Older.Grayer. Slower.

There's nothing like sitting in a technology workshop with a room full of Gen X-ers to make you realize that old is not just a state of mind. This was the scary realization I came to this past week.

Forget all the attempts to persuade myself, otherwise: the hair color that hides my tell-tale grey roots; the anti-aging regimen that keeps my face from collapsing like California along an earthquake fault line; the chrome-colored trenchcoat that makes me feel youthful and more or less hip.

Outwardly, I can convince myself--and pretty often the general public in the right light--that I have stalled the biological clock. And then it happens. I'm asked a question that forces me to prove that no matter how young I may feel or even look on a good day, my brain is functioning on decreased capacity. I’ve begun to understand there’s a new meaning for the term “gray matter.”

The workshop was a two-day, twelve hour intensive on how to use a program called Joomla to create websites. Piece of cake, I thought--I can do HTML code in my sleep; I should be able to manage this without staring blankly at the computer screen when asked to download and unzip a file. Everything was going fine until our instructor decided it was time for a "quick review.” To my mind, this is the equivalent of playing "Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?" buck naked in front of your colleagues, and without the big money prize as motivation. Personally, I've never been good at group Q&A's, even with all my brain cells intact. Same thing with brainstorming sessions at work. Fire questions at me in a group setting and I go completely Anna Nicole. Call it "oops anxiety." I'm sure I'm not the only one who goes mind-numb under stress.

This time, though, it wasn’t anxiety keeping my tongue still. It felt more like my brain was a vast jar of peanut butter and whatever I was trying to get at was stuck all the way down at the bottom.

Okay, I thought, maybe it’s just info overload, which was my lame attempt to salve my growing inferiority complex. But the thick-brain symptoms continued for the rest of day and into day number two. It’s not that I didn’t know the answers; it’s just that I seemed to need a few nano seconds more than everyone else in the room for the information to leap across my synapses and form intelligent language. I decided it was more prudent to stay mute rather than embarrass myself by answering “eggplant” to a question about top menus versus main menus simply because eggplant was the first thing that popped into my head while the actual answer was lolly-gagging around my neural network.

Then came the moment-of-truth event I’d been avoiding—I asked a question.

“What if I don’t want a module to show up on all my sub-pages?”

Our instructor Brett who, enviously, has all of his brain cells in perfect working order said: “Where would you go to manage your modules?”

My notes is what I wanted to say. But since he was standing right behind me, expecting me to brilliantly maneuver my pointy arrow over to the correct tab that would prove I knew the answer, I could hardly be blithe. It took a few moments of anxious lip-biting, but I finally and insecurely said: “The module manager?”

That’s when it hit me: inside my fifty-four-year-old head was an octogenarian brain. Age may have made me wiser, but it had also made me feel like a conspicuous idiot in a world of rapid-fire data access. For me, it wasn’t just an intellectual awareness, it was also an emotional one. I grabbed my lunch and went out to my car where I sat crying into a handful of napkins. Even worse was that I resented feeling distraught about it. So I couldn’t grasp complex information as quickly as I used to. What was the big deal?

Well, the big deal was this: a lot of things about aging sneak up on us gradually: wrinkles don’t suddenly appear on perfectly smooth faces; our bodies don’t speed along one day and tremble on shaky legs the next. Aging gives us time to adjust to the changes that take us from one stage of life to the next. Aging tends to be, thankfully, slow.

But there are climatic moments—like scenes in a movie where everything changes when a shower curtain is drawn back and the knife blade comes into view—that leave you gasping and clutching at the arms of your seat. Fear, anxiety, distress, all come exploding to the surface.

Ultimately, the fact that my cognitive abilities are slightly more sluggish isn’t a major crisis. It’s not even enough of a crisis to make me tear into the Reese’s peanut butter cups that are stashed in my carry bag to sell for a fundraiser. Although I’m tempted. It’s just one of those “getting older” things I’m still trying to accept semi-gracefully like all the other changes this time of life brings.

Women Mobilizing for Peace

A wonderful story I read about in the April issue of Family Circle featured Patricia Smith Melton and the website/organization she launched called Peace X Peace (pronounced peace by peace). The mission of Peace X Peace is to act as "an inclusive global network of women-focused e-media, with interactive commentary, fresh analysis, and from-the-frontlines perspectives. We engage, connect, inform, and inspire individuals and amplify women's voices as the most direct and powerful ways to create cultures of peace around the world." Do something that makes a difference....join! Go to their website at Peace X Peace.

Weekend in Kitchen Rehab

Yesterday, which was a beautiful, sun-filled Saturday and perfect for washing the salt and muck of winter off my car, (which I didn't do, by the way), I decided not to switch on the TV as I usually do every Saturday morning. The recent cable rate hike has me so infuriated that I've finally decided I'm ditching the cable and will rely on my high speed internet, DVD's, and maybe even that antique of news and information...the daily paper.

Saying and doing, however, are two different things. Breaking myself of the automatic habit of bringing the world into my home with just the press of a button is not unlike choosing to forsake material life and enter a monastery. There's a moment of fear that you've been entirely cut off from the world and somehow you're going to go crazy crackers from the silence. What brought me back from the brink was reminding myself of the 72 bucks I spend every month on a service that basically provides me with background noise.

I further vowed to refrain from turning on the tube until I really wanted to watch something. Instead, I would focus intently on one project, and not the laundry list of "should do's" I try to accomplish in the 48 precious hours I have away from the weekly grind of tasks and projects of my job. I decided to focus on the kitchen.

The thing about cleaning anything with focused attention, is that the more you clean, the more dirt you seem to find. I rarely, for instance, get down on my knees to see what's going on at the base of the cabinets. I don't partly because there is yellowed plastic baseboard molding that runs around the entire perimeter of my kitchen which I'd like to just rip up and can't afford to do at the moment because that would entail doing something about the mismatched self-stick tiles on the floor. So I normally don't look below cabinet level unless it's absolutely necessary.

Yesterday I looked. For a second I thought, "Where is Extreme Makeover when you really need them?" Not in my kitchen, that was for sure. So I hunkered down with the dust pan and brush, a sponge and three different cleansers--one just didn't seem to do the trick--and had at it. Now I have really clean, but still ugly yellowish-beige baseboards. I'm not sure what I accomplished except to feel the smallest bit of satisfaction in having paid attention to this gross and neglected place that seems to be the dumpsite for all the refuse I don't want to look at. Like a lot of areas of my life. Emotional, mental and psychological junk that I prefer to be ignorant about because if I recognize it, I'd have to clean it up.

But, like I said, you clean one thing and then you notice there's a greasy, grimy drip pan that is glaring out from a pristine white stovetop. Spattered ketchup on the refrigerator door. Kitty litter in the corners. You open the cabinets and piles of plastic storage tubs come spilling out. Somehow or another, the entire kitchen has gone from being a quick sweep of the broom and wiping the down the counters to a full-scale fumigation.

Out came the rubber gloves, the Goo Off, the scrubby sponges, the bleach cleaner. I even tackled the tower of containers, stacking them in neat rows, the mish mash of lids all collected in a little storage bin. I purged the spice cabinet of colored sugars, empty bottles, cupcake liners I wouldn't likely use, and anything I hadn't opened in six months. It's amazing the junk we accumulate, I thought. Even more perplexing is the stuff we don't even recognize or can't remember why we bought in the first place. Like why did I have a bottle of Gravy Master? I never make gravy.

None of this was made easier by the fact that my cat, Misha, was underfoot the entire time. I mopped the floor; he walked on it. I sanitized the counter, he jumped up and started parading back and forth. I filled the garbage bag to the verge of exploding, and he started gnawing on it.

After about two hours of guerrilla cleaning, I felt somehow....lighter. Evacuated. I wondered if that's how people feel  after they perform the prescribed colon cleansing prior to a colonoscopy. Something else I have been ambivalent about from a cleaning perspective, but will, one of these days, have to accept as a necessity.

The only problem now is that my more focused attention has discovered a half dozen new eyesores that I need to fix. Like the horribly greasy drip pan that's beyond scrubbing which means a trip to Loew's to buy a replacement. And the tiny crack I discovered near a doorway that needed to be spackled.  And then there's the molding I've been meaning to install to hide the small gap between the cabinets and the new subway tiles I put up last fall. What started as a way to focus my attention away from the lack of cable TV has become a weekend of rehab.

Not long after I put away the bucket and broom, dumped the garbage, and stashed the rubber gloves, the cat hopped in his litter box and did what all felines do--sent litter flying everywhere. He looked at me in his totally imperious way, and I looked back at him looking equally imperious, and said, "Really?"

It seemed like a good time to retreat to the couch and turn on a Grey's Anatomy rerun.

Temptation 1; Resistance 0

Last Saturday, I had a showdown. It was between me and my arch rival--dessert. Carrot cake, to be specific.

I knew I was going to give into temptation so there was really no fighting it. There are a few things in life I find completely irresistible--weight gain, guilt trip, morning-after regret be damned--and cake is one of them. Given my ongoing thyroid dysfunction, this has become an even greater woe since I know that the cake I indulge in today, will mean weeks of self-deprivation and nightly engagements with my Dance Your Ass Off DVD.

The cake in question was going to be well worth the pain and suffering after the fact. I happen to work for a non-profit organization that has an herb club, and where there are herb clubs, there is food. Wonderful food. And one of their prize recipes is a carrot cake that is so sinfully rich and moist, packed with walnuts and coconut, and topped with a generous slathering of cream cheese frosting, that if God himself offered me the choice between this cake and eternity, I would be hard pressed to turn away from the fork.

Knowing that I and the cake would be having a confrontation, I decided up front that I wouldn't resist. What was the point? I would only end up feeling resentful, deprived, and craving something even more intoxicating and bad for me....like a bag full of fried dough dusted with cinnamon sugar, that in our heavily-Polish populated area of Western New York are called fasnachts, and only come out during the Lenten season. Carrot cake can at least claim some nutritional value. Fried dough; not so much.

And besides, I rationalized, allowing myself to really enjoy the cake was in keeping with my self-renewal project of embracing contentment, inspired by Lisa Graham McMinn's book "The Contented Soul: The Art of Savoring Life." (2006) For me, there are several areas of life made especially for nurturing contentment, and one of them is food. Whether it's the growing of what we eat, the artful preparation, or the mindful savoring of something we enjoy without gorging ourselves beyond the point of satisfaction, food can be a source of pleasure and even a soul-filling experience when there is a food we greet with eager anticipation, savoring every molecule of flavor with abandon and guiltlessness. And it gives us an opportunity to be thankful for the skillful hands that create such gastronomic delights for the senses.

I succumbed to the cake, not without a small amount of remorse, which, by the way, quickly passed.

Good Works of the Week

I'm always on the look-out for grassroots organizations that are helping to improve the world we all share. I came across a tiny little tidbit in a recent issue of Redbook about a tremendous group called Bead For Life which is turning the artistic skills of impoverished women in Uganda into saleable products, helping to improve their economic conditions. As someone involved in not-for-profit arts, I know a cool craft item when I see it, and I just love these beads!  My hat's off to co-founders Ginny Jordan and Torkin Wakefield for their efforts in getting this organization off the ground. Check out the products available or make a donation on their website http://www.beadforlife.org/.

Curator of the Week Feb. 21 - Feb. 27, 2010 - She Writes

Curator of the Week Feb. 21 - Feb. 27, 2010 - She Writes

This wonderful review was written by Julie Jeffs who's the administrator of the "Bloggers" group on SheWrites. Thanks Julie! If you're a women who writes, she the little widget in the column, right, and join the club!


"I chose Elaine Harrigan’s blog Blooming in Midlife not only for its wonderful writing but because for any of us who are navigating mid-life ourselves, we can find some camaraderie, with a healthy dose of humor and wit. Elaine also shares her posts from her writing for More.com. For instance, in a story written for More.com titled “Puberty, Again? No Fair!” in which she lists what she describes as the Top Ten list of midlife’s little horrors including blemishes, body changes, moodiness … you know, all those things we already went through in 7th grade! We can all be thankful that Elaine decided in her fifties to “unleash her voice”; it is a joy to hear, er .... read."

Waistcapades

I've been dragging out the dark colors more these days. And those unfriendly sounds you hear from me in the morning? Grunting. Scowling. Bitching and moaning. And a lot of mourning. Why? My waistline is disappearing.

This is how bad it's gotten: I've traded my obsession with the scale for one with a tape measure. And I cheat. I know that cutting off my circulation is a form of self-deception; that I'm deluding myself into a size six when I'm really closer to an eight. But I look at it this way--if it keeps me from reaching for the slice of chocolate cake or downing a bag of cheedar cheese rice cakes, I'll be healthier in the long run. I just wish I would be healthier with a waistline.

This isn't a fact that caught me off guard; in fact, battling bulges has been a part of my life story since--forever. The words "baby fat" came out of my mother's mouth while I was still pre-pubescent and I clung to that explanation well into my teens. Then suddenly one summer between my sixteenth and seventeenth birthdays, the baby fat melted and, tah-dah, I had a waistline at last! You better believe I flaunted it, sister.

You wouldn't think this was such a big deal unless you saw my father's side of the family. Waistlines were not in the genetic code. They're Italian, afterall. Spaghetti, meatballs, garlic bread, stuffed rigatoni, lasagna along side the Thanksgiving turkey....this kind of diet doesn't make for hourglass figures. But, still, I craved one. And until I got pregnant in my late 20s, I somehow managed to keep a whittled waist despite blue cheese burgers, double stuffed subs, Burger King chicken sandwiches--fried not broiled--slathered with mayo. Oh, to be 25 again and have a metabolism.

By the time I hit my 30s, I lucked out. America was discovering step aerobics, Jane Fonda, and wearing sweatbands as a fashion accessory. I was merciless. Three nights a week of one-hour workouts courtesy of the school community education program. Circuit training at the health club. If I had known then that this would probably be the last time I'd ever squeeze into a size three, I would have posed for more pictures.

Then came the earthquakes. A divorce, single motherhood, a bankruptcy. Bing, Bang. Boom. Even though I was an emotional wreck, I never ballooned to outrageous proportions. Still, for the first time in my life I had to shimmy into a girdle to control the overflow of tummy flesh. I was mortified. I mean, my mother wore girdles. Even worse, I became petrified that matronhood was just around the corner. You know the look....flabby skin dangling from the upper arms, the doublechin, the saggy boobs, a hefty bag of junk in the trunk. The evidence was all around me. Literally. Around me. It's like that saying, "Denial isn't a river in Egypt." My own version is this: "Middle age spread isn't something you schmear on a bagel." Meaning: There are some things about aging we simply have to accept, deal with, or let it go. 

I'm at the "deal with it" stage. The measuring tape, as looney as it sounds, gives me a visual reminder that my days of fast food feasts and the endless pasta bowl at The Olive Garden are gone. And my frantic anti-girth regimen seems to be having some beneficial outcomes: according to my latest labs, my glucose and cholesterol levels are all below the target range.

Still, I'm hoping there will come a day when I'm ready to toss in the tape and say the hell with it. It might have been in my 60s until I caught a tabloid photo of actress Helen Mirren looking svelte and un-matronlike in a bikini. For the love of God, you post-menopausal women have to stop posing with your clothes off! It's demoralizing.