Aound Our Mother's Age

  I remember being in my teens, early twenties and judging my mom.  The things that came out of her mouth, the silliness she had, the jokes she told, her desire to talk to me openly about sex.  I was having none of that.  Being in my late forties has certainly given me some perspective on judgment.   I went to my thirty year high school reunion recently.  What an eye opening experience.  For one, after thirty years, there ain't no hiding who you are.  You were either successful or you weren't.  You either aged well or you didn't.  You either took care of yourself or not.  There was very little in between.  The grace and forgiveness of sins committed in High School were there too.  There weren't many of us that were not touched in some way by the harsh reality of what our lives turned out to be.  Sure, there were still those posers who were what they were then, but for the most part, we all turned out to be decent, nice people just raising our families and trying to get by.  The social stigmas of class hiarchy still remain, but we didn't try as hard to impress, we were just friendly and moved on if there was nothing to say.  We all had graduated to middle age.  Most of us past our predjudices and judgments.   My journey to this point in my life took me 28 years.  I've always been my own person to a degree, but I cared too much what people thought for so long.  I was the envy of all my friends.  Outwardly, it looked like we had the perfect life, the perfect family.  I wasn't a perfect wife or mother, I just played one in real life.  I was always trying to be something for someone else.   I'm willing to bet that most women my age find that their life didn't turn out the way they planned and are faced with a crossroads of decisions...Do they stay to the right and go status-quo because it's comfortable and all they know?  Or do they turn left and embark on a journey that may or may not have a happy ending?  These are the questions I have asked myself this year.  These become the decisions by which others judge and pronounce "MID_LIFE CRISIS".  Dum dum dum...How do you explain what happened in a 28 year marriage?  It wasn't just one thing.   But it was about me.   I was tired of supporting someone else's dreams and giving up on mine.  I was tired of giving up everything that defined me.  It's a tired cliche...I had to find myself.  The truth is, I found myself alright...right smack dab in the middle ages of life.  Just like every young adult that makes that crack about someone being "old" (such a relative term these days...), they never expect to find themselves here.  But here is where I'm at, and call it what you will, and the beauty and horror of being "here" is filled with irony.  Lauren Bacall once said that she wishes she could keep her 50 year old mind but stay in the body of a 30 year old.  I can relate.   Wisdom is priceless.  Aging is... expensive.  My body, I'm just sad about.  I'm just trying to come to terms with it.
I've made decisions this past year that I wish I could take back, do over or make earlier in my life.  That's the problem.  We find ourselves around our mothers' age and we finally figure out what the hell we should or shouldn't have done when we were young.  For one, I should never have married the man I did.  But then, there is the other part of that...if I hadn't, I wouldn't have the four great kids that I do.  I was young and in love.  A wise-ass, but not wise.   Immature and certainly not ruled by logic.  Young love and lust...god I miss that.  Living on love, just like the song says.  As we got older, we learned to fight differently, love differently.   If only we had kept fighting the old way, kept  making love with all that crazy imagination, maybe the passion wouldn't have left.  Maybe the love would have stayed...instead we learned to fight with passive aggressive weapons of mass destruction.  It was much more...massive...and destructive.  We learned the enemy's game like the Art of War.  We learned that even if it was eleven o'clock and we should have sex because it had been several days but still wanted to catch the weather at 11:15... it could be done.  It's sad. 
I judged my mother unfairly.  I was embarrassed and mad at her for some of the decisions she made.  She left my dad, she dated a younger man...she wasn't acting her age, she was being foolish and silly.  Now, here I am.  Being judged.  Leaving my husband, not acting my age, being foolish and silly.   My kids are angry and embarrassed.  I've been accused of changing.  I've been accused of a lot.  I've been judged for putting myself first.  I've been accused of being selfish.  Guilty as charged.  I reached this age and wanted something more.  The verdict comes down and the hammer swings.  Your kids decide, your friends decide.  They sit in the seat of God and make their judgments.  The irony is this:  I, who judged m mom so harshly, am being judged by all, except...by my mom.  She gets it.  I get it.  I just had to reach the middle of my life to get it.
Before I filed for divorce, my husband told me he felt sorry for me and that I would come to regret leaving.  I've regretted many things in my life, but the biggest regret?  I let myself get to my mother's age before I knew what I wanted...but as Lucille Ball once said, " The secret to staying young is to live honestly, eat slowly and lie about your age".