In celebration of friendship, oh, and birthdays

This week saw yet another birthday come and go; in fact two birthdays.

The events warranted a girls’ night out of course.  It’s become something of a tradition over the years.  When one of us has a birthday, the birthday girl gets to choose the activity or restaurant for the evening, and everyone else pays for the treat. So on Wednesday evening seven of us gathered at our local Prezzo restaurant for a few hours of silliness and stuffing our faces.

The age of these lovely midlife women ranges from 46 to 57, and we’ve known one another for more than 20 years.  Initially the link between us was our children; they all went to the same kindergarten and small village primary school.  Over the years, we’ve become firm friends, and spent time together doing some amazing things.  Not too many years ago our entire families used to get together for parties at Christmas and New Year; we’d have barbecues and day trips in the summer.

Most of us have grown up children now, and jobs and businesses to attend to.  Some of us have grandchildren. There are a couple of friends who no longer join us, and there’s a couple we’ve gathered along the way.  Our lives have changed in ways that none of us could have foreseen 20 years ago; we’re also a diverse group of characters, but come what may, the bond between us has grown stronger and stronger.  These wonderful ladies are quite simply “family” to me.

The thing that prompts me to write this post is the photograph that was taken this week.  It occurred to me that there has never been a time when we’ve managed to capture on camera the entire group of us.  Either someone can’t make it to a get together or one of us is actually steering the camera.  This time we grabbed a passing waitress and asked her to take the shot.  It’s not a particularly good quality image, but we are all on there.

My wonderful midlife friends

So thank you to my wonderful midlife friends for a lovely evening on Wednesday; thank you for the flowers and gifts.  And paying for me to stuff my face.  Go grab a glass of something, and join me in making a toast – to friendship.  And long may we all be happy, healthy and here to celebrate many more birthdays.

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All I want for Christmas is …

“What do you want for Christmas?”  My husband asks me this and I ask him the same at some point each December.  And every year we have to rack our brains to come up with something we’d want / like as a gift.

We do our Christmas shopping for family and friends, sometimes with a clearly defined list, sometimes not; occasionally well in advance of the event, mostly horribly late.  And whilst trailing round the shops, and fighting through the crowds, we check out all the possible festive gifts for one another, and buy none of them.

Neither of us gets revved up over a gift boxed set of random products or a new winter sweater; but equally neither of us can come up with something that we really, really want for Christmas.  Now, this has nothing to do with a lack of imagination; more to do with the fact that there’s very little we need.  And always having one essential eye on the family bank balance generally makes those things we’d quite like to have fall into the “non-essential” category, and they tend to stay there un-purchased.

Also, being a family of makers and doers, arts and crafts have always featured strongly in our November and December leisure time; the results of which have been the most amazingly weird and wonderful Christmas gifts over the years.  Personally, I like to receive a handmade gift; it warms my heart to think of someone lovingly slaving away just to put a smile on my face.

However, when this year’s request came for my gift ideas, I decided to seriously go for it just for comic value:

1.  A January holiday, jetting off to somewhere warm, just the two of us

2.  A camera; one which zooms in and out properly and takes video footage

3.  A posh expensive dress and a pair of high heeled pointy shoes (even though they’ll make me too tall)

4.  A new car; a slinky fast sporty number to replace my battered old box on wheels

I could have gone on, plenty, really I could, but that would have been overkill.  I also know that a couple of those requests can be accommodated without too much pain.

And my husband’s response to my question, “What do you want for Christmas?”  He said the same thing he’s said for the last 30 or so years,

“I’ll have you stark naked please with a ribbon on for Christmas!”

Well, this wish has never actually been granted to him, what with small children, teenagers, grandparents and all the other manic stuff of Christmas mornings.  And no, you really shouldn’t feel sorry for the man of the house, as the only difference between his Christmas morning dream and any other ordinary morning will be the bloody bow.

However, after 30 years of him first asking for me naked with a ribbon on for Christmas, and me never quite managing to get it all wrapped up beautifully and presented properly for first thing Christmas Day, I’ve decided that this year, my lovely midlife husband will get his wish.  We have no small children to attend to these days; there’ll be no pressure to perform (Oh God).

I will, of course, make sure he also has a gift or two tucked under the tree for later, even though we both know that the best things in life really are for free.  My only worry is, what will he ask for next year?

I'm thinking of something along the lines of the above

But suspect it'll be something like this. Oh dear!

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The 7 myths about women over 50

1. Women over fifty don’t care what they look like.
Since two out of the three of us are planning to have our next round of cosmetic surgery, we take exception to this. We now remember with fondness that construction workers used to give us wolf-whistles. We thought it obnoxious then. We miss it now. Women like us drag ourselves to the gym, where we get to compete with twenty-somethings for parking spaces and treadmills. We take Yoga and Pilates, go on diets, run marathons, go on diets, dye our hair, go on diets, get contact lenses, go on diets  We care. A lot.

2.   Women over fifty don’t like sex.
Since one of the three of us is married, this is a touchy subject. The answer is, just let a healthy, willing, attractive male show up in our vicinity and we will be ready. Or, if even two out of three of those categories show up, we will be ready. Actually, “willing” might make up for any other shortfalls, depending on how long it’s been. And just think, since we can’t get pregnant, we can just zip past the pregnancy prevention shelf at the drug store.

3.   Women over fifty find menopause terrible and debilitating.
YES! Menopause is TERRIBLE and DEBILITATING. It ruins our lives. It is the worst thing that has ever been invented in the history of the universe. It is worse than diet ice cream. OK, now that we have acknowledged that, can we please move on? The fact is that two of us didn’t even notice menopause, except that we could also zip right past the sanitary products shelf too. So, menopause exists and we’ll have it for awhile, and then we’ll get over it.

4.   Women over fifty can’t keep up with the times.
Interesting, since women over fifty are the fastest growing group on Facebook. We three have six computers among us. We have and use  PDAs, GPSs, and iPods. We have almost outgrown email, and are Facebooking and twittering. And let’s face it: Without us, a lot of the Help Lines would go out of business.  We may have grown up in the Stone Age, but we have managed to survive into the computer age.

5.   Women over fifty miss our children and only want to be with our grandchildren.
We love and adore our children.  We love and adore our grandchildren.  That’s the only acceptable answer, isn’t it, since this will be in print?  We love them the most when they don’t ask us to baby sit too much.  But seriously, we can love them and still want a life. That’s the bottom line.

6.   Women over fifty fear change.
That’s really funny, since virtually everything about us is changing.  Body parts are moving to different locations or vacating entirely.  Hair is now appearing in places it never was and disappearing from places it used to be. We could go on and on.  So, we say we don’t fear change.  We are, and have been, the movers and shakers of our lives.  Go to any art class and see who is involved in creative pursuit.  Go to yoga or meditation classes to see the same.  Look at the women starting new careers, or the ones running for office.  Check out writing classes, art appreciation classes, cooking classes.  Look at who is doing work in developing countries, starting foundations, traveling the world, raising money for causes, marching for causes. Change? Bring it on! We are well-practiced, and good at it.

7.   Women over fifty are counting the days until retirement.
We agree with this statement. No matter how much we love our careers, we are chomping at the bit to have the time to travel, to explore, to start new businesses, to enroll in college, to volunteer, to write books, to inspire our daughters’ and granddaughters’ generations with the unlimited possibility we have.  We can’t wait to retire so we can see what’s next. We have lived only the first half of our lives and are anxious to see what we will create in the second half.

Reproduced with the kind permission of Renee Fisher  – DC Boomer Humor Examiner

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A Slice of Life

I came across this short piece of writing in our filing cabinet today.  I had almost forgotten that it was there, tucked away in a folder with several more.  The year of writing is 1996.  I used to write a regular column for our county paper when my children were small, entitled “A Slice of Life”.  Whilst reading my 1996 scribblings, it occurred to me that my life has changed completely over the last 13 years, so I decided to post up the original, and then examine quite simply if I was right or wrong back then.  How have things panned out considering I had strong views on most things, and also bearing in mind that hindsight is always a marvellous thing? Your comments are welcome as always:

A Slice of Life (March 1996)

This week sees the beginning of a period of chaos in our house, more chaos than usual that is.  Our younger daughter is busy rehearsing for a part in a local production of “Annie”.  The bathroom will constantly be ringing to the sound of “You’re Never Fully Dressed Without A Smile” and “It’s A Hard-Knock Life”.  The chaos derives partly from the temperamentality of a stage-struck eight year old, who deviates back and forth from being supremely confident to a bag of nerves at least once every day.  The added dates and times scribbled on the already overflowing kitchen calendar also contribute.  Not to mention the extra taxi service required of me and our car by the blue-eyed starlet.

I’m not complaining exactly, just a little tired is all.  You see, my belief is that by allowing our daughters to take part in theatrical productions; do dance classes; play musical instruments; go to Brownies and so on, they will become confident and well-rounded individuals.  That way they won’t have time to be bored when they’re teenagers.  Then they will be less likely to fall prey to the temptations that society puts before them, which every parent dreads.  That’s the theory anyway.

“You must be mad,” says my mother, as she coolly observes me frantically juggling my business and family commitments.  “You didn’t do all those things when you were a child, and you turned out alright!”

Of course I did, on the whole.  But then I wasn’t offered Ecstasy tablets as a teenager – I hadn’t even heard of it until recently.  The biggest temptation put under my nose was whether to smoke a No 6 behind the bikesheds.  And yes, I did accept, just for the devilment, and yes, shamefully, I do still smoke.  So there you have it in a nutshell.  I was easily led, incapable of asserting myself and applying common sense at 15.

My own children are much more aware of social and political issues than ever I was.  They have strong opinions already on the environment, world poverty and government.  They have access to a broad base of information at school, in the library and from the TV.  They even have their own early evening television news programme.  I feel that a broad experience of social skills is necessary to balance the scales of their development so to speak.

Another thing which worries my mother is the cost of all these activities.  She’s not the only one; I fret about it too.  But then as I point out, we did plan to have our two children, and yes, we did foresee raising a family as being expensive.  Most importantly, we owe it to them to provide a happy and secure framework on which they can build their future.  If this means making sacrifices, then so be it, even when it involves giving the butcher a miss for once.  It’ll have to be egg and chips instead, because younger daughter’s feet are becoming malformed in those size 12 tap shoes.

“Anyway, what’s the point of having a fridge full of food when there’s no time to cook it?” I jokingly ask my concerned parent.

I’m sure she has nightmares about talented, but half-starved grand-daughters, and whole families suffering from burn-out in this madcap world of ours.  She somehow can’t quite see that times have changed since I was a girl, and that we all have to adjust our lives accordingly, and make the best of it we can.

So I continue to ignore my mother’s protestations, and doggedly plough my chosen furrow.  Most of the time I’m convinced we’re on the right path.  It’s usually when I’m turning out on dark winter nights, forsaking the warmth of hearth and home to take or retrieve our socially active daughters, that I have grave doubts about the motivation behind the theory.  It’s all well and good producing self-assured kids who can turn their hands to most things, but when I’m tripping over clarinets and music stands, sewing costumes at midnight, and running a taxi service, I sometimes feel that I’ve bitten off a bit more than I can comfortably chew.

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