It is What it Is

Six decades in the making

I have a birthday this week, and it’s got me thinking about the dumb stuff of life it’s past time I let go of, starting with crowds. Why did I ever force myself to fit? I don’t know, but six decades in, I accept that I never will, and it’s a relief to stop trying. Crowds means both seas of strangers as well as whatever group of “cool kids” look like they’re having more fun than me.

I’m letting go of trying to look beautiful. I don’t care. I’m too much of a tomboy anyhow. Plus, I prefer t-shirts over blouses. Years ago, I met a guy for coffee who told me right out the gate, “If we’re going to date, the first thing to do is grow your hair.” Good luck with that one, buddy. I don’t wear makeup, and I don’t wear heels. I certainly don’t wear dresses and to put it like Mom did, “If I die and go to hell my punishment will be long hair.” It is what it is, and he’s still single.

I embrace forgetting. You know, there’s freedom in disremembering all the traumatic crap that’s happened. Who cares? I mean, I do, but we all endure messes that are bigger than our abilities to clean them up, and in the end, I must adapt or die myself. People cheat; some die; love ends. We endure as best we can, but there’s something utterly liberating about finally laying it down in the middle of the road and limping away. Forever altered but pressing on.

I’ve given up on finding one true love. It’s not for me in this lifetime, and I’m finally okay with it. I tried, and some of my failures are memorably spectacular. The road to here is littered with graves and mugshots and debt. Why go back?

It’s hard let go of the bathroom scale, but I’m working on it. Post-menopause gifts women with a metabolism that moves like diesel fuel in January. In spite of working out 3x a week at a CrossFit gym, my body will never be what it once was, but I mostly forget what she looked like anyhow. Consider it a wash.

I refuse to read bad literature. A writer gets 50 pages to grab and keep me. I’m not afraid to quit. Doesn’t matter if the author is a no-name newbie, a New York Times bestseller or firmly entrenched in the literary canon. Life’s too short to suffer a book I don’t like.

I quit ignoring myself. Turns out that still small voice I’ve been canceling my entire life knows what it’s talking about, and I do well to pay attention. I wish I’d listened to the yeses and no’s I’ve ignored over the years. Might have saved me a couple of divorces and a host of awkward regrets.

Yet, in spite of all I’ve let fall off, I’m embracing some things too. Like the bright orange sofa I bought to go with my new, bright orange curtains. A crazy pop of color makes me happy. I eat when I’m hungry, throwing off constraints of clock and table. My living room dinner mates are two dogs who stare at every bite I put in my mouth, celebrating our togetherness. It gets especially skippy when they get a bite too.

I don’t care that I wake up at 3am because I am going to take a nap later, and no one can stop me.

One’s sixties is not the end of the line. Not even close. Do you have any idea how much more there is to look forward to? Retirement, for one. It’s on my radar, letting go of the responsibility of employment and all its, eh hem, duty. No longer having a W-2 job remains a fantasy but the notion of it has crept into the edges of my psyche where I can no longer ignore it.

When that time comes, I’m going to get more animals, and not just cats. You’ll have to call me the crazy chicken lady, goat lady, donkey lady. I want a donkey to smile and hee-haw at me, who eats carrots from my hand. There are more flowers and berries and trees to plant with mud kitchens to build and a one-acre wood to turn into a playground because I have grandkids to pour into who I want to take on adventures and play with and infuse with the secrets of the universe, who I want to remember me as larger-than-life.

I have books to write and stories to tell and hay to make, and I plan to breathe deep to the very end. Winding down isn’t giving up. It’s distilling what matters and then doing that instead of the stuff that doesn’t.