June 18, 2013 · 3:07 am

The backside of 40

Funny-Old-Woman-smokingIn a few short hours – less than three, actually – I will officially end the first half of my 40s and get started on the back half. I say “officially” because I’ve not yet decided whether I will accept what the calendar says or simply remain 45 for as long as I can get away with it.

I have, through the duration of my 40s, proudly exclaimed how wonderful this decade was. I found myself. I discovered new things about myself. I accepted myself for who I am, and realized that in reality, I’m a pretty cool person to know. I’ve flirted with the gym, quit smoking, ended a 30-year relationship with Diet Coke and vastly improved my eating habits. I built strong, lasting relationships with my kids and guided them into adulthood, ready to spread their wings. I’ve reconnected with those I thought I’d lost, and have a renewed sense of reality about lifelong relationships I had mistakenly put on a pedestal.

In short, I’ve lived.

I expected – and was fully prepared – to spend the last half of my 40s the same way I’d spent the first, enjoying life as it happened.

Then came May.

I have no misconceptions about aging. I know it happens to the luckiest of us, in some way or another, and we can choose to let it happen gracefully or fight it. For the most part, I fight it. People ask if my red hair is my natural color and I smile and say, “Yes, and no. This is my natural color, but not all of this color is natural.” I don’t color my hair, I just refresh the red. I’ve been blessed with the fair skin of the Irish and, somehow, have managed to keep my face smooth and young looking – people are often surprised to hear I have a child who is 17, and they are really surprised when I mention her 21-year-old brother. I look at myself and think back to when my mother was my age and know that I am not my mother’s 45.

But May – May had something special in store for me. A lot of somethings, actually.

It started early on in the month, when I began to notice a greater difficulty reading scores on the TV or even some street signs at a distance. I went to the eye doctor in late April expecting to get a stronger prescription for my reading glasses and was given a different kind of prescription: for bi-focals. And yes, I opted for the invisible line. The glasses came May 3, a Friday.

That following Monday, May 6, I got a text from my Man/Friend – his pregnant daughter, due at the end of the month, went in for a doctor’s appointment that morning and was told they were doing a c-section that day. The baby, an amazing little girl, has stolen all of our hearts. She is simply fabulous. I posted a photo of me holding the beautiful girl on Facebook, where a friend promptly asked, “Does this mean we can call you Grandma Molly?” Ummm …

A week later my son turned 21, and my daughter and I were summoned to pick him up from the bars his co-workers took him to for celebration.

A week after that, my daughter – my own baby – graduated from high school.

Then I worked with a photographer on a special project at work and discovered I knew his parents – I worked with them a decade earlier when this photographer, now a married professional with two small children, was still in high school.

If I didn’t know better I’d swear May was a month full of Mondays.

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June 7, 2013 · 8:32 pm

It’s not a vacation until someone pulls their hair out …

frazzled-lady1In just under three hours I leave my office behind and take off for what could be a glorious, sunny 10-day (well, 11-day) vacation.

It could be glorious, but I’m betting there will be more stress than glory.

During my time off I’ll be spending two days at freshmen orientation at an unnamed university in Ames; purchasing buns, pop, water, plates, silverware, napkins, beans and decorations for a graduation party; decorating, hosting and tearing down said graduation party; conducting 3-4 interviews (yes, it’s work, but it has to be done); and writing a story (see previous duty). Yes, my head IS spinning.

I’ve known this party was coming for almost a year. I’ve had the date set since I reserved the pavilion last August, and I think I put out the initial Facebook invitations to family back in February or March. You’d think that would give me time to be organized.

You’d think so, but you’d be wrong.

Organization has never been my strong point. I put important – and some seemingly not-so-important – reminders on my phone so I don’t forget. Like my daughter’s graduation ceremony. My weekly meetings. A reminder to take my anxiety medications (yeah, you’d think that’s one reminder I wouldn’t need, right? Wrong.) When to tune in to watch “Master Chef” or “Hell’s Kitchen.” I get reminders 15 minutes before each event, just in case.

Apparently I need to add tasks, like, “Buy the buns for daughter’s graduation party three months from now,” or, “Make decorations for graduation party so all you have to do is put them up.”

I always find myself in this exact spot – wishing I could turn back time and do things better, be more organized, get prepared earlier.

My one defense is finances: As a single mom on a budget, with a once-a-month paycheck and no credit cards (I gave them up during the divorce), buying “extras” isn’t always easy, especially when there are plenty of “extras” that seem to come up: oil changes, registration tags, parking tickets (hey, they’re pretty pricey at the hospital where I work!), birthdays, drinks with friends … you get the picture. Budgeting is also not one of my strongest points, but that’s another blog post.

A second, smaller defense I have is space: Teen Girl and I live in a modest two-bedroom apartment with limited storage space – and two giant dogs. Keeping 12 12-packs of pop or 35 packages of buns on hand is no small feat, and could result in loss of space for dishes or cooking or sleeping or showering or any combination thereof.

Defenses aside, here I am. Eight days from now I will be hoping everything is put together and the rains don’t fall and the skies are blue and the burgers and brats and beans and potato salad and cupcakes and mints feed the masses. I just hope I haven’t pulled all of my hair out by then.

 

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June 7, 2013 · 7:01 pm

I’m the Worst. Blogger. Ever.

cat on computerI just opened up my blog, preparing to write a new entry and knowing full well it’s been a little while since I’ve posted something. Early spring, I think, that’s when I last posted.

Um, no. March. EARLY March. Early freaking MARCH.

I meant to be better. I’ve even thought of countless posts I’ve wanted to put up since then. I’ve just … been busy.

I blame the cat. Of course, I don’t really have a cat.

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March 26, 2013 · 11:59 pm

‘You mean it was illegal before?’

63019_10151407541394010_2069448190_nI know there are a lot of stories, opinions, statements and ideologies being offered today as the Supreme Court hears arguments regarding Prop 8. I don’t want to go into a long, tired argument as to why I support marriage equality – those who support it will understand, those who don’t will dismiss.

But I will say this: I was a journalist when Iowa’s high court deemed the ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional in 2009. I remember talking to those who both supported and objected to the move, all the while containing my own opinions because, well, that’s what journalists *do.*

When I got home, however, I could share my excitement with my kids, who were then 16 and 11. I’ll never forget their response:

“You mean it was illegal before?”

It never occurred to them that any group of people in the United States wouldn’t have the same rights as everyone else.

I was both thrilled and dismayed – thrilled because I had raised my kids to be so open to the differences between us all and embrace them without question, but dismayed because I had sheltered them so much that they weren’t aware of the inequalities and discrimination that really do exist. My daughter became fascinated with the civil rights struggles of the ’60s a few years earlier, and was captivated by the actions of Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks, she studied and listened to speakers regarding the Holocaust and shared the sadness we all do when we think of that period. But those were things of the past in her eyes, things that happened in history.

Now we’re here. History is happening again, right in front of them. I hope, as my kids raise their own children, they can tell them about  this time in history and hear the same quizzical response from their kids: “You mean it was illegal before?”

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March 20, 2013 · 6:57 pm

A fecal matter

*Note: I just want to point out that after more than 25 years as a writer, I finally got to use the word  “fecal” in a headline. Yes, it’s a good day.

I can’t help but wonder what those without pets or small children in their lives – anywhere in their lives – talk about when the rest of us are talking about poop.

The fact that I’m wondering this at all tells me that No. 2 has taken too much dominance in many conversations and thought processes, and yet there it is. It’s just as much a part of my regular daily conversations as is the rising cost of gas and what the weather will do today.

Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about, especially if you have children who are or were once small, have pets of any kind, or both.

DiapersWith kids it starts early. First, as infants, any time they’re not feeling well you’re told to watch their stools – that’s doctor-talk for poop. Make sure it doesn’t change color, or consistency, or frequency. If any of those changes, you’re told to collect a sample – in other words, put a small amount of their stool in some kind of container you’re never ever going to use again and take it in to the doctor. God only know what he’ll do with it, but you do it because he tells you to.

When the baby is still a baby but not yet a toddler, he or she will start to cut teeth. With that comes a whole new dimension of poop talk – mostly because it does change in consistency and frequency, and neither in a good way. When my oldest was cutting teeth he went through three or four onesies every day because the mess would go up his back and down his leg. It happened with every tooth, too, so we were overjoyed when he’d cut more than one at a time – that cut down on the possibility of 32 different sessions. Of course the messes were smaller and smaller the more the baby’s system got used to what was happening, but it was traumatic all the same.

Potty training brought a whole new level of conversations about poop, poopy, icky, whatever you called it. The actual potty training was easy for both my kids, but I swear one of them – and I won’t say which, so I don’t embarrass him – uh, oops – had real separation anxiety when it came to poop. He just didn’t want to let it go into the toilet. I would sit in the bathroom with him for an hour at a time, knowing he had to go, but watching while he told me stories or sang me songs or talked about the puppies or did anything but actually poop. Then we’d give up and less than 15 minutes later I’d find him hiding in the corner behind the chair, a funny look on his face. <sigh>

Once that gets over and you’ve made the transition, your conversations about poop pretty much stop for a while. Of course, my then-husband and I apparently enjoyed the conversations because we timed the arrival of Child No. 2 with the crossing over of Child No. 1 from diapers to big boy pants. Welcome another three years of poop talk.

There’s even a commercial for a bleach cleaner that brings poop into the conversation: A little boy brings his mommy into the bathroom, “Mommy, I made poopy!” “You did?! Where?”

You can’t get away from it.

Then there’s the pet talk, and really the point at which I realized much of my adult conversation has centered around doody.

My Lab mix, Max, will be 13 this year. He’s still spry, active, and looks very much like a younger dog. Some of his mannerisms, however, remind me of Walter Matthau in “Grumpy Old Men.” He has to offer one solitary bark to anyone moving outside while he makes his way to the sidewalk. He bullies Mia, my Newfoundland who is three times his size, out of the way of the food dishes until he’s done with them. And his every trip to the bathroom – or in his case, every walk we take – requires me to take a pick-up bag. I’ve nicknamed him “Sir Poops-a-lot.”

The fact that he goes all the time is not something that is lost on my now-young-adult kids, either. They’re well aware of his habits:

Me to Teen Girl: Would you take the dogs out for their bedtime trip so I can go to bed?

Teen Girl: That depends. Has Max pooped?

Me: He’s gone three times today, he should be good.

Teen Girl (after taking the dogs out, grabbing a bag to go back outside): He’s never good. He pooped again.

See what I mean? So, in getting back to my original point, just what do those other people talk about?

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March 6, 2013 · 12:44 am

Writing the ‘old-fashioned’ way

Help! I’ve fallen into the digital world and I can’t get out!

OK, maybe it’s not that bad. But here’s a case in point: A Facebook friend (clue number one – I have to qualify my friends by “friends I’ve hung out with” and “friends I know from Facebook”) posted a status today challenging all of her friends to write a letter, to anyone. It took me just a second to fall in love with the idea – not because I’m huge on letter-writing (although I used to be) but because I love doing things the old-fashioned way.

Lady-Writing-a-Letter-xx-Thomas-FaedThat’s what I thought. Honestly. The old-fashioned way. Like I grew up with Laura Ingalls on the prairie.

The closest thing I’ve come to writing a letter in a very long time is leaving a note for my daughter when I leave in the morning, asking her to empty the dishwasher or to remember to take the dogs out. More often than not, though, those “notes” are in the form of a text message sent on the fly. If I have to send a package through the mail I do usually include a note – but it’s never more than a sentence or two, and it’s nothing that would be sent at all if there weren’t a bigger purpose involved in using the mail system.

I used to love to write letters. One of my most prized possessions is a letter my father found last summer while going through his box of military papers. It was a letter I’d written to my grandmother postmarked Oct. 18, 1978 – just two weeks before she died tragically and unexpectedly in a store fire in Des Moines.

I remember writing a lot of letters. We moved around quite a bit when I was growing up, so letter-writing was a great way to keep in touch with friends I’d left behind. College, married life, children and life got moving too quickly and we soon lost touch, but thanks to the internet and (gasp!) Facebook I’ve reconnected with several friends from different areas we’ve lived.

Our first move – the first one after I learned to write, that is – was from Minneapolis to Anchorage. I had one friend I wrote to, Krissy, who was the daughter of my mom’s best friend. I think I wrote one letter. When we moved from Anchorage to a small Missouri town the middle of my seventh-grade year, there were more friends left behind and more letters written. I managed to maintain penpal status with a few of those friends until we went to college. We left Missouri for Carroll, Iowa, the summer before my senior year. You can bet I wrote a lot of letters to friends left behind as we all cursed my horrible, terrible, evil parents for making me move (I got over it). There were a few people I wrote from my one year in Carroll, but since I’d spent most of that year with a chip on my shoulder I didn’t get real close to a lot of people.

When I was in college my freshman year I got a surprise in the mail: a letter from my dad. I talked to Mom frequently, but since Dad spent most of his day at work on the phone, getting into an engaging telephone conversation at home was not something he wanted to do. On the rare weekends I went home – I loved college and didn’t love Carroll – Dad would pick me up and we’d spend the three-hour drive home talking non-stop about just about everything, but once we got home it was all about holidays or me being with some of the handful of friends I had there. The first letter was a surprise, but a welcome one; I wrote back and we started an occasional habit that continued all through my college career.

I think I wrote a few letters post-college: thank-you letters for gifts after the wedding and each of the kids’ births, a few letters to my grandparents in western Iowa, maybe a few to cousins and friends, but eventually the internet came along, cell phones became appendages and life just took off.

The letter went the way of the 8-track player and recording songs off the radio.

So now we have this challenge, and I intend to participate. I’m asking everyone to write just one letter – handwritten, with pen and paper – and send it to someone to make their day. Or to apologize for some long-ago misdeed. Or even to catch up with someone you chat with regularly.

Who knows? You may want to write two.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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January 1, 2013 · 5:29 pm

Resolutions for all of us for 2013

NewYearsEve1As 2012 closed a final, slow, methodical close with no sign of zombies, Mayan ruination or other earthly implosion, I set about making my annual New Year’s Resolution list. Sure, there’s the one about weight loss (I view that one as more of a perpetual goal – aside from a few years post-divorce, that one’s been on the list every year since I was 12), there’s one seeking financial stability, then one for health and happiness.

While I fully plan to work toward my own resolutions, there are many I hope we as a collective can accomplish as 2013 passes.

1. Forget about Lindsay Lohan. I don’t mean as a person; if we see her sick and homeless on the side of the street, by all means, stop to help and give her a couple bucks or give her a ride to a shelter or doctor’s office. But really, the only “celebrity” she has anymore is due to her bad behaviour. Seriously, take away a few mediocre made-more-for-younger-audiences movies from her youth – “Mean Girls,” “Parent Trap,” and “Herbie Fully Loaded” – and what does she have, really? I mean, why do we even care? It’s bad enough that we pay attention to the misbehavings of Mel Gibson and Charlie Sheen, but loathesome as their behavior may be they’ve both earned a name in the entertainment industry by being top-dollar actors and directors. (Although I really am no longer a fan of either man …)

2. Let’s just live and enjoy life without worrying about the ‘end of the world.’ I know there are a lot of superstitious people out there, but absent a group of scientists alerting the world to an incoming monster meteor or some such thing, no one really knows when or how the earth will end. Even those studying global warming say it’s nothing our generations will see. So can we all simply relax and enjoy life and work to make things better, instead of preparing for a mythical end?

3. Flash mobs are soooo 2008. Like any good thing, too much of it can ruin it. It happened with “Rocky” and “Karate Kid” (c’mon,  admit it – the first one was good), the more you do it, the weaker it gets. There’s still a surprise element with flash mobs, but the uniqueness of them has gone the way of diet soda and online banking – they’re everywhere. Let’s give it a rest for a while, maybe it will come back.

4. Stop viewing single parenthood as the downfall of American society. Sure, it’s not ideal, but it’s a common fact of life in this age. And there are many of us who, quite frankly, do a pretty damned good job. We not only hold down jobs but have thriving careers. Our children not only stay out of jail but they work and volunteer and do good things. We pay our own way. We don’t “milk the system.” And we have brains and voices and opinions that deserve to be heard.

5. Stop caring about who is sleeping with whom and who is married to whom. Seriously. It’s none of anyone’s business. Period. And this goes for everything – celebrities, politicians, same-sex couples. There are so many more important things to worry about than anyone’s sex life.

6. Start a movement to get the word ‘ginormous’ removed from the dictionary. It’s not a word, it’s a goulash of letters, two words mixed together to make one word that means the very same thing: gigantic + enormous = ginormous. It’s idiotic + stupid = idiopid.

7. Give more. Help others in need. Give more time. Give more money. Give more ideas. Volunteer. Brainstorm.

8. Be happy. You may not always be able to control the circumstances, but you can always control how you let them affect you.

 

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November 16, 2012 · 6:56 pm

A time of thanks

So, several of my friends are doing the month of giving thanks on Facebook – every day they post something for which they’re thankful. The point is, obviously, to list 30 items by the end of November – the month that hosts Thanksgiving. Get it? Giving thanks? Thanksgiving?

I don’t know if these friends have a list they’re working from or if they’re coming up with something every day – but anyone who knows me knows I don’t have that kind of patience. That’s like doing a jigsaw puzzle one piece a day for 1,000 days – just can’t do it. I’m more the let’s-stay-up-till-it’s-done kind of girl.

That said, I do kind of like the idea of giving thanks. Rather than do it piecemeal – because again, I don’t have that kind of patience – I’m going to go through the whole month in one post.

1. My kids. They’re great people and make me laugh a heckuva lot more than they make me scream. And I’ve only pulled my hair out twice in the 10 years I’ve been a single mom. (Good thing my hair grows back quickly.)

2. My parents. I’ve raised my kids the way they raised me – letting me make my own decisions and mistakes, preparing me to spread my wings when it was time. They haven’t always agreed with my choices, but they have always let me know they had my back.

3. My extended family. It’s a wonderful thing when your cousins, aunts and uncles are among your best friends.

4. Chocolate. Because, well, it’s chocolate.

5. My dogs. Most days. OK, every day, but especially on those days they don’t bark at other dogs, pull me down the steps or wake me up at 3 a.m. (Thank you, Mia, for helping to remember that last part this morning. At 3 a.m.)

6. My incredible friends. You know the ones, those who love you more because of your faults and frailties – probably because it gives them more to laugh about.

7. For my “man-friend” Mark, for so many reasons.

8. For all of my exes – ex-husband, ex-boyfriends, ex-friends – for letting me learn what I don’t want.

9. That November only has 30 days. I’m not even a third of the way done with this list …

10. That I have the ability to work and support my family, even if it’s at the “earning level” of a single parent, and that I’ve been lucky to have had some really great jobs that paid me to do what I love.

11. That I have never had the terror of having to listen to sirens signaling rocket or missile attacks where I live.

12. That we are a country that has free elections and, with the exception of name-calling and finger-pointing, you can support any candidate you choose without fear.

13. That the election is over.

14. For whoever invented the chocolate martini. Chocolate and alcohol in one delicious combination. Yes, please!

15. For snark. C’mon, you know you love it, too.

16. For the fact that many members of my ex-husband’s family are my Facebook friends, both because a) it proves divorcing a person doesn’t always mean you divorce the family and b) it keeps me from posting snarky things like, “Dear kids: Why not ask your DAD for money to buy that video game/concert ticket/shopping spree?”

17. For coffee. Lots and lots of coffee.

18. For inexpensive hair dye. I am so not ready to be seeing white roots. Hair dye is my “stop stick” for those roots – catch them before they spread to the rest of the hair.

19. For an apartment with a dishwasher. I really hate washing dishes.

20. For bags made especially for dog poop, because it seems 3 out of every 4 plastic grocery bags has a hole in the bottom near where I’d be putting my hand when it’s time to pick up. And yes, it IS worth the $7 every month for the bags.

21. That my parents moved us around a lot while I was growing up. Though I was always angry with them at the time, it taught me to adapt quickly, make friends and enjoy the moment. And that I hate to pack.

22. For stupid people. Not the uneducated or under-educated, but those who have been educated and still don’t get it. Without them there would be far fewer things to be snarky about.

23. For dictionaries, thesauruses and spell check. I’d be even more grateful if everyone knew how to use them.

24. For every obvious thing you know I’m thankful for but that I’ve forgotten to include on this list.

25. For microwaves. Though I do still occasionally make “homemade” popcorn over the stove, I can’t remember the last time I “baked” a potato, warmed or steamed veggies on the stove or browned ground beef in a pan.

26. That both of my kids have jobs, good work ethics and know the value of a dollar – well, the value of their own dollar. I think they still believe I have a money tree somewhere …

27. For reconnecting with old friends. And by “old friends” I mean some of those childhood friends I made in any of the various cities we lived in. Thanks to Facebook I’ve reconnected with friends from both high schools and one elementary school – the one in Alaska, where we moved when I was 7.

28. That my dad is the ultimate Irish storyteller. There are some stories about his “past” that I’m sure I’ll never know whether they’re true, embellished or just flat-out made up but I don’t care. I’ve enjoyed every one of them – even the ones I’ve heard more than once. Keep ’em coming, Dad!

29. That my mother is the patient, wonderful woman she is. See No. 28. They’re still going strong after 46 years.

30. That a tiny little thing called social media lets me put together a fun list like this and send it out to as many people who want to take the time to read it.

Note: I’m also thankful that some of my former editors read this blog – and call me out on the irony of my misspelling “thesaureses” in a line where I say I wish more people used them …

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October 27, 2012 · 4:14 pm

How did THAT happen?

I’ve come to realize I’m not the most observant person, otherwise I likely would have seen this a while ago. Over the past few weeks I’ve been noticing certain things “missing” at home but I’ve never noticed anyone coming to take them.

No, the computer is still there, all the electronics, what little valuable jewelry I have is still tucked safely away in an open box on top of my dresser. My kitschy knickknacks are still on their shelves, and the dogs are always relatively undisturbed. There’s been no evidence of anyone breaking in, either through the door or one of windows.

And yet some things are just … missing.

At some point, when I obviously wasn’t looking, someone took my children and replaced them with young adults. Their childish giggles have turned to laughter – often at my expense, particularly when they’re laughing together. Their hands reaching out to take mine have been replaced by hands waving as they drive off on their own. And though they still sometimes turn to me for advice, they’re also prepared to give some.

The funny thing is I started noticing these missing things when I wasn’t even home. First when my 20-year-old son – the one I’ve been calling “Man/Boy” but should probably think of something else, or just call him “Justin” – asked me to mail his voter registration card, and then again a few weeks later when he talked to me about having gone and voted early. We were talking outside and then he went to his apartment and I opened the door to mine and noticed it then. Something was gone.

Earlier this week I noticed it, too, when I was in Ames with Teen Girl – my high school senior daughter who is seriously thinking about Iowa State.  Here we were, two hours from home and suddenly in the middle of this eight-hour campus visit I got the feeling something was missing. Sure enough, when we got home it wasn’t there.

This morning it really hit home – I took Teen Girl to go take her ACTs and met Man/Boy in the parking lot at 6:30 a.m. He had a mandatory seminar he had to go to for work, and he was actually leaving early. This is the same person who struggled to get out of bed at 6:30 to get to school just a few years ago.

I still catch myself every now and then wanting to give some piece of over-obvious parental advice, or caution them against Bad People or making Wrong Decisions. I forget sometimes that they’re 17 and 20 and instead try to picture them at 10 and 13. Or younger.

It’s great watching my “kids” start to become the adults they are going to be. But sometimes I wish time would slow down, just a little.

 

 

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August 16, 2012 · 3:08 am

Dear Father Time: Bite me

For the record, I love my 40s. I’ve been saying it for, well, five years now, and it’s still true. I was a little intimidated by them before they got here, but once I turned 40 I realized the number isn’t the same as it was – or how I thought it was – when my mother was 40.

That was, until recently. Suddenly I feel old. Not put-me-in-a-nursing-home-so-I-can-chase-birds-with-my-walker old, but old all the same.

It started in March and seems to have made a monthly progression to now.

March – My son, then 19, started looking at apartments and for a roommate, found one of each and made plans to move out the first of April. <ding>

April – I met a great guy on Match.com, we started talking and decided we should go out. I was 44, he was 49. Both in the same decade, I didn’t think anything of it. Two days before we went out, he went and had a birthday. Suddenly I was going out with a 50-year-old man. Am I old enough to date a 50-year-old man?? (For the record, I am – and he’s fabulous. Even if he is 50.) <ding>

Oh! And Man/Boy moved out as planned. <ding ding>

May – The then-19-year-old son turned 20. TWENTY. <ding>

June – The then-44-year-old turned 45. Any time there’s an age that ends with a “5” that means you’re halfway to the next decade. So there I am. Halfway through my 40s. <ding>

July – July almost went without a hitch. Usual summer activities, got with friends, hung out with the Manfriend (hey, he’s 50), lived life and enjoyed it. Then my then-16-year-old daughter and I went on a whirlwind trip to Chicago, where she met with several modeling agencies and had three express serious interest. Suddenly, I saw her as her 3-year-old self living in Chicago – and wondering if she’d know what to do. <ding>

August – Now we’re here. Tomorrow morning that same daughter starts her last first day of high school, her senior year. She’s giddy, has spent the last week wondering what to wear (she actually contemplated sweats so it wouldn’t look like she thought it was a big deal) and is ready to get the year over with and start her life. <ding>

I, on the other hand, am ready to go whimper in a corner and wish the clock back 12 years.

Or maybe just five. Because I really do love my 40s.

**Disclaimer: Because I have guilt (hey, I’m Irish. Guilt is what we do). I by no means think 50 is old. I have many, many friends who are 50 and older, a few who will hit that magic number this year, and well, it’s just not old. Thinking of myself dating someone who was 50, though – that just seemed odd. Because I am, after all, still in my 20s. And 30s. And … well, you get it. Don’t you?

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