Talk Thursday: I’m a Grown-up?

Every American child—that is the ones I knew/know—counted the years, months, and even days until their sixteenth birthday and the ability to get their drivers license. I didn’t get mine until I was pregnant and nineteen.

When I was a teen I couldn’t wait until I was twenty-one and gained the right to vote and drink legally. Not to mention being majorly (why isn’t majorly a word?) pissed that an eighteen year old boy could be drafted and die in a hostile foreign land for oil and telecommunication concerns, I mean American freedom and the destruction of communism, before they could vote and then legally get drunk because the warmongers in office remained their after the elections. I never fail to vote, and it was all anti-climactic because I was living in Germany when I turned twenty-one and was able to drink legally on the economy already, and had to cast my votes absentee…MEANING THEY DIDN’T COUNT ANYWAY. Despite that, I never fail to vote.

When I was in my twenties and my thirties I still referred to myself as a girl. I wondered when do you begin to feel like an adult, a woman, a grown up? When do I start dressing age appropriate? What is age appropriate? And when does Barry Manilow start sounding better than Led Zepplin and Cat Stevens, because I want to end it all right before that time. And it’s obvious that it happens somewhere along the timeline.

The major faux pas I made: arrogantly thinking I would never let myself get fat. I never considered the simple inescapable factors:
1) I would burn out on pumping iron
2) Skinny ego karma
3) Hereditary gene factor
4) That I would quit smoking and gain twenty-five pounds in one month, one month I kid you not
5) That those twenty-five pounds would double plus over the next decade.
6) I never realized the factors of menopause
I never contemplated that there would come a day when my butt and thighs would realize it could just inhale carb and fat calories. In frustration I have thrown myself on the Cross Trainer of futility. Futility I tell you, and it just makes me hungrier.

I use to wear miniskirts, well into my mid to late forties. My legs still looked great. I have wisely exchanged the miniskirts for maxis (sounds like pads) but mostly I wear pants. I’ve not worn a bikini since I got pregnant (age 19.) I’ve not worn shorts since my honeymoon in 1994 (age 38.) now it’s all suits and jeans. Despite seeing little of the public during work, suits make me feel more professional—actually I think suits make me cuss less (which could explain why I cussed LOUDLY this afternoon during a conversation with my boss—I’m wearing black slacks and a white shirt today. No suit.)

Where on God’s Green Earth does it say middle aged and overweight women have to wear unfitted, untailored, loud coloured polyester or wrinkly cotton? Huh? What gives? Who says I can’t listen to today’s hot music? Who says I have to watch the fun from the ground. I can’t wait to ride the roller coaster atop the Stratosphere in Vegas. If I have a stroke during the experience please note:
I am an organ donor
I want to be cremated
My china and rings go to Psam
My necklaces to Miseray
Arlo gets my Ducky
And Burp is incharge!

Please spread my ashes in a couple of beautiful gardens, preferably on more than one continent, near some nasturtiums, ferns, and a bird feeder.

Sith,
Cele