I shared this on Facebook today and figured I’d share it here as well since I haven’t posted anything in almost a year. Today Mom would have turned 90. I could have posted one of the many photos of her all dressed up out at a restaurant for her birthday, but I decided on this series from 2019. What I love about them is seeing her un-posed smile. She was always so self-conscious about her smile. She worried about having a “Cheshire cat grin”. I made her laugh right before taking the pictures so it was the relaxed Mom. I loved making her laugh, especially during the last years of her life when there wasn’t always much to laugh about. I miss that laugh and I miss her. Happy Birthday, Mom.
Today, my mother would have turned 89 years old. I was buying a birthday card for my best friend a couple weeks ago and it hit me, just like it did at Christmas, that I’d never buy my mother another birthday card again. This simple revelation triggered a big emotional reaction. It took all the self-control I could muster to not cause a scene in the card aisle.
Aside from next month being the one-year anniversary of her passing, her birthday signals the last “first” marker of an event or occasion without her. I wrote about the concept of the last “first” in this blog post from January. I haven’t written about her or what I’ve experienced coping with her passing the last few months. This is partially because I didn’t want this blog to turn into some kind of grieving chronicle of woe. Frankly, I don’t know what I want this blog to be right now.
The other reason why I haven’t been blogging about Mom is that for the most part, I’ve been doing okay. I get through most days just fine. I play with Johnny, my tuxedo cat, pay bills, try to clean and clear out more clutter, smile, get together with a friend, laugh. I’ve even managed to think and talk about Mom without crying. That is, until the last week or so. I’ve found myself very emotional and missing her presence a lot. Having been through this process before when my Dad died, I know that grief is cyclical, rather than linear. Even knowing that intellectually doesn’t make it feel any less like a setback.
However, I’ve decided that what may seem like a setback is really a reset. It’s a reminder to look at where I was, where I am, and where I want to be going forward. In grief and in life, we often don’t give ourselves credit for how far we’ve come. All we think about is how far we have left to go. But dwelling in either the past or the future too much is dwelling in an illusion. Right now, in this moment, is where life happens. By accepting where I am right now, I’m accepting whatever feeling needs to come up in me and be acknowledged and addressed. Right now, I feel blessed to have had such a loving, kind, funny, supportive, wonderful mother. If that makes me cry, so be it. If it makes me smile, so be it. Everything is all good in this moment.
We often hear people say, “It’s just a number” when speaking about age. Okay, I get that, but numbers do dominate our lives. Test scores validate and rank a student’s progress, what the scale says can determine how you feel about yourself on any given day, your salary is an indicator of your worth to your employer, and yes, the date on your birth certificate can affect what you and others feel about your own viability, desirability, and cultural relevance. In essence, numbers can dictate your “shelf life”.
When it comes to age, the numbers game has always troubled me. For as long as I can remember, I’ve felt that time was my enemy. I was always running out of it or wasting it. This “time bomb” constantly ticks under the surface of my daily life, but it’s guaranteed to blow at least two times during the year: New Year’s Eve and my birthday. Unlike people who see both of these days as markers of new beginnings, I see them as grim reminders of all that I’ve failed to do, change, or achieve since the last birthday or “Auld Lang Syne” sing-along. This feeling has only gotten stronger the older I’ve become. Today is my 53rd birthday and to be blunt, this has been a shitty year. I’m not going to bore you with details of angst and woe, but trust me, life hasn’t been some Hallmark Channel, happy clappy, fun-filled adventure. Think Sharknado and you’ll be on the right track.
So, unless I want a sequel of deadly flying sharks symbolically destroying my life again until my next birthday, I need to change my mindset. With the patience of a gnat on crack, “instant gratification or bust” has been my unsuccessful mantra so far. What to do, what to do?
I have a telephone consultation with a therapist this afternoon. That’s a start. I’ve done therapy before. My problem isn’t knowing what my problems are. I can analyze, diagnose and talk my issues to death. The trick is making the changes necessary. I’m looking for coping strategies, a bullet point list of steps to take. No more attempts at past life regression or cooing “there, there” to my annoying inner child. That’s all fine and good, but I need to see some results in the here and now, not in the hereafter.
The other thing I’m going to do is continue to find examples of people who’ve accomplished goals later in life. I stumbled across a great reminder on Twitter this week about the actress, Kathryn Joosten, who didn’t start acting until the age of 40. She didn’t get her big break until 20 years later when she was cast as Martin Sheen’s secretary, “Mrs. Landingham”, on The West Wing. Writer and activist Charlotte Clymer shared Kathryn’s story on Twitter as a response to the ageism she sees permeating our culture. I’m going to re-read Kathryn Joosten’s story every time the time clock is ticking like a time bomb in my head. Just like internalized homophobia, internalized ageism is just as detrimental as anything the outside world can do. My birthday wish? Less sharks and more serenity.
