traveling and spent hours in the Rockies on my own.

So, being a young adult is kind of weird in this society, at least it was in the seventies because we didn't know what we were supposed to do. Anyway, I did it and emerged with a baby in the eighties, and then life was just a whirlwind, magnificent, crazy, uplifting, we had a farm and lots of babies....

Babies grow older. They get bigger and then they also turn into adults, usually. Mine did anyway, except the last one who is still an adolescent. It's a fun trip, having kids. I wasn't a career woman. I raised children, had a farm, created two non-profits, stay married for a really long time.

Middle age was fucking awful. I spent about ten years thinking I could please all the people, all the time. I twisted myself into a pretzel, to no avail. I trained to be a midwife, but a wee bit too late so now I can only work illegally. I'm some kind of a legend in the birth world here, which is bullshit because I know very little really.

Now I am getting Older. Turning sixty this year, I hope. No more pretzel. I am starting to say no, and it's a little freaky. Some people don't like it.

So, I am mostly very grateful for the chance to be old, I'm not there yet but I am getting a glimmer of what it might be like. Of course the body changes in weird ways, kind of like adolescence. But you get to be yourself because what the fuck, you might as well, right? You might as well say what you want to say. Of course I always like to try to not hurt people, but I am learning that its not always possible.

So here's a big L'Chaim to getting OLD!