Remind me, Oh Universe, of Whom I Have Failed to Be Grateful

Last week was my birthday.  A birthday I was not excited about in the least.  A milestone birthday that signals, even to the most self-assured, talented and strong headed woman, the precarious state she is now in as she fights against the onslaught of age.  The birthday that reminds us all that time is marching on, and that we are becoming "the old bitch" we used to snarl our noses at in line at movie theaters as we made comments about their hair, their clothes, and ewww, how she was soooo Wriiieeeeennnkkkled!  In our minds, as 45 comes into sight just over the hill, we put on our full young girl gear and ready ourselves to fight to the death to prove we aren't our mother's kind of 45. We are then new 35.  We are the trendsetters, the ones who sweat because we've been working out, not because we're perimenopausal.  We have supple skin, we manage our fine lines and wrinkles with potions and creams and exfoliating scrubs that make us look, for a day or two, as if we've had a horrible biking accident where we scraped the pavement face first for a good 20 feet or so.  We are the new generation of Middle Age.  We are the YOUNG middle age.

And we are incredibly focused on things that in the grand scheme of things do not even matter.

Yep.  I use my three skin care products religiously.  I have one routine for night and one for morning and even sometimes, one for midday.  I try to watch my weight. Try to dress in a way that says, "she's ageless" instead of "She's someone's freaking mom."....but I don't always succeed.

The point is, I made it to another birthday, and that is a big, big deal.  I made it to another birthday after losing my health and my home, losing my mother, losing another home before I was financially prepared to go, losing someone that I loved and then finding out many things about him that made me realize I had loved someone that never existed in the first place.  I mean, I basically spent a few years of my life with an imaginary friend who wasn't very kind to me.  You better believe all that crap messes with your head in a huge kind of ,"Maybe I'm crazy and need to be institutionalized" kind of way.

But then in one year, I came out on the other side of that situation too, and my imaginary friend, well, who knows what ever happened to him?

It seems like in all the changing and moving and months of endless introspection, I've been sort of out the loop, communication wise with a lot of folks.  I think there was something, possibly a leftover voice from that imaginary friend, that kept telling me I didn't fit in.  That I wasn't really wanted, I was just pitied, or my real "friends" just wanted to use me, have something to talk about, have someone to put down behind her back.  Their concern for me, he told me, wasn't real concern, it was viciousness. I regretfully sort of believed Mr. Imaginary for a while.

But This weekend, Memorial day Weekend, I decided to not listen to my "imaginary friend" anymore.  I packed my backpack, I packed my boy's back pack.  I lugged my heavy dialysis machine down the stairs and into the car.  I loaded the box of heavy fluid and the tubing sets to the car. I bought eggs and bacon and grits, I packed a deck of cards, I wore my hiking boots.  I drove to Nebo NC to a cute little cabin in the woods and I spent some hours laughing with those real friends who love me the very best.  I painted a wine glass, I swam in the river, I trekked through the woods, and I watched a dog leap into the air over and over again trying to catch the droplets of Charlie's splashes in her mouth.  I got hugged.  Wow. I got hugged so many times and told that I was loved so many times and every time, I was able to take it in, accept it, believe it and make their love part of who I am.

Then today,Charlie and I were invited to a friend's house for Memorial Day dinner.  After our few minutes at the pool we loaded our little contribution to the party into the car and set out for Duncan to find Charlie's best friends, and one of the best girls I've ever had the pleasure of working in hell with, twice.   We laughed, we ate, we told jokes, we listened as the bald guy at the table described in fascinating detail how he shaves his whole head every day without ever even a nick of the razor.  The food was fabulous, the company, amazing.  My boy got to play with his two best buds, and we left with enough food for lunch tomorrow.  As we were leaving, Elizabeth followed me to my car and hugged me, reminded me that I am so loved by her, and she reminded me too, that I have so many people in my life for whom I feel grateful

Ever since my birthday last week, they've all been showing up, refusing to let me believe they've forgotten me.  All the members at Senior action who had cards and little gifts for me, who sang "Happy Birthday" to me, who hugged me and told me they love me.  I am thankful for every single one of you.  All my friends up at the cabin in Nebo, I am thankful for your kind hugs, the birthday cards and presents, the jokes, the laughs, and the hugs, oh the hugs!   I'm so thankful I was able to cook breakfast for you and that all of you lived after you ate it and none of you even got sick!  I'm so grateful that you wanted me there, that you planned just for me, so I'd have the proper place to sleep with my machine, and that you cared so much about me that you carried it up and down the stairs for me.  I'm thankful for all our quiet moments, our moments of laughter and our moments of adventure together, and that in that quiet, unspoiled place, I felt so in tune with the hearts of those around me.

I am so grateful for the bigness of this world, and for he diversity of the personalities in it.

So thank you, dearest Universe, for helping me have gas in my car, hiking boots on my feet, and plenty of understanding, loving, non-pretentious friends to meet me at the end of every one of my weekend journeys.

For Universe, you have given me wealth in giving me these friends who are better than gold, more dependable than rain in April, more more real than Christmas, and more fun to be around than a litter of puppies.  And by the way, they all  LOVE puppies, and that makes them even better people. So to you, Universe, I am grateful

I am grateful for the laughter of my son, smiling pictures of my grandchild,   Tuesday dinners with my daughter, and weekend trips to see how my little girl has become a mommy in her own right.  I'm grateful for times when I can listen to my dad's old stories, remind him of some I remember.  I'm grateful that even at the end of a long, long road, I am not standing here alone.

So thank you Universe, for reminding me I am loved, even when I feel the least loveable. Even when I know that loving someone like me would make no sense for someone else, they find some reason to love me anyway.  That is a truly amazing thing.  It is grace in human form and I am in awe of it.

I am grateful.