Today I am 55 Years Old

Today I am Effing 55 Years Old

I honestly cannot believe it. Those of you who are older may say, “Yeah, get over it kid”, but for those younger, I want to tell you that I too used to think people this age were OLD. So, in honor of my reaching this age, here are some thoughts to share. Read if you want, or just consider this more of my personal documentation and rambling that for some reason I feel the need to put down somewhere today.

Health...This is the thing…and why as we get older we talk about it so much. When I was young, I took it for granted (like most). Then my doctor warned me at 16 that if I kept eating my Mother’s Nebraska-learned carb and sugar based diet, I’d be overweight and miserable in a few years. My parents chain smoked in the car and house (Dad in secret for the last few years). Then my dad died at 42, and my mom at 62, and my sweet baby sister (2 years younger than me) is in the hospital right now having her aortic arteries scoped again to stop the heart attacks. I am not from good stock. I also grew up as a “Rocky Flats Downwinder” in Westminster, CO. Which means that I grew up breathing and drinking plutonium (and who knows what else… the governmentally hidden “accidents” are now at least partially documented and the former nuclear triggers plant has been shut down), and swimming in it in Standley Lake. We didn’t know… I’ve had thyroid issues for the last 10 years. My mom died of strange cancers throughout her body, and my sister has a variety of other unidentifiable health issues. As for me, I’ve tried vigilantly to move and strengthen my body almost every day, and to eat a mostly clean diet. Thanks to those things, I’m pretty healthy overall, of mostly normal weight, and can still mostly move a loaded 14’ raft in the wind. Let’s hope that continues… Health is the thing that really controls whether we LIVE or not. It now takes daily maintenance, and I can’t take it for granted.

Speaking of Toxins…as a child of the 70’s, I tried most everything. Leary’s famous "Turn on, tune in, drop out" was a cultural norm when I was growing up, and most of my friends smoked weed, drank, and tried other things to turn our minds off, escape, or “have fun”. I’ve never been a big fan of marijuana, but I’m coming to respect its potential medicinal qualities. I still don’t like to use it much though, it just makes me feel weird and disconnected. Other drugs were OK, but they never did it for me either, and I could easily see the downfalls. The big culturally-accepted toxin in my life has been alcohol. I know this is a touchy subject with some of you, and many reading this are still under the age-old marketing spells that teach us that somehow ethanol is helpful in our lives. For me, I eventually realized that I used it mostly to socially fit in. At 22 I found a group of what outwardly appeared to be happy, social-able, connected folks, and they drank together while they did everything. I became part of that group and later married their leader. I eventually found the dark side of it. I thought it helped stress and anxiety, but it really only delays it. Most drinkers use it to shut down the monkey mind at the end of the day. The anxiety rebound effect can be subtle but debilitating, and most don’t even correlate that with alcohol. I was always pretty-easily poisoned, and the hangovers were often horrible even after just a couple of glasses of wine or good beer. I’ve been alcohol-free now for a while, and life is SO much better. My body and joints don’t ache anymore all the time. My weight stabilizes in a healthy range easily and I have a ton more energy when I’m not ingesting it. My blood sugar and moods are much more even. I’ve spent a good amount of time reading the research on what this substance really does to us, and I’m happy to share really good info (if you are interested) that I’ve come across in both academic and layperson’s terms that has helped me get away from it, and totally removed my own cognitive dissonance about drinking. As always, I do understand that as humans, we want to feel better. As humans with means, we learn early to quickly find and do those things that give a quick fix. Alcohol, food, drugs, sex, shopping, online seeking, gambling, etc. are all just ways that we try to quickly increase our dopamine and other feel-good hormones. It’s natural and primitive. I’m not sure I’ll always make the right choices, but for me, I’m now at a point of life where I want awareness, energy, and connectedness, not deadening and poisoning. It’s not quick, but there is an ease that comes with being mostly toxin-free. No judgement though for those still seeking to quickly fill the voids. However, I’ve lost several good relationships because of it, and I’m at a point where I want to fill my life with positive, aware, and healthy people.

Speaking of husbands… A couple of years ago in a group of good women, we were sitting around trading our ideas for the first lines of our auto-biography. Not to spoil the surprise, but mine came to me as, “I was pretty sure that my sixth husband would be my last”. Yes, for those who don’t know, I’ve been married six times. They were all for love, at least partially. I was always “looking for love in all the wrong places”.  They were also for others reasons, like financial security, having a good man in my life for my son, and/or because the other person really wanted to be married to me and I basically thought, “Well, why not?”.  My glorious baby boy was truly the best thing that has ever happened to me, and a lot of it was trying to make a secure home. Almost ten years ago after #5 crashed out of my life, I sat down and really looked at why I was making those choices, and what I truly wanted and needed. I realized that I don’t need a man to be complete or be a good mom, but I do want love in my life. I was tempted to wallow in embarrassment and shut down my heart, like so many do. Luckily, shortly thereafter my current and hopefully last husband appeared and burst right into my life. While I was scared to death to do it again and we have had our share of issues, knowing myself helped me really know what I want and need in a relationship. So does good counseling when you realize you are both stuck in patterns from the past, have made way too many assumptions, and can’t currently communicate. I’m grateful now that I have a great man, lots of love and support, and our grown children are taking it forward. I’m 99% sure I’ll never marry again, but heck, if Kurt died tomorrow, well, I’d probably still be looking for love, I adore physical intimacy, and I am usually a pretty darn good wife.

Speaking of drives… Here I am, when many of my friends are thinking about retirement, still driven. Professionally, I came to my strengths kind of late in life. I spent most of my 20’s running rivers, playing volleyball, hiking, skiing, and looking for love. I didn’t start full-time in parks and recreation management until my 30’s. I got my Master’s degree at 36, and my PhD at 54. While I mostly feel now like I have clue and I’m very happy with my chosen career, I’m still trying to figure out what my full purpose is here on this earth. Many of you know my professional paths. I started with a keen interest in re-creation of body, mind, and spirit at an individual and personal level, then later added my management background to address those things at a community level. Now I’m drawn to teaching, writing, and still helping to figure out those things that help professionals help their communities thrive. I still wake up every day curious. I love my ability to delve deeper into research, and trying to translate what I find for the those how don’t have the time or inclination to do so. Turning people on to those things that help us thrive and connect, and really know our selves and our bodies, drives my passion. I’ve toyed with running for community leadership roles, but I’m sure I’d have to spend way too much time in the public realm just justifying or explaining my past to be able to be effective. So, I’m driven to create, gather beauty, share music, lead the great minds that have gathered with me, and put thoughts into words to share. I don’t really see myself ever “retiring”. I want to push it for as long as my body and mind will allow. I guess as I’ve gotten older, my drive has shifted from being the doer of the things, to the leader, to the teacher and documenter. I’m not sure it really matters if people are interested. I just have the need to put it out there in the hopes that it may help someone, and it helps me.

So, what I know for sure right now… Change is still the only constant, every day. The great teachers such as Deepak, Oprah, Tolle, Singer, Hanh, Hay, Sarno, and so many others, keep putting it out there for us each day to learn from. I have to keep reading and listening. In reality, they are all saying pretty much the very same thing, as do all great spiritual literature and ancient wisdoms in different languages. Love, connect, and take care of each other and this human experience we are currently having. I am troubled, as most of you are right now, by the current authoritarian regimes that seem to be driven by greed and selfishness. I try to be non-partisan as much as possible, but our current U.S. Administration is being led by an insecure narcissistic psychopath, who has proven over and over to be a racist, sexist, misogynistic, greedy, bully. Where we were previously led by a vision of hope, now we are led by a protectionistic version of doom and gloom. To gain and keep dictator-like power, the greedy uncles of the oligarchy support the elected man-child in his 4^th grade vocabulary, as the lies and simple statements are repeated and aired over and over. It is so easy for those who are busy just trying to put food on their tables to just believe them. They are pitting those who are educated against those who have not had that time or inclination. Blame the “other”, and then we are so busy fighting with each other that we don’t notice they are gathering our resources and taking advantage of us. The gaps widen. 

So, here at the dawn of 55 years old, I don’t claim to have the answers. I feel like I may know less now than ever. I just have to wake up each day, keep learning, keep sharing and teaching, and hope that we will collectively find our way. If you’ve read this far, thank you for listening, and I’d love to hear your stories too.

Changed

7/11/2016

Today I woke up in my cozy, small Raleigh apartment, after flying home last night from a month in Africa, and I am again changed. If you are interested, here are my perceptions from the world as I know it today. It is a snapshot, as change is really the only constant in the world, my thoughts will likely evolve in the future.

Today I am thankful, so thankful. I know some people think that is a new-agey, hippie-esque trite word, but I am just so full of thanks and appreciation for my life that I could burst with tears. Note: I am accepting that yes, many of the hippies and New Agers were and are right (and of course many were/are selfish dirty scumbags looking for enlightenment or profit in all the wrong places… but that is another story for another day).

What is the point of this sharing?  Maybe someone will want to read it. Maybe it will help someone? Maybe it will only help me clarify my own muddled thoughts to help me move forward in a less convoluted and confused way. As always, I just want to sort it out.

I realize that I am now a 53 year-old white American woman, who is blessed, pretty educated in some things, often opinionated, sometimes pretentious, sometimes a country hick, and the older I get, the more I know, and the less I am sure that I know. I wake up every day with the blessing and the curse that I am curious. I want to know WHY. I really want to understand. I want to help to make things better. I’ve done many things in my life that I am proud of, and some that I am not sure I should share with anyone but my closest loving friends. Hopefully I’ve learned from them all. I’ll never run for President or any major political position, but I like to be in charge a lot of the time. I’m sometimes bossy, but I’m also empathetic. I come from modest means from a family of historically hard working mid-west immigrants, and I usually try to be responsible, productive, helpful, to follow the rules, and keep a high credit score. I have the ability to travel, and I certainly have enough food and niceties to be comfortable.

So…I am changed.

I am very thankful this morning that instead of walking across a hard graveled mud floor to a pit latrine (yes Caylon, I know that squatting is better for elimination), I hobbled with my broken metatarsal across a soft carpet to a clean flush toilet with running water. My foot will heal. Today I am feeling less physically strong than ever, but grateful for my life’s conveniences.

I am thankful that as I attempt to finish my PhD here in my modest grad-student apartment, I really have more space, things, luxuries, and ease of life than most of the people in the world. As I sit on cushions under large trees with a laptop and reliable high speed internet, I realize I have more chairs on my back porch facing beautiful Lake Johnson in Raleigh, NC than exist in most all of Kuli Kunda, Kiang West Province, The Gambia, West Africa, where my darling son Caylon is currently the only Toubab (white person), speaking Mandinka in a village of almost 900 people serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer.

I am thankful for the love and support of my husband, family, and good friends that allows me to continue on this crazy journey of my life. Food was brought for me by last night by a dear friend who drove me effortlessly home from the airport in an air-conditioned private vehicle. It sits fresh, waiting, preserved, in a clean kitchen with running water and a refrigerator to keep my blueberries, pasteurized Greek yogurt, and apples cold. My Italian espresso coffee blend was waiting for me fresh, from a timer I set last night, with reliable electricity that didn’t fluctuate one bit.

We are spoiled in America. Spoiled, greedy, and overly entitled. Yes, most of us “work hard”. But we don’t know hard. We don’t know living in 95 degree heat with water we only get from a community well. We don’t know living on a few foods that we share with our whole family out of a communal bowl. We want more! More food, more drinks, more things, more escape, more fun. More of everything. We are so blessed, but how many of us really know it? Feel it?

I know I am rambling as I try to make sense of it. I often complain (vent?) about life’s interruptions and delays to my friends. As I am also often alone on this journey right now, I use social media as a scrapbook to record and share, and a way to connect – to stay in touch – to feel my community. I am ashamed now to think about the things that make me feel inconvenienced. My three day “travel saga” to get home (which I realized used to take many months) was full of people trying to help me. I had money to buy what I needed, and I had basic comforts of climate control, chairs, assistance, and yet so many of my friend also shared my frustrations of missed flights, for those stupid reasons that just “should be handled better”.

In Kuli Kunda and other rural villages and lower income areas around the world, families usually live together under one roof. Days are often spent sitting with each other, talking, communicating. There is a lot of love, laughter, and smiling. My privileged self tells me that they could be more productive (especially the men) making things, creating commerce, educating themselves, making their world a better place. They too are sometimes overly entitled. They often beat on things (children, younger siblings, animals) that are lower in the hierarchy, because sometimes that is the only perceived real power that they feel they have. There is often a learned helplessness that makes whole families and communities think that the help will come from outside, from the mosque, the Toubabs, the government, NGO’s, etc., so why should they work harder?

There are huge challenges in Africa, and other parts of the world. The Quoran and Muslim teachings talk about love, prayer, duty, and faith to a God (which is shared by many faiths), but it is usually interpreted through religious practices by a patriarchal, misogynistic group of male leaders for their own status and good (also similar to many other faiths). The women work hard on daily subsistence activities to feed the family and raise their children, but most of the men (not all), sit around talking and wait to be served, or leave looking for “a better life in Toubab-land”. This is really no different than in many low income areas in other parts of the world, and other religions are not much better. Urban and rural low income areas in the U.S. have similar problems. But here, they usually have basic living needs (basic food, water, shelter) at least somewhat provided by the government, so often the frustrated men and boys (some, but not all) who don’t have religion to monitor them turn to other things (alcohol, gangs, drugs) to get their escape and power fixes. Women have babies, often to feel that unconditional love and to try and leave a legacy in the only way they know how. Often they’ll have 10 or more, and many will die. Many thought that I must be widowed or “broken” as I only had one biological son.

Traveling and learning about other cultures is such true education. Today, as I give thanks and reflect and try to reintegrate into my “normal life”, I ponder the real meaning of what I do on a daily basis. One mid-night last week while sleeping under a mosquito net in village, I woke to a feeling of sureness that my mission in life is to “to help communities and individuals thrive by helping to provide quality of life through access to nature, physical health, social gatherings, sport, art, music, and educational offerings.”  I even had Caylon record it on his phone so I wouldn’t forget.

What the hell does that mean?  Why does it matter? Well, one thing I know at this point is that once we have our basic needs met (food, water, shelter, safety), we humans are all looking for the best quality of life we can possibly have. Maslow and others are right. I think depression (when not purely chemically caused) is often just an expression of unresolved anger at not getting what we expect out of life. We want love, connection, health, and transcendence in intellectual, artistic, and spiritual ways. After basic subsistence is met, our leisure time is spent in pursuit of something more. In the U.S., this aspect of life when provided by communities is usually called “parks and recreation” or something similar, but it goes by different names in different parts of the world. Once basic needs are met, these essential quality of life offerings are more important, especially for stressed communities and people.

In America, we have our basic needs met, and we are greedy. We want more, and we want the power to get it. We’ve been taught that we deserve it, and that we have the freedom to get it, regardless of our origins. We can do this through positive expressions of connection, love, physical and mental health, or we can use it negatively to try and collect money, power, and too many things. Usually instead of beating on things less powerful such as children and animals, we do it through using money to get our power and to collect more shiny things. We really all believe we deserve it all.

We sometimes use the “right” to guns as a way to have personal power. What started as basic rights to personal safety has evolved. This is really just greed too, and truly an expression of internal feelings of insecurity and powerlessness. In Africa, no one has guns but the police and military, and while there are sometimes knife injuries, death from that is pretty rare. Crime does come from physical attempts to take things, from desperation or envy of those perceived to have more. There is a belief though by many that criminals will get their own demise from God. I actually felt safer in Africa than I do in most urban places in the U.S. The police are actually much more friendly in Africa, but partly it’s probably that their power is naturally acknowledged as they have guns and others don’t. They are not constantly needing to assert their power or having it threatened.

I am thankful that I was able to spend so much time with and learning from people who have different skin colors and hair from my own. I realize that my white privileged life has been mostly insulated from racial strife. Growing up in Colorado, I spent a lot of time with direct immigrants and their children from Mexico, but few blacks. The Gambia River region is where many of the U.S. and European slaves came from. This was shocking to me as I met these beautiful people. The whites took their boats and guns up the river and raided the villages for the naturally strong, healthy, and physically-resilient people of the Gambia region tribes to use them to increase their work force. On my visit, we openly acknowledged this horrible history, and accepted our physical differences and spent lovely time together. However, there are some natural and real physical differences. I am a mutt-mix of various white Europeans. While they touched my blond hair and marveled at my white skin and blue eyes, I looked into their eyes and we saw that we are all human. I am very envious that mosquitoes, physical hardships, and the heat just don’t seem to bother them as much. I think we whites are mostly physically just evolved for indoor and cooler climates, but we all have gifts to give to each other. Caylon seems to be adapting well (except to the mosquitoes), but he is blessed with a tall, strong young man’s body and very resilient attitude.

In the U.S. I think the continued racial tensions are just ongoing attempts at expressing power and trying to get MORE. It seems that the less intrinsic satisfaction and power a person has, the more they want to have some external power over other people and things. While one very mean current presidential candidate openly expresses bigotry, I now see that while he may have perceived power through money and strong talk, he is incredibly insecure and narcissistic, and just trying to show power in the only way he knows how to try and get it. I feel so sorry for him, for those he abuses, and for those who misguidedly think that he will somehow help them get power too.

Misguided attempts to get power and greed…. It seems to me that there is a benefit to having to worry only about the primitive needs of simple subsistence – you don’t have time for the desire for more, and you appreciate what you do get. However, we live in country that has been blessed with resources. How do we change our focus to one of appreciation and continued positive growth, to share our wealth, and continue to be thankful, really thankful, for all that we have?

Today I am changed, and I am thankful. Now…back to work.