Waking up From Lost Time

Some epileptics have what's called "absence seizures" where they just sort of space out for a few seconds. Some people with mental illness suffer from bouts of "lost time." Some alcoholics have blackouts.

I recently discovered that I could very well be an epileptic mentally ill alcoholic. I haven't been diagnosed with any form of epilepsy, but I'm knocking real hard on the door of the other two.

I rarely know what the date is without looking at a calendar. Now, it's not at all uncommon for a perfectly sane person to be off by one day or so. But lately, I have not even been able to pin it down somewhere within a good seven to 10 day timeframe. I'm a little better at knowing what month it is, maybe because the month boxes on my "year-at-a-glance" wall calendar are good bit bigger than the day boxes. While I have trouble with dates, I do a little better with knowing what day it is, only because Tuesday is recycling day, Wednesday is American Idol, Thursday is The Office, and Friday is trash day. But bear in mind that this doesn't mean I will actually drop off the recycling on Tuesday, or have the trash out in time on Friday. I do know that the year is 2009, however.

Anyone who knows me is aware that I'm a slacker who cannot afford to be a slacker. I end up putting more effort into looking like I keep it all together rather than just keeping it all together in the first place. So I must not be a true slacker, seeing as how I actually care about keeping it all together. Real slackers don't give a shit about things like recycling day.

All this to say, I recently realized that a good month of my life has gone by without my attention or appreciation. Not that this hasn't happened several times before. It just seems that now, time is more valuable. It's that perspective you grow into the older you get.

When you're a child, you're on the floor with no sense of time and no horizon in sight. As a teenager, you're in the car with no sense of anything and no end in sight. In college, you can see the world from a 4th floor dorm room or from the roof of a fraternity house. It's all books and booze, love and lust, then probably just more booze and lust. Too busy living from one high to the other to notice the shrinking world below. Then comes career. Suddenly, you are supposed to act like a grown-up and take an elevator to a high-rise office or supervise young employees below you. Too busy working to hear the clock ticking minutes of your life away or to see the once endless sea of opportunity beginning to dry up. You settle into marriage and before you're ready (because no one ever is) along come the babies with all the crying and diapers and bottles and equipment. Sleepless, cranky, no-longer-just-a-couple parents hop on that roller coaster and stay on it until the last one starts school. With all the carseats and potty training and paraphernalia, you don't have much time to sit back and reflect on creating a new generation, much less on preparing to shift upward one day and take the place of your parents.

Now that my kids are a little older and for the most part, capable of bathing, feeding, and wiping themselves, I recently had the pleasure of stopping (just once for a fleeting moment) to take a breath and think. I see them looking up at me and I remember how my parents always seemed so tall. I see them looking up to me with wide eyes at a big world and I can only hope they'll see me as the smart, successful, and secure woman I sometimes so deftly can pretend to be.

The mirror and my aching bones are beginning to convince me that even though I may not think or act in accordance with some standard (of mysterious origin) as to how someone my age should think or act, I am nevertheless as young as I can possibly be at this very moment. Time flies when you're getting old, and I really don't want to lose any more of it. Not that I really missed anything over the past month or so. That I know of.

The only thing everyone on earth has in common is that we are all still alive. It's just that most are either too young to notice it or too busy to appreciate it. I'm now getting old enough to notice. I just wish I weren't always too busy to appreciate it, what with all my TV shows and household chores to keep up with.

43 on 4/3. Does that mean anything?

I think it means "Grow up and get real!"

I went to wake Katy up this morning and as I hugged her, her first words were: "Happy Birthday, Mama . . . 43." I'm always impressed by the way she is so on top of things. But this time, I could have done without her wise-ass grin.

I once wrote an essay called "37." Apparently that was some sort of milestone for me. Now I'm reminded that I'm still old enough to be a grandmother. Sure glad I'm not.

I'll never forget a conversation I had with some of the squadron wives when we were at Cannon Air Force Base about 10 years ago. Most of those women were about five to seven years younger than I was. One of them was lamenting her upcoming 29th birthday. In all of my sage wisdom, I replied, "Try 34."

I'm understanding now those middle-age crazies I heard about when I was a kid. I wouldn't necessarily refer to this "midlife" feeling as a "crisis," but it is this sort of second adolescence. Again, I feel uncomfortable in my body. Not so much awkward as unwieldy. When I was awkward, I knew I would eventually catch up with myself and get it. Now (in this unwieldy body that is out-of-sync with my brain), when I try to turn flips on a trampoline or roller skate too fast, for example, my body tells me that I've lost it (and not just mentally). My chiropractor says, "Jill, just because you can do it, doesn't mean you should."

Why am I so afraid of aging? A friend (who shall remain nameless lest he get more publicity than he deserves) posted this on my Facebook wall: "I sure hope you enjoy your birthday. You don't have that many left." Pretty funny, unless I end up dead soon. Then who will they suspect, huh?

First, I'll count my blessings about this aging shell my soul is stuck with. I don't have much of a gray hair problem seeing as how I just try to stay bleached blonde. Sure, those wiry grays tend to stand up and make themselves known, but I just weigh them down with some product or other, or pluck them if they don't behave. I don't really have any crows' feet around my eyes yet. At least not that I can see. I don't have saggy boobs, but only because they are too small to sag. So that gives the illusion that they are still somewhat perky. I'm not overweight, and cellulite has yet to replace every square inch of my thighs. So I still have all those things to look forward to.

Now, I may look healthy and in shape, but I can't even fold a basket of laundry without getting winded. My heart rate only rises to a calorie-burning level when I look at my bank account to see how much I pay for my unused gym membership every month. When I do go to the gym, I'm always afraid the buff youngsters parading themselves at the front desk can tell when my last visit was when they scan my membership tag. Then they scoff at me after seeing how old I am and think, "Oh, give it up lady," when really they probably don't give me another thought. Other than maybe, "Hmm, my mom was born in 1966, too."

And just yesterday afternoon as I sat in the sunlight (bad idea), I started noticing—for the first time—spider veins in my ankles and thinning skin on my already bony hands. I swear that these conditions arose right before my trifocal-wearing eyes. But the most troubling thing for me is my neck. If any of you got a copy of our family Christmas picture and still have it, look at my neck. I wish I had had the photographer airbrush some of that tree-trunk look out of it. Age often shows in the neck—especially on women who have had their faces all pinned up and stretched out and Restylaned and Botoxed. I haven't gone to that extreme, and I won't because I think looking naturally old is more attractive than looking freakishly pathetic. Who do they think they're fooling? And why? But my neck has really aged out of proportion to the rest of me. And it's long, so that just doubles the attention it gets. I guess I'll start wearing some smart-looking Talbot's turtlenecks and sassy scarves from Chico's. Remember ladies, sunscreen that neck. I must have neglected mine for years.

Anyway, all this to say: Vanity sucks. Sucks your spirit dry. Michael J. Fox recently said that vanity is the first thing to go. The first thing you gladly and even unknowingly toss out the window when you find yourself in a life or death situation. English writer Anthony Powell (whom I have never heard of before) said, "Self-love seems so often unrequited." How true. And French philosopher Henri Bergson (whom I had also never heard of) said, "The only cure for vanity is laughter, and the only fault that's laughable is vanity." I say: Vanity pretends to run deep but it's shallow. It can fill us up, but it's hollow.

I'm just glad to know that when the last drop of my incredible hotness is all gone, I'll still be able to rely on my vastly superior intelligence and unparalleled sense of humor to keep me in the spotlight. What a relief.