Girl40's Blog

Years ago I heard an interview on TV with actress Terry Hatcher of Desperate Housewives fame.  I must admit  I have never watched that show and Ms. Hatcher is not normally the type of person I would look to for advice on life, but something she said in that interview I thought profound and have tried to live by since.  She was explaining that she no longer eats burnt toast.  Much more a philosophical realization than a dietary rule that she explained.  As a mother, she realized that for a long time she would sacrifice herself for the sake of putting her children first.  Toast was an example, when she made it for her family if one of the pieces was burnt instead of making one of her children eat it she would eat it herself.  Upon looking at her life in general, she found that she often put herself  and her needs last behind that of her family.  At one point in her life she decided that she would treat herself with the same standards as she did her family.  If it wasn’t fit for them to eat, she wouldn’t either. 

Now, I know as a mother of three that there are times that out of necessity I put off getting something I need or doing something I want to do because a need for one of the kids is more pressing and I am not talking about that.  I am talking about being a martyr.  When my children who are all only eighteen months apart were younger, I was often at home alone with them for weeks at a time as my husband travelled a lot for work.  At the time, we lived at the end of a road that dead ended into a state park in the forest so we were relativity isolated.  My life revolved around the keeping the house up, bills paid, septic system unclogged [still remember many times laying in the dirt with my arm holding a wire hanger shoved up the septic pipe trying to unclog it while my husband was out-of-town with three small children asking what I was doing] children schooled, and life rolling in general.  A wonderful girlfriend of mine would often call from “town” just 30 miles away and invite me to join her and some friends for dinner or a girl’s night out to which I often politely declined.  Another time she called and offered to watch kids so that my husband and I could go on a date.  I assured her that he and I found plenty of time to spend together talking by the fire or walking down by the river, and that we didn’t need to leave the house and spend a lot of money on some “date.”  Instead of the response I am sure I was hoping to hear of, “How do you do it all?”  or “I wish I could be the unselfish wife and mother you are,” I got something I wasn’t ready for.  “you’re a martyr, and you need to stop it.”  What did she say, a martyr?  I couldn’t believe she was being so harsh with me.  Being the gentle but accountable friend that she was, she went on to explain that I was wrong.  She assured me that even the best of moms need some time away from their children to regroup and come back even better.  She enticed me with the idea of stimulating my mind with adult conversation.  She even predicted that things might spice up a bit with my husband if he saw me in high heels dressed up to go out with him for the night instead of those dirty hiking boots ready for a walk in the woods.  She was right, on all accounts.

It’s so difficult in this economy and when things are tight to not fall back into eating that burnt toast!  Of course I need new running shoes, but both boys are about to start track so maybe I should get their shoes first and put mine on hold.  I do have two inches of  new growth on my hair and the grey hairs are shining through, but I can just buy another eight dollar box of color from the drugstore and call it good, after all my daughter is starting to look like “Cousin It” from the Munsters and I should get her hair done first…

My husband walked in the kitchen earlier this week when I was debating about spending the money to go to the doctor for the knee I have injured and spoke with love and resolve three little words that centered my world, “No burnt toast!”  He is right, my friend was right, and even Ms. Hatcher was right.  I do myself no favors when I move myself to the bottom of the list.  If I become bitter and resentful to those I love because I haven’t taken care of myself and have yet again become the martyr, I do them no favors.  So to all wives and mothers out there changing diapers, running kids to activities, working all day outside of the home and trying to keep it together in the home, finding time to be romantic with your husband, and making time for your friends, don’t forget to take care of you.

Trashing the toast,

Girl40

I was a fan of the Oakland A’s baseball team back in the days when they were worthy of having fans [to be fair, I haven't followed them for years], in the late 80′s and early 90′s when guys like thridbaseman Carney Lansford and outfielder Jose Canseco made you want to run back to Oakland Coliseum every week for more great baseball.  My then boyfriend and now husband and I would join friends and take the BART train up to Oakland for a day of fun in the sun, great baseball, and ballpark food.  I can still smell that undeniable ballpark smell of popcorn, polishdogs, and cheap beer mixed in with the smell of sunscreen.  Always in the mood to celebrate another A’s win, we would then head into San Francisco to our favorite Irish pub.  I personally looked forward to my favorite drink, the Blue Whale.  I am not even sure what was in it other than Blue Curacao, but that didn’t matter.  It came served with a plastic blue whale perched on the rim of the glass and I was always looking forward to adding to my dashboard collection.  It was on one such visit to the city that I met “her.”

I never got her name, but she had an impact on my life.  We met as my party and I were walking down the street toward the pub.  She had suddenly appeared in front blocking me from going any further and separating me from my friends.  She had looked me straight in the face with large, round, imploring eyes and asked for money to feed her kids that she referenced with a quick nod to the side.  Looking over, I saw three small children probably between the ages of three and eight all looking back at me with the same imploring eyes.  They sat huddled together in the shadows of the neon lights against a door.  My heart immediately went out to this woman and I dug into my purse and pulled out a five dollar bill and gave it to her without a second thought.  She thanked me and I caught up with my friends and ordered my Blue Whale.

Work combined with some family vacation time brought me back to the city I had since moved so far away from, about ten years later now in my early thirties and this time with my own three kids and a husband in tow.  A different street in the same city introduced me to a new friend, but he had a name Milton.  Since we had taken up residence at the San Francisco Hilton hotel for our six-day stay, Milton became affectionately named by my children, “Milton from the Hilton.”  Everyday as my children and I waited for my husband to return with the car from the parking garage across the street from the hotel [a process that took 20 minutes] we had ample time to get to chat with Milton as he tried to coax money from the hotel patrons pockets.  We learned [because he had many stories to tell and freely told them without being asked] that Milton had found his way to San Fransisco from Los Angeles.  He was successfully hiding from the police that were after him for some undisclosed reason.  One day, my friend Dan was standing with us as he waited for his car to be brought to him.  Milton never having seen my husband with the children and I, assumed Dan was my husband and asked him for some money.  Dan gave him a one dollar bill.  Milton thanked him looked down at my youngest child who was just five at the time, and started to walk down the street.  He had only gotten a couple of yards from us when he turned on his heel and walked back over to us.  Getting down on one knee so that he could get eye to eye with my son Milton said this to him, “You take this dollar and you spend it wisely, you hear me?  You don’t use it to by candy or other junk.  You save it so you don’t end up like Milton, you hear me?”  My astonished wide-eyed five-year old nodded back in agreement.  A day later as we checked out of the hotel and got into our car, my son waved goodbye to Milton who sat swinging his legs in one of the broad window ledges of the hotel. He waved back with a great smile across his weathered face.  My son now almost 12 years old, still has Dan’s dollar bill that Milton gave him and he still on occasion will say a prayer for him.

Two weekends ago my daughter and I found ourselves out on the town in another great west coast city Portland, Oregon.  Three of my girlfriends where up visiting and we decided to celebrate one of their birthdays a bit early in the city.  The restaurant we had our heart set on had much too long of a wait so we gathered around the iPhone out in the evening drizzle to try to find another place for our celebration.  As we stood there, we where approached by a man with a long beard, probably in his late 40′s or early 50′s holding a piece of paper covered in plastic.  His story was that he was trying to get into a workprogram and needed money to get there.  I found myself wanting to know more about this man.  What circumstances brought him to were he was today?  Were was he living right now?  He answered all of my questions as my friends waited patiently in the rain, no doubt wondering why I took such an interest in this man.  He told me the cross streets of the bridge he was living under, said it was almost like camping and camping wasn’t so bad after all he said.  He had a divorce, sold the tools that he used to earn a living, and had spent some time in jail because of some bad decisions he had made.  He also said that a lot of people were only a paycheck or two away from standing right were he was.  At that tears came to the brim of my eyes, of course he couldn’t know that my family was one of those families that he spoke of.  Of course  we have something that obviously he doesn’t have, family that would never allow that to happen to us.  Taking a five out of my wallet, I handed it to him making him promise me would not waste it.  He promised, and we went our separate ways.

I have had many more encounters with homeless people in my life as I am sure you have, but these three encounters over three very different decades in my life were the ones that profoundly affected me.  The first lady from San Francisco back when I was in my early 20′s made me cynical.  The rest of the story from that night was that when I came out of the pub that night, I was grabbed on the arm by the same woman.  Those once imploring eyes now glazed over, bitter foul alcohol breath being blown in my face as she again asked for money.  This time no kids in sight.  I felt taken advantage of.  My heart so wanted to believe that she was asking out of true need and an ignorant belief from me that I would actually be helping her.  What would five dollars do to change her life?  To be fair, at that point in my life I was more anxious to through money I didn’t think twice about spending at her than to think about her past what it did for me.  In my 20 something mind, it was a good night.  I had helped a poor homeless woman and had my drink, both made me feel good to some degree.

A decade later I was still somewhat cynical towards the plight of the homeless, but ready to listen and learn when we met Milton.  I was able to look past his circumstance and look at the man.  Now being 40 and my own circumstances at the moment gave me an entirely new outlook and even hunger to understand the man I met just weeks ago in Portland.

This is not ment to be an essay on “the plight of the homeless in major west coast cities,” or a social commentary on homelessness, and I am by no means telling you how you should respond to them.  It is just introspection on looking at age and how our experiences affect the filter through which we view life and respond to it.  I think the conclusion I come to for myself is that because I have been given much grace in my life, I am able to give more of it to others.  Because people have listened to my story, I want to hear theirs.  Most of all, I don’t want to miss or take for granted one single experience, person, or opportunity that I can learn from by being too cynical, in a hurry, or self focused.  Wonder what the 50′s will bring?

What about you?  How have your views, the way you react to life changed over the years that you have lived so far?

Looking forward to meeting the next Milton,

Girl40

Why Girl40?  Simple, I am a girl and I am forty.  I suppose at the age of forty “woman 40″  would be more appropriate, but that just doesn’t have the same ring to it.  It occurred to me today [the day before Valentine's Day] that my expectations for celebrating Valentine’s Day are  different from they were even five years ago when I was midway through my thirties.  That got me thinking, what other expectations did I have that have changed?  How have my views changed on life, love, politics, friends, clothes [now clothes may seem a little out-of-place stuck between the more important friends and family, but they are at least as important as politics], family?  What expectations do I have for the next 40 years of my life?  Even something much less philosophical than all that, why am I fighting at this moment the double injustice of having to deal with both grey hairs on my head and a Mt. St. Helen’s size blemish breakout on my chin?  So many questions sparked by such an innocent little holiday.

So that brings me here, to this blog.   It is cheaper than therapy for sure and I thought maybe as I process my thoughts on being a 40-year-old woman in 2010, that it might just stimulate other girl40s to process too and share their thoughts as well.  So let’s talk about it all, the magnificent and the mundane, the sunshine and the rain!  Hey, if those “real” Housewives of Orange County can blog we can too right? [Yes, I watch that ridiculous show.  Don't judge me.]

Back to Valentine’s Day, all this came to mind as my husband and two of my three children and I were driving down the highway along the river on our way to go for a hike.  I know typical Valentine’s Day celebrations include candy, flowers, and a way over priced card that sings a line from a sappy love song when you open it up, but our celebrations have never looked typical and today was no exception.  We did have a wonderful hike on trails we had never taken through thick mossy forests growing alder and maple, by Ruckel Creek flowing much to full for February, and even a walk on an old historic highway long ago closed.

In retrospect, we couldn’t have chosen a more appropriate celebration for our love this Valentine’s Day.  Like that trail we walked our love over these past years has had its curves and bumps in the road.  I believe it has developed a strong root system like those maples we walked under and we have even grown some “mossy” habits in our marriage.  Our love does run just as strong as that creek flows.

Today, celebrating my first Valentine’s Day of my 40′s I can say I don’t want the candy because I would only have to walk longer to keep it off of my hips.  I don’t need the flowers, because I would rather have a forest, and save a tree and don’t buy that expensive card.  I have discovered that the yellow sticky left on the freshly filled coffee pot that says, “I love you,” means even more on February 15th than it would on the  14th.

With no expectations, but plenty of anticipation,

Girl40