Without compromise

Dear Lynn

Two weeks ago I asked J for a separation.  I wrote a post about it on Beauty which he tracked down and asked me to remove.

And then you wrote here and a light went on.  I do find it so very useful to write out how I am feeling and you reaching out across the miles to let me know how you are feeling was so very special and reminded me that we have created a space to explore what it feels like to be in our late forties (and to write very long sentences).

This separation is very important to me.  J has done everything to make up for what he did but I have not been able to resolve the hurt and damage.  Last night I realised that it is only now that I feel confident that he can care for the kids properly.   Three years ago he was still so unwell that I could never have left them with him with confidence.  Now he is much better, on good medication and in good hands with the therapist he is seeing.  That means that finally I can achieve some space,

I need as much space as I can get to get better.  The connection runs too deep to say that this separation is permanent.  I need, though, to have some peace and quiet to recover and mend myself.

I am scared yet strangely calm.  I want to live an uncompromised life.

Some things change, some stay the same.  When we moved to Sydney I met with a dietician and have lost 13 kilos in the last three months.

As I write this though my chin is actively producing more hair and I have a pimple on my upper lip.

I so want to be able to turn 50 next year and be a strong, wise, happy woman.  Serene.  (without pimples - the chin hair seems to be determined to persist).

Much love to you

Mary

The Ugly Truth

(photo by my seven-year-old)

Dear Mary,

When I envisioned this project, I had all sorts of ideas about showing how juicy late-40s women can be.  It was going to be sort of an "In your FACE, popular cultural views of mid-life women!"  And then life happened.  Boy, did it ever.  And I have never felt more un-juicy.  Desiccated is more like it.  (Interesting: when I looked up "desiccated" just now to make sure it was spelled as weirdly as I'd remembered, one of the definitions was "lacking interest, passion or energy."  Yup!)

My father is in a nursing home; the dementia is getting worse.  I haven't been over to give him a backrub in a couple of weeks because my mother spontaneously sold her house and moved to an apartment, and it is up to my sister and me to pack/move, distribute or discard her belongings, and to remind her to do things like eat.

I try not to be resentful about the timing of this enterprise, coming as it does at a time when I am trying to plan a big trip (the fresh-new-start trip meant to repair some of the damage of all of the traumatic events of the past few years -- ha!).  But the resentment is there.  Along with an astonishing array of other emotions.  Grief, mostly.  And lots of anger.  I have become a rage-prone person, which you would find dumbfoundingly bizarre if you had known me all my life.  I was the sanguine child, not the choleric one.  The child who, when banished to her room, could conjure nothing more fiery than pictures of people sticking out their tongues (it was my sister who would kick the walls and hurl all of her toys out into the hall).

But I soldier on.  I see my holistic health practitioner, pop handfuls of supplements meant to heal my thyroid and adrenals, eat a ridiculously clean diet (but treat myself to a cup of coffee most days, because it's a cheap and enjoyable antidepressant), hug my children, exchange bad-tempered but humorous text messages with my sister, fill my house with roses from my garden, and play a whole lot of digital Scrabble.  And I live in hope that even though things seem to be getting worse, they are just bound to get better eventually.  Right?

Much love,
Your Little Mess of a Friend

Neglect

Dear Lynn ( and dear neglected blog)

Not even a photo.  I do so love this space though, even empty.

So here I am.  My chin still sprouts ever more hair.  I still have heart burn.  I still have weight to lose.

I get so passionate about things I ought to do, and start off well.  And then it all goes to hell in a handbasket.  Or whatever that saying is.

All of my blogs are much neglected.  The people I love to write about do not see a lot of me.  Even my photography has been neglected other than for major occasions where I have been paid to do the work.

I guess I am living my life.  It is a very quiet life which is driven mostly by the needs of the kids.  J and I continue to work away at our marriage - in a very quiet kind of way.  Which is OK with me after all the drama of the past few years.  I was in such a hurry to get engaged/married and now I feel like we are slowly building a friendship with stronger foundations.  I heard a local comedian say recently that we should only get married after being together 20 years - that we have it all the wrong way round.  In our case we were only together four months before we got engaged and whilst it felt fantastic at the time I think we could have done with waiting to get married for 20 years.

And have I mentioned the cross roads thing.  I hope I have a good 30 or more years left in me.  Yet what shall I do with them.  I know my own mother went into a clinical depression over questions like these. Whilst I know that won't happen to me I am left wondering - what to do, what to do.

Give back is the answer I keep coming up with.

love to you

Mary

Sandwiched

Dear Mary,

I am feeling downright peanut butter-ish lately.  Or maybe a dollop of Nutella would be more like it.  In any case, I have become a card-carrying member of the Sandwich Generation, with my children being one slice of bread and my ailing parents the other.  And as much as I would like to ooze out from between both at the moment, it is not to be.

So I lower my parenting standards (I was always kind of curious about unschooling anyway, and maybe the old Scooby Doo episodes won't warp my five-year-old's brain too much).  I luxuriate in a little self-indulgence (I'm taking an online self-portrait course; if you promise not to laugh too much, here's my collection so far).  And you'd better believe that I'm getting pretty good at living in the moment (because it beats reliving a month of hospital visits and nursing home conversations, and anticipating crises to come).

Until next time...

xoxoxo
Lynn

Fat Fat the water rat

Dear Lynn

To say I was devastated when I got on the scales last week is an understatement.

One hundred and one kilos or 220 pounds.  Never ever ever did I expect to get to that weight.

Ever.

I want to live for another forty years.  Not fifty. Forty will do.  I want to kiss my children a billion more times. I want to continue to nurture the very gentle tentative new relationship I have with my husband.  I want to take better and better photographs.  Laugh with my friends for so much longer.

And so, yet again, I begin to monitor my food, my exercise and have booked to see a herbalist.

I have done this before.  This time though I am so angry with myself that there is a ferocity in my determination to achieve some weight loss.

Fuckity bugger.

Love to you 

Mary

Heartburn

Dear Lynn

Just wanted to let you know that I am still here - that my heart burns for you as you look after your mum

and that I am , in fact , literally suffering from heartburn, indigestion, reflux -  I believe that it is quite common at our age but it is utterly repulsive.

And that I am now 6 weeks off the fags ...

which I thought would help me with the heartburn.. but it has not..

I suspect a lot less sugar in my diet and a lot more exercise is probably the key.

Bugger it.

xxxx

Mary

bathroom toys

Hello my friend

I am still here but I know you and I have been dealing with all the stuff that life throws you in the last couple of months.

This post has been on my mind for a while....and whilst the photo is a bad one taken with my phone, the memories it conjures up are not.

These are the last of the bathroom toys that I cannot bear to throw out just yet.  On the rare occasion that Margot has a bath now instead of a shower, I will still hear her playing with them.  The noises she makes, the stories she tells, the songs she sings whilst taking a long bath, these bath toys are the last vestiges of toddlerdom left in my home  (other than for favourite soft toys).

Margot is the youngest of my three and at eight years of age, she still, thankfully, remains an innocent in many ways.

When I drop her off at school I consciously imprint on my memory bank the image of her , blonde haired, back pack carrying, sometimes murmuring away to herself as she walks in the school gate.

Because one thing is for sure- at 47 the years are truly whipping past at a tremendous rate.

Love

Mary

Seeking serenity

Divine Ms. M and the gang:

Shouldn't that age-related equanimity thing be kicking in some time soon?  You know, that feeling of, "I've lived long enough that I can't be arsed to get upset about any of this stuff."

Maybe it happens at 87, not 47...

Love,
Ever the Work in Progress

My friend, the camera

Mistress Mary, Quite Chin-Hairy ~

You and I have talked before about how photography has been our salvation during difficult times.  Sometimes I need a reminder to pick up my camera when things get rocky.  I did just that this morning and came up with this simple image that fills me with such peace and pleasure.  The sunlight on the little basket, my grandmother's dining chair (part of a set I gratefully received after her passing a month ago)...

I really like this quotation attributed to Dorothea Lange:

The camera is an instrument that teaches people to see without a camera.

I don't think I really was able to appreciate simple stuff like this little vignette twenty or even ten years ago.  You?

Love, Lynn

P.S.  The chin-hair thing wigs me out pretty badly, too.  Mine sprouts right out of a mole, perfectly witch-like.  Sigh.

delayed grief and hairy chin

Dear Lynn

Terrible photo taken with phone camera - forgive me blogging gods!

So the psychologist called it delayed grief - and once it was named I began to feel better. Last year anger. This year grief.  Next year acceptance?

On to matters more prosaic - and very irritating, as I progress through my forties.  What on earth did I do wrong in a past life to deserve to be part of a circus as a bearded lady?  I was smooth skinned until the babies came along.  Other than for the scar on my chin earned whilst jumping in my sleeping bag down a slippery hall with the zip zipped up thus ensuring I could not use my hands to stop my fall when I tripped on a nail.  Whilst attending a Catholic school girl retreat outside Kingaroy in the depths of Queensland.  

Anyway the babies came along and the chin began sprouting hair.  Just the odd one at first.  Now it is an infestation.  Which requires regular waxing to keep it under control.

Oh the glamour.

I certainly did not foresee that 20 years ago, or ten or even five years ago.

It absolutely and completely dements me.

Love

Mary

Pain

Dear Lynn

I have a few different posts in my head but what wants to come out is that this week is a bad one for me.

Two years ago - unbeknownst to me - the father of my children was away with another woman - and saying things to her that I thought he had only ever said to me.

Last year I was distracted by trips overseas from thinking about this week in time too much.

This year I am here.  And trying desperately not to turn this week into some kind of weird anniversary.

I never saw this in my future 20 years ago.  Nor ten, nor five years ago.

I have moved on from the obsessed by, needing to know details, wreck of a woman I was last year.

I just wasn't expecting to feel quite so agonised right now.  We continue to make plans for our future - and I am generally more realistic about life this time round.

I have rung my psychologist to get an urgent appointment.  I need to know that it is OK to forge a fresh life with someone I may never completely trust again.

Love

Mary

Jowls

Dear Mary,

I wasn't going to go posting out of turn AGAIN, and then I remembered that 47-year-olds LAUGH at rules and regulations.

Love, 
Lynn

P.S.  The two halves of my face totally don't match.

Ten Years Ago I...

...had little if any silvery hair

...could still read small print without assistance

...could still drink coffee without getting nauseated and broken out

...had just experienced my first of many menstrual migraines

...was still breastfeeding a 2.5-year-old

...didn't know my Dad would soon manifest symptoms of Parkinson's Disease

...didn't know my aunt would die in a car accident

...didn't know I would be seized with the urge to have another child, post-40 and seven years after the first one

...wouldn't have believed you if you had said my secondborn would be even stronger-willed and higher maintenance than his brother

...couldn't imagine that in ten years I would be struggling with homeschooling burnout, extreme wanderlust and a crazy, crazy hormonal roller coaster ride.

(Are we having fun yet?)

Hands

(Me giving my mother Reiki after she burned her thumb on a birthday candle the other night)

After spending hours at my dying grandmother's bedside recently, transfixed by her ziggedy-zaggedy arthritic fingers, I started paying more attention to my own hands.  Was that a bit of zig-zagging going on there in my left index finger, the one whose middle joint goes pop when I bend it?

I have given close to 10,000 massages and done a lot of power-weeding and secateur-squeezing in my day.  It's bound to take its toll eventually.  And yet, I bet I haven't done half the work with my hands that my grandma did with hers by the age of 47...

Morning Ritual

In this space called 47, Lynn and I want to present, as honestly as possible, what it is to be a woman in her late forties.

In that spirit I need to share my morning ritual. My day begins early with a cup of coffee and a cigarette.  Coffee drunk and cigarette smoked on our back verandah, sometimes in the most freezing of conditions.

I started smoking when I was 17. Gave it up for each of my pregnancies. Gave it up for good after Margot was born.  For seven years.

Last year, on the day when my world caved in on itself, I drove to a friend's place armed with a six pack of vodka coolers and a packet of cigarettes.  I only managed one cooler and two cigarettes that night.

However as the weeks went by and my misery deepened, the cigarettes became a part of my life again.  The slow drag in, the slow exhale out.  The assisted breathing. Ironic on so many levels.

I still smoke, despite my life being more settled.  Since I weaned myself off the anti depressants, I use the cigarettes to alleviate the familiar old nervy stomach.

Our children are not thrilled by my smoking.  I will give up.

Just not yet.

Who am I?

I try not to be too consumed with matters of physical appearance; been there, done that.  Growing up in a family where looks were very important (especially to my father), I heaved a huge sigh of relief when I found a mate who said (and still says) things like, "I like you better fresh-faced," and "You're not fat."

So imagine my surprise when I began noticing (last year? or even before that?) that I don't quite look like myself any more, and that it kind of unsettles me.  Is it all aging, and irreversible?  Or is it just the emblem of a particularly rough five years of life?  Should I care?  Or should I view it as permission to finally break free and get on with finding other ways to feel worthy?

(Make-up job by my five-year-old, who also does some pretty happening hairstyling.)

Saturday Sport

Part of my reality of being 47, and potentially until I am 57, is attending Saturday sport.  How I love the summer holidays, with lazy, sleepy starts to our Saturdays! I have a few months to wait ...