One Thing

“You’re getting those old lady hands.” Isaac said to me as I ordered them around during the post-dinner cleanup process. “Thanks, Isaac.” I told him. I’ll hang that comment up right next to the “you have a flabby butt” one he said about 6 years ago while going 60 miles per hour on a zodiac boat tour of the Na’Pali coast. All that in addition to Maire taking random photos of me FROM UNDER MY CHIN could really wreck my self esteem if I allowed it. “I am an old woman” I belted out while driving alone in my car, singing along to one of my favorite songs, “Angel from Montgomery”. I’ll sing that the next time one of them dares to call me “old”.

The fragility of life has become a recent theme in my writing, colored by both the timely and untimely passing of loved ones and a classmate of mine. One of my close friends attended her wake and told us how difficult it was to see all the pictures from high school. “I thought of you girls.” she said, thinking of all the good times we’ve had and our continuing shared lives and experiences. We are too young for this, I thought the other day. That invincibility I once believed was ours is no longer and that scares the shit out of me. We are all mothers, my best friends and I. Our most recent text thread contains all the music of our cacophonous rage, sadness, and joy. Our classmate was a mother too, I imagine she could have related. I know so many mothers out there that do so much and seek neverending ways to quiet the stress through one method or another—some healthy, some not so much. Repeat after me—judge not, lest ye be judged. This gig is not easy. We moms do a lot of the organizing, planning, executing and worrying. Add on to that the growing trend of “tradwife” on social media and we have a recipe for either depression or revolution. I’ll take revolution for $500, Alex.

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Speaking of mothers, our Mom will turn 90 in October. She is the quintessential “old battle axe” though we have rebranded that as “Queen Bee”. “You never stop worrying.” she tells me while sipping an oaky Chardonnay when I talk about the fears I hold for my children. Throughout her life (and this includes her childhood), Mom has been overly vocal, opinionated, stubborn, and sometimes dead wrong. She likes control and doesn’t cede it easily, she drinks day old coffee first thing in the morning because she’s thirsty and can’t wait for a fresh cup. We have had our moments, she and I. She’s had moments with all of us for that matter. A lot of the behind the scenes stuff is not fit for sharing on Facebook. I imagine that is the case for a lot of us mothers out there. “There must be a reason I’m still here.” Mom said through tears after hearing of Uncle Phil’s passing. “You’re here to keep us all on our toes, Mom.” I told her. Heck, just last night I switched the salad I was making into a larger bowl because she told me the one I had chosen was too small. She was right. It was. If she were to hear that “tradwife” is trending on social media, I can imagine the rant she would unleash. “You guys are all crazy” she’d say. “Whatever happened to just slogging through and not letting EVERYONE know about it?” I would tell her those days are gone but I will continue to do my best to take down the smoke and mirrors of what an aging mother REALLY looks like. Mom isn’t a perfect example but she’s my example. I have watched her carve the rot out of a tomato and serve it with olive oil and basil for dinner. She is a complete and total badass. Why can’t we make people like her trend on social media?

While I sit and sweat profusely in my sunroom due to the heat, humidity, and perimenopause, I wonder what it is I’m trying to say here. My “old lady hands” topped with a 2-week-old “Thai chili” gel manicure do look awful but I have no plan to fix that before next week. I think of our classmate who passed and how she must have struggled just like all of us moms out there. I think of how women struggle no matter what. I think of how I want to grow old, see my kids grow old, and how to do that “gracefully”, whatever that means. With all that has happened this year, all the things that brought out the “maudlin” in me in my last piece, I believe that my purpose is to not do all of this mothering, womaning, aging etcetera gracefully but openly. One of the things I try to never do is lie, I like my conscience as it is and truth has set me free. I am an old woman who takes after her mother, I promise to always tell you like it is to give you ‘one thing to hold on to’.

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