Category: Slice ‘o Life

I was driving to get my kiddo from school the other week and saw the garbage man pictured below, literally hanging out.  So many days later, and he is still in my thoughts.

I trailed the truck for a mile or so, the man hanging on to the side of the truck, watching the Chicago streets pass him by.  It was cold that day. When we got to another red light, he jumped off to gather some rubbish.  I rolled down my window and yelled out, “Sir? Thank you!  I just wanted to say thanks for all you do to keep our city clean.”  He smiled and nodded, then picked up some trash.

Why did I take a picture of him?  Why did I roll down my window to thank him?  Why am I still thinking about all of this?  I don’t know, really, other than things feel so complicated right now, but a man doing his job that helps so many others without any fanfare or recognition somehow feels a bit like an anchor to me right now.

It cost me nothing to say thank you.  I’m glad I did.

January is right around the corner and with that comes resolutions. Typically, I am not one to make or publicize resolutions.  I don’t ever really think too much about them.  But this year feels differently to me.  I’m feeling the need to shake things up, my friends, because what has worked in the past doesn’t seem to be working quite as well anymore.

With the Internet and social media, the space where I have spent a lot of time in the past five years (a lot of time), things are also different.  The tone is meaner, harsher, less friendly.  Politics and cancer dominate my feeds, as well as my friends’ anxieties about said politics and cancer.

Sometimes I stop and think about the need to separate my own fears and anxieties from those of folks in my orbit.  Then I question if that in itself is a harsh act, to not be as open and responsive to those around me in their fears and worries as I possibly can.

What I have learned about myself is that that openness comes at a cost.  I absorb the fears and anxieties of others, only adding to my own.  A sense of responsibility grows deep within me, then guilt for not being able to help, to solve, to soothe.  Those things are in my nature and I made a career out of them as a social worker.

Not being able to help, to solve, to soothe the aches and worries of my friends has contributed to a growing sense of helplessness in me.  When I think about that, I just want to wrap myself in a big hug, as I realize that I have been consciously and unconsciously working to solve politics and cancer, feeling personally responsible for those things.  That need to fix things that are clearly out of my purview is as real as it is ridiculous.

And this is not on my friends in the least.  Certainly they don’t expect these things from me.  That would be preposterous.  My sense of guilt and responsibility is my own twisted need.  As a social worker, I knew and understood my limitations.  I had a sense of what was possible and what was not and didn’t blame myself when not all things worked out as hoped for.  I also clocked out at the end of the day.  I took vacations and had days off throughout the year.

But on Facebook, with the constant stream of new diagnoses, new relapses, deaths of so many children, growing fear, growing concerns about our environment, our rights, our bodies, our safety, I cry uncle.  It feels too much for me on many days, contributing to a sense of doom and dread and feeling paralyzed in a hundred different ways.  I have always believed that to know one’s limitations is a strength, not a weakness.  I think I have stumbled across a big one for me that I have been trying to ignore for too long.

The thing is, I have loved Facebook.  Truly loved it.  The connection, the joy, the humor, the news, the information, the exchange of ideas, the dialogue.  I have benefited from it in too many ways to count.  The sharing of my daughter’s cancer story on Facebook changed my life, introducing me to a staggering amount of kindness and good will from people across the world.  The good things that have come my way because of Facebook will never be duplicated and I will never be able to fully repay them.

That in itself, feeling the need to repay all that has been given to me via Facebook, is another reason I haven’t changed my habits.  As if there is some magical abacus in the sky that tallies the good I generate versus the good which I have received.  Uncle again — it’s too much for me.  Hence, the resolution.

Moving forward, I resolve to engage in less Facebook and more book, more face.  It’s a clever little experiment I have crafted for my resolution, but a wee little voice in my head is telling me it’s what I need.  More books, more reading, more quiet time with myself and my thoughts.  And more face, more personal connection, more actual time with actual people.  I am hoping to substitute a thumb swiping with a page turning.  I am hoping to look into people’s eyes instead of their photos.

I am scared that I will fail.  That my diminishing attention span and need for instant connection and validation will outweigh my ability to look in instead of out.  I still want to try.

I am addicted, of course, so I know better than to think I can quit completely.  Nor would I want to.  There is still so much good to absorb.  For every nasty exchange and mean meme and fake news story, there are so many opportunities to send out a virtual thumbs up, watch the growth of kids and sweet nature of puppies, type out the signature ‘xox’ that I am wont to do.

For now, at least, I am going to try and slow the constant need to scroll my screens.  I am going to try and rediscover fiction and the truth in words someone else has written. Maybe even write some of those words myself.  I am going to try and care for my health, mental and physical, in more tangible ways than logging into my social media accounts.

Wish me luck.

This week I binge watched the new Netflix series, Stranger Things.  Loved it.  I watched it, in large part, because I really adore Winona Ryder. We are similarly aged (I’ve got two years on the gal), so my life milestones felt, in many ways, like they mirrored her characters on screen.  Imagine my surprise when I realized her starring role in the series was as the frazzled single mom.  Man.  It’s hard to deny your own middle aged status when your spirit ingenue has bags under her eyes that look so much like your own.

Sigh.

Don’t get me wrong.  I am not trashing Winona for having the audacity to age.  Nope.  Not going there.  I am simply and honestly stating that its hard to deny my own aging (and my relationship to said aging) when you see the aging, up close and personal in high definition, in the muse of your youth. Sobering is the word that comes to mind.

As I watched Winona through the eight episodes, there was the undeniable effect of watching my life fly by me at a startling speed.  I kept thinking of my Mom and I at the movies in 1982 when we went to go see E.T. Remember the single, frazzled mom from that movie?  Dee Wallace. Winona Ryder, and by extension, myself, are now Dee Wallace.  We are the overwhelmed, middle aged moms.  YIKES, I say!

When I think of Winona, I think of Heathers (1988) and Reality Bites (1994). I think of youth and beauty and pale skin with red lips.  I think of the MTV Best Kiss award she won for Bram Stoker’s Dracula in 1992 and watching that movie sitting in a different theater next to my crush at the time, the love of my life, and how our legs kept touching in the dark of the theater and how that felt electric to me.

In my head, Winona and I will always be young and fresh and 20 and misunderstood by the world.  Winona and I will forever be joint travelers on the path of “finding ourselves,” whatever the hell that means.

But the truth is that reality is not what happens inside my head.  Time passes, wrinkles happen, gray sets in and waist lines expand.  That is reality, and yes, it kind of bites.  The person I see in the mirror is not always someone I recognize anymore.  It’s kind of shocking to me.  I want to be that gal that is like every leading man that ever made a movie or a fine bottle of wine — getting better with age.  Yada yada yada.  The thing is, I’m not quite there yet.  I think part of me needs to say goodbye to the young woman that was — my inner Winona Ryder.  Ingenues grow up and so have I.

After I wrapped the series, I did a quick Google image search to see how real life Winona looks different than her character on Stranger Things.  Whew.  Order restored.  Winona remains the gorgeous creature she always has been.  Her penchant for wearing black remains intact.  Her warm brown eyes are as expressive as ever.  She maintains that edgy style I have admired in her since the late 1980s.

But I recognize the signs of middle age that I see every time I look in the mirror.  The eyes are a bit wearier, less bright, and more sunken.  The skin on the decolletage has the slightest whisper of crepiness to it.  The texture of hair is different, courser, and less shiny.  Yes, the signs of aging are undeniable.  And if I see them in Winona, I must, too, embrace them in myself.  Dammit.

I am middle aged, yo.  Just call me ma’am (short for middle-aged aging mom).

My hope is that I lean into my aging gracefully.  Embrace what is new and different.  Highlight those changes in a way that owns them rather than attempts to hide them.  I still love many things about the way I look, even if I don’t always recognize the gal staring back at me in the mirror.  The task at hand, I think, is to learn how to frame the changes that come with aging.  A new haircut, perhaps.  Different, lighter makeup is a possibility.  And I should probably stop shopping at Forever 21, except for costume jewelry.  They have the best costume jewelry, my friends.

Oh, Winona, my Winona.  We’re getting older, my friend.  Ain’t life grand?  It’s a bitch, too, but it’s a grand bitch!