Skip to main content

Insult to injury


Add insult to injury.
My hair is gray. AND thinning!!!

And to pile on to my grievances, I am losing weight but most of it appears to be coming from my face and breasts.

 Yikes. I'm having a difficult time feeling like the hot-mama I used to be or to trick myself into believing I still am.

 Hell, the wheelchair definitely doesn't help.

 On a recent bar-hopping excursion (when we crashed our friend's anniversary celebration), we went to several establishments I frequented in my younger and wilder hot-mama days. It was a night of dichotomys. The me that I was would have never looked twice at the me that I am. But I so wanted to jump out of my skin and chair and celebrate like I used to. Okay, maybe not exactly like I used to (I am after all 50 something and the mother of three adult children), but just for a moment and without any recriminating video proof!!

 But now I'm getting over myself as I realize nearly every woman over 50 probably feels something akin to what am feeling. Mine is just exacerbated by the wheelchair. We feel loss - a loss of visibility in a way. Loss of sex appeal. Loss of an identity in a way - while my confidence in who I am has increased, my confidence in my appeal has diminished. And most days it's not a big deal, but that night I felt the loss acutely. 

 But then I woke up the next morning to John bringing me coffee and a day full of life 'outside my head'. Pity party was over.

 But the insult is that aging isn't always pretty. 

 BUT, I am.

 Wheelchair, thinning gray hair or extra 20 pounds or not. I am pretty. 
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

It's not a popularity contest, but ...

Friday Night Lights

Friday night lights were blazing last week - when for the first time in the history of our little town, the Saugatuck Indians clinched the district title! You can see the sheer joy on Matthew's face and the pride in his father's eyes in the picture above. Leading up to and during the game, there were several things that made the victory even more sweet. The first being that the sports writers in the area, to a person, all predicted the opponents, Climax-Scotts, to win. They'd had a perfect season - until Friday. The second was that we had to travel quite a distance (nearly 90 minutes) to get to the game. And the weather was frigid and snow was blowing - thankfully it was blowing towards the Climax-Scotts stands and was at our backs. And then our quarterback injured his shoulder and had to sit out for a good portion of the game. Thankfully, the replacement quarterback (a sophomore called up for the playoffs from the junior varsity team) did not let the stress effect his ...
3 comments
Read more

The world according to Gimp

  I understand that there are those who may believe my use of the term 'gimp' is derogatory or demeaning. I do not use it lightly or to belittle anyone, it's just a lot easier for me to than 'disabled' or 'handicapped' because it uses a little snark or humor to something that could use a little of that. Or in this case, I specifically want to make light of my situation so that it doesn't feel depressing. For you or me. Let me try to explain.  One of my pet peeves is the look of sympathy I get from well-meaning people. Like, "Aw, sweetie, I am so sorry that you are less abled, confined to a wheelchair and less able to live the full, active life that I lead."  I am in a wheelchair most of the time and my life is different because of that but in truth I never wanted to run a marathon of play pickleball or climb Mt. Baldhead (I've done the latter too many times usually bringing up the rear of the group I was with and/or being cheered on by the ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Ten Year

When I was in junior high school, I staged a sit-in and learned about 'ten year'. This will come as a total surprise to most of you readers - I was not a perfectly well behaved child. I know, I know - you're shocked, amazed, in wonder how I could have turned out to be so well-behaved despite the oats sown in my youth.  And the sit-in is a perfect example of how I marched to the beat of my own drummer. Miss Brown was an English teacher - and not a very popular one. She would invoke the yardstick on wayward student's hands and scowl the moment we walked into the classroom. We weren't very kind to Miss Brown but then she wasn't very kind to us, either. Personally, the hardest part of having Miss Brown as an English teacher is that she nearly ruined my love of my favorite topic in school. It was the year we were to learn grammar (have I ever mentioned that as a writer I detest grammar?). I think some new way of teaching English was introduced and in all l...
5 comments
Read more