What’s With Wednesday — Age Old Issues

Every few months or so I get to wondering about what it might feel like to get old.  You see, despite the fact that I am now 43 and starting to see a nice thin streak of silver in my hair, I don’t feel like I’m any older than I ever was.

Old woman pouring tea, unknown artist, 19th century, OP582 (Photo credit: Black Country Museums)

I feel much younger than I did when I was leaving college.  Back then I felt the weight of the world on me; I felt the weight of my family on me; I felt…

old and careworn.

I feel younger now than I did when I was in high school.   Then I felt responsible for so many things I couldn’t change–not that I knew it at the time–but I felt I had a job to fix them all.

I was tired and careworn.

I can vaguely remember days when I felt young.  I think it was yesterday…. or maybe this morning.

So all this thinking confused me.  What exactly is young?  What is old?

I checked the dictionary, and that didn’t really help at all.  I still feel younger now than ever.

I must be getting younger each year.

Why?

I feel a strong awareness of how short a time I have on this earth, I feel very inexperienced, and…  enthusiasm and optimism?  I have those in spades.  I can’t say I was “made or built” long ago; these 43 years are a pittance to human existence.  Barely a breath–how I would love to breathe longer!  There is so much to see and experience.  And half the time we spend here involves just getting ready to enjoy it all and see it all…  Preparation takes up years upon years of this precious time we have been given.

We live our lives backwards.

A woman thinking (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

And I truly believe I am growing younger.  The only possible way to say I am getting older is if the idea of appreciating how much there is comes with age.  If so, then I am ancient beyond my years… and proud of it (and  I’m glad I’m past those horrible middle years then too).

There is something amazing about real youth, the complete newness of everything.  There is also something amazing about being “old” enough to see everything for the wonder that it is and…to not give one damn if someone laughs at you if you wear a big purple hat.  In fact, I need to find myself a good big purple hat (though a Red one would look better with my coloring, it’s not so much about the looks…  It’s about the joy and the realization that being alive is …  WONDERFUL!

Young or old, I am happy to be alive.

My Row80 Check-IN

After Sunday’s check-in with the excitement of the day, I found…  nothing.  We have no real answer as to why my computer is acting up.  The only issue we can see?  It’s old.  It’s got a 2GB memory limitation on the motherboard, and part of that is shared with the video adapter.  It’s a 64-bit processor, but most things don’t seem to want to run in that mode…  And it’s only one processor, and some applications, such as my sound driver and the Microsoft Security Essentials want to demand more “brainpower” that the machine seems able to give with so many hungry programs such as Picassa, Seamonkey and Minecraft running.

Especially Minecraft.

So most of Sunday I spent reading while I watched my computer try to sort itself out.  I also checked out my laptop and found that had a virus on it.  Odd since that machine was actually running better than this one….

I didn’t get much writing done on Sunday.  Monday, I wrote.  Tuesday I wrote and attended both #teamsprinty sprints.  That’s writing and social media.  I got my sponsor visits done Monday and checked back for a few extras Tuesday.

I even got out of the house and exercised (walking around abandoned houses and meeting local horse owners) on Monday with my camera.  I’m not quite as happy with those shots as I could be, but I’m pleased enough.  It’s all a learning experience.

And lastly I’m clearing my reading pile a bit more.  Partly because I stopped trying to be so fussy about what I would read.  Craft books…  I can read craft books.  They count!  I told myself that, and now I’m off having playtime again.

It’s great to be alive and so very young.  Don’t you agree?

Please enjoy with me a wonderful poem by Maya Angelou that sums up my feels lately….  Phenomenal Woman.

Too Long Behind the Curtain

Of late, I’ve wondered about some things.  Then as if the Universe was speaking to me, answers to the questions I’d been asking myself keep appearing.

Of course, a lot of what the Universe tells me seems to come from blog posts.  Yeah, I need to get out more. 

So what are some of these revelations?

Somewhere down the roads I’ve traveled, I made a wrongheaded choice.  I always thought so, but I didn’t know what the choice was.  I had some suspicions, but I needed proof.  It came from reading this post on Seth Godin’s blog.

I watch too much, and I participate too little.  I don’t act.  I don’t step out.

Sometimes I don’t because I really am not interested in the activity–that’s okay.  We shouldn’t all be interested in every little thing.  But in another way I make the wrong choice…  because I don’t want to look bad.  It’s silly of me, I guess (I use that word, that silly word so casually, but it’s not silly; the word is the right word, but it’s not too), but I cringe at the possibility of humiliation.

When there is a risk of being humiliated, my head and stomach roil, a ball of grade school and high school memories that I have to drag myself out from.   Alive once more come the days when I felt I had nowhere safe to be, days I would hide in my parent’s car when the bus went by, even though I knew what would happen when my parents found out I would skipped school because the thought of going there hurt so much.

I have a story of a knife-shaped letter opener, the Hudson River and my dog that I might be able to tell someday.  I’m not there yet… it’s as much because I find my failure that day nearly as humiliating and painful as the reasons that brought me to that place.

Last week I read this article from the New York Times online magazine…  Some of the research in it was eye-opening.   I thought about the people I still knew from high school, about the things they posted on their Facebook statuses, how I was afraid to even post the link to my Writer Page for fear I would draw their attention to me and who I was–who I was over 25 years ago.

Yes, it’s been that long.  It’s been that long, and it doesn’t take more than a few status messages to remind me of something:  I managed to get through high school with little more than a missing letter opener and some visits to those nice people in the clean white suits because I had a few “people who didn’t know me for me” experiences.

Being around people who didn’t know my past allowed me to be myself and didn’t laugh.  A summer camp, a chorus filled with adults who were well past the high school “fluff” (though at the time I believed they knew all my horrid secrets and were humoring me)…  I had a mostly amazing experience at NYSSSA between grades 11 and 12 (mostly, because it was also my first “real” experience with a boyfriend beyond handholding and some kisses…and it ended badly).

I’m not complaining.

In the grand scheme of things, I have a wonderful life that I never could have imagined (well, beyond childhood fantasies of being a queen who ruled the world and lived in a department store where all the jewelry and pretty clothes were there for me to enjoy…).  Yes, life is in general good.  But it’s only as good as I have allowed myself to avoid letting myself be a risk taker.

I need to take risks if I want to actually be more than just a homemaker, just a wife and a mother.  Those things are good things, but I’ve always wanted more.  I want more for me.  My husband wishes more for me.  He knows that I am not doing things that make me feel fulfilled.

So doing matters.

For the moment, it’s about writing this blog post.    It’s about admitting things that scare me about myself and the future.  It’s not about waiting for someone else to say they accept me before I act.  It’s about finishing Release and publishing it.  It’s about putting my photos out there for the world to see.  And it’s about doing it…again and again and again.

I don’t actually know where the future will lead me.  I do know that my journeys in challenges such as the ROW80 and the2013 Goodreads Challenge are steps along the way.  I know that trying things like the Facebook 365 Project where I must post and take a picture a day offers another way to step out from behind the curtain.

I’ve made progress in all three of those.  Perhaps I haven’t reached all the bullet marks on my goals list…  I did plenty.  Plus I’ve taken out my drawing supplies and tried something new.  I’ve committed to joining a writing challenge… tomorrow.

More than just baby steps…

And that leads me to close with this post by Kristen Lamb about feeling overwhelmed by Social Media and how we can survive it by being honest about our limitations.  I haven’t figured out all my limitations, but I am starting to learn how to plan things better, to check before I commit, to say yes with confidence and not hope and uncertainty…   I’m even learning how to say no on occasion.

Photo credits:

• The secrets of the universe: Silken threads that knit heaven and earth together part 2 (Photo credit: pb photoworks)
• Myself

Yop! A Mid-week Check-in

Even making this post seems more like an exercise in being heard than because I know what to say.  Oh, there are all the great things that I’ve accomplished this week.  There is the twist of the story that I discovered sometime after 1am that I wanted so much to develop when I woke up (but didn’t because I had made a promise to a friend to help out).  I feel like I’m spinning my wheels.

But then I remember….  I have no wheels to spin.

If you’re wondering why I say that, here’s a trio of links for your edification:

1. http://undisguisedlife.blogspot.com/2012/01/how-to-trigger-new-way-of-living.html
2. http://undisguisedlife.blogspot.com/2012/03/mental-clarity-or-how-to-read-reality.html
3. http://undisguisedlife.blogspot.com/2012/04/compassion.html

I confess, I am still absorbing the first one.  Who is this “I” person anyway?  But can I say “I’ll think about it”?

The second one feels painfully devastating to my mind/flesh existence, a sense of loss of my writing words, my creativity…  of my imaginary friends!  My husband and I have these talks occasionally when I tell him how I understand on a very visceral level how “believing in belief” (here’s part II) can be so alluring even when one is not affiliated with any dedicated religious path.   There is a part of me that needs for something unseen and beyond myself to exist in order for me to touch the worlds I write from.  And while it’s probably not true that I need this belief….  I believe that I do, and I’m not quite ready to give up my belief.

However, I cannot say for sure yet that this is what Nick is trying to say here.  Either way, it feels uncomfortably like I have been feeling lately, as if it just is, and I cannot touch it, but I can speak of its effects.

The last link?   That I had no trouble getting my head around.  And interestingly enough, it related to some of the topics discussed by Guy McPherson in the question and answer segment of his video The Myth of Sustainability.  So many things we do for the sake of the individual.  Yet we forget (or ignore) how much we affect each other.  If we really did act with compassion….  What a change we could make in the world.

So there we go.  That’s part of where my mind has been lately.  That and watching my son and husband play Twister (I did not last long in the games).

ROW80 Check-in

Linked to a Youtube video because it is such an awesome song

Since this is midweek, I’m going to make this a mini.  I’m a bit behind on my new story writing.  The typing is going well.  The editing I’m ahead on.

Even the other stuff…  Today I put myself into Hootsuite.  Testing the waters.  Not sure I really like it.  Been twitchy not having Facebook sitting there.  It could also be due to my not having set it up fully.  And I do NOT like the $6 a month cost.  I’m weird that way, not big on subscriptions, though I don’t mind a larger one-time fee.  We’ll see what happens.

I’m off to post this and to sleep and dream.  Maybe tomorrow we’ll be off to co-op, maybe we won’t.  Things are always in flux.

And that’s okay.