Fifty-five -- Love

Jeez, that went by fast.

By "that" I mean the last decade. And the one before that. And the one before that. Like the tennis ball that kept whizzing by me in a match recently, passing before my eyes in a blur. My legs could still get me there, but I could barely see it.

When I was forty-five, my eyesight began to decline. Overnight, I found I could not see the words on a page held close to my face, and began to do all the things I once mocked. I held my arm out ramrod straight to help bring text into focus. I sought out better light to distinguish between blue and black socks. I cursed drug manufacturers for printing dosage instructions in such ridiculously minute font. I  cursed drug manufacturers for inventing child resistant caps that could only be opened by children or mechanical engineers.

When I was thirty-five, I became pregnant with my third and final child. Twenty weeks into it, I showed up at my doctor's office for what had become, if not mandatory, routine prenatal testing for older mothers. "What's the reason for the testing?" the lady at the front desk asked me. Wasn't it obvious? I glanced down at my protruding belly. She glanced at my chart. "Ah, advanced maternal age," she said. Your eggs are rotten, is what I heard. Your child could have two heads, is what I knew she was thinking. Even if she's healthy, everyone will think you're her grandmother. As it turned out, nobody ever claimed to think I was her grandmother, at least not to my face; occasionally, though, when I held her close, her soft, pale cheek next to my darkened summer skin, I was mistaken for her babysitter. A babysitter of advanced age, of course.

When I was twenty-five, I packed my bags and left New York for Chicago, engaged (on and off) to the man without whom I could not breathe. My eggs were not yet rotten, my eyes worked (although I may not have been seeing things all that clearly). I knew nobody in Chicago other than the man without whom I could not breathe and a handful of his relatively new friends. He became my husband, they became my friends. We stumbled around in the light, trying to find our way as we started our new life. We were young, we could handle child resistant caps, we knew the color of our socks. Everything seemed clear, black and white. We hadn't anticipated all the shades of gray.

By the time I turn fifty-five in a few months, my three children will have all packed their bags and left Chicago for places in all different directions. I have been without the man without whom I could not breathe for quite a while now, and I am still breathing. I know lots of people in Chicago, have lots of friends, but nothing seems black and white. I had anticipated all the shades of gray, but I will still be stumbling around in the light. Nothing will seem clear.

By the time I turn fifty-five in a few months, any eggs I still have will most certainly be rotten, and the next time I hold a pale infant cheek next to mine nobody will think I am her mother. Unless, of course, the child has two heads. When I sit in the doctor's waiting room, I will glance at the thirty-five and forty year olds with protruding bellies and wonder whether they are there because they are of "advanced maternal age." To me, they don't look old enough to have babies or to know much of anything. They probably know how to open child resistant caps though.

By the time I turn fifty-five in a few months, my arms will not be anywhere near long enough to help me read the fine print. Just as well, I suppose, because at this point I already know that paralysis and death are always potential side effects. I won't care if my socks match, and I will just leave the caps off the pill bottles because there won't be any children or mechanical engineers around to help me. Tennis balls will continue to whiz by me, not only because I can barely see them but because my legs won't get me there in time. My world will still be filled with shades of gray, and even though nothing is ever black and white and the font on pill bottles will seem even smaller and nothing will seem clear, I will continue to see things more clearly than I did when I was twenty-five.

Except the tennis balls.

Bar Stool Samples

Early in my post-marriage computer dating career, I learned to expect that the person I was about to meet in the flesh would bear little resemblance to the photo I had seen on line. I discovered, pretty much on date number one, that contrary to popular belief, the camera subtracts twenty pounds and adds ten inches in height.

On one such date, after I had been sitting for what seemed like an eternity on a bar stool facing a guy who appeared to have both the inner and outer beauty of a gnome, the waiter stopped by and asked if I would like a drink. I nodded vigorously, too vigorously perhaps -- so vigorously, in fact, my neck hurt for days afterward. At least I got some exercise.

As time went on, I became a bit more savvy and a lot more selective, which meant I spent a lot of Saturday nights cuddling on the couch with a shedding and smelly dog. I did my fair share of heavy petting, he did a lot of drooling, we both ate a lot of cookies (our own version of bending an elbow).  Sometimes I never even made it up to my own bed, unable to muster up the strength to untangle my scrunched and oddly bent limbs. In the wee hours of the morning, still wearing my clothes from the day before, I would do the equivalent of a walk of shame as I stumbled up the stairs, trying to see through my mascara caked eyes.

Life has improved greatly since those early days. At least for me and the dog. We rarely even bother with the pretense of a date on the couch now; we just start off in bed. I resist the urge to put on mascara during the day, so my morning vision has drastically improved. Which will be useful if I decide to venture onto a dating site again -- I will be able to read between the lines, recognize the telltale signs of photo shop. I can barely remember the last time I sat on a bar stool nodding and drooling as if my life depended on it when the waiter asks if I want a drink. My neck doesn't hurt; I have found other ways to burn calories. The only one drooling these days is the dog.

I ran into someone the other day who had dated a friend of mine after his first marriage had failed. The last time I saw him -- more than a few years ago -- he was giddy, about to remarry. I remember thinking how nice it was that he had found Mrs. Right. "You're married again, aren't you?" I asked him the other day as we made conversation in the Starbucks line.

"Yes, just recently as a matter of fact," he responded. I cocked my head (yes, I've started to look like my dog and have acquired his mannerisms). "For the second time," he explained. "The first one was a psycho."

I've heard that a lot. About the actual first one, and then again about the first second one. Yet he, like so many other men I have met, has gone for the second second one, or, by my count, marriage number three. Who's the psycho? You tell me. If I were a betting woman, I'd wager the next time I run into this guy, he will be telling me about the short lived marriage to psycho number three.

Okay, so maybe I sound a little cynical, but, rest assured, I remain open minded. I still consider myself a dog person, for example, but I have not ruled out the possibility of one day becoming an eccentric and socially isolated old woman who lives with -- and for -- her cats.

Just a Spoonful of Jelly

It's funny, sometimes, how we gauge our wealth. For some of us, it's the difference between driving a Lexus and a Pontiac. Or the ornateness of our bathroom faucets, or whether we jet off to the Alps or pack up the van for a road trip to the Appalachians. Or, worse still, go nowhere.

Recently, a friend described what it was like to grow up poor. For him, it was all about the jelly. For years, when he wanted jelly on his toast, he did it just as his parents had taught him. He would dip a knife into the jelly jar, and spread whatever modest amount of deep purple goo he dug out into a thin, virtually transparent film of the palest violet on top of the bread.

Years later, when he was already well into young adulthood, he was amazed to see a spoon in the jelly jar at the home of a wealthy friend. He watched in awe as each person at the table took a turn with the spoon, excavating overflowing dollops of the viscous delicacy and slopping it on as if it were something you could come by easily. Like everyone else, he used the spoon, trying -- without much success -- to spread the jelly into the practically invisible film to which he had become accustomed. Not wanting to be rude, he prepared to choke it down. Sometimes, less is more. That day, he discovered, more can be more, and sometimes you just cannot have too much of a good thing. It was the best toast he had ever tasted.

Old habits die hard though, and when he is at home, alone, he still uses a knife for his jelly, and still limits himself as if the stuff were pure gold. He still thinks of himself as poor, or certainly less privileged than a lot of the people who surround him. In his circle, nobody thinks twice about grabbing a spoonful of anything, or, worse still, letting their kids stack the precious (and, oddly, free) rectangular packets of jelly on a restaurant table and then leave the unopened containers on dirty dishes, destined for disposal.

As far as I could tell, when my friend discovered how the rich treat their jelly, he was oblivious to what must have been expensive silver flatware and imported china, the crystal juice goblets, the elegant tapestries half covering the lovingly maintained wooden floors. Or, if he noticed these things, he did not say. Surrounded by all the trappings of wealth, he felt cheated only because of an outrageously conspicuous consumption of, of all things, jelly.

My friend told me this story as we sat outside, on a cool June evening, eating ice cream. We were at one of what would be many Chicago summer street fairs, enjoying the music of local bands, inhaling the incomparable aroma of ethnic foods being grilled to order behind makeshift counters, still nursing our cheap drinks, enjoying the parading mosaic of people

. Something made us laugh, uncontrollably. I cannot for the life of me remember what it was, but I remember thinking, as I sat eating ice cream with a friend on a gritty street in the city, that life should always be like this.

If wealth is to be measured by the preciousness of the flatware or the ornateness of the fixtures or the distance travelled, I should have felt as poor as a kid who knows nothing other than a thin film of jelly. But on that perfect early summer evening, the richness was laid on pretty thick.

Orientation and All That Jazz

A few weeks ago, I arrived at my Starbucks at five in the morning to find it had been invaded by clusters of strange beings, out of bed before the crack of dawn yet without so much as a dark circle under an eye. They all looked fit and energetic in their coordinated workout outfits.At first I thought they were high school girls up a little early for their graduation rehearsal. Unlikely, but then again, life is full of surprises.

Not high school girls, as it turned out, but mothers, full blown women who looked way too young to have borne children, much less raise them. I sat a table away, not meaning to eavesdrop -- well, maybe just a little -- but unable to shut out the din of their lively chatter. Carpools, dance recitals, getting through the gap days between school and camp. All the stuff that once seemed to swallow up my days and my energy, the stuff that added up to a royal pain in the ass. I wondered what they were doing up and out so early.

This morning, my youngest child will wake up, for the first time, in a college dorm room. We are here for two days of Orientation. The second bed in my hotel room taunts me with its emptiness. Only 24 hours earlier, I had glanced over to see her tousled hair spread over her face, the rest of her tangled up in a mess of twisted sheets. She will register for classes today. I will only know what she registers for if I remember to ask. I won't know (or care, really) about the days or the times, and I won't be driving her there. I won't be filling any more crisp brown paper bags with peanut butter and banana sandwiches and Skinny Pop and fat chocolate chip cookies and honey crisp apples. The dog will be disappointed and confused. I will just be confused. Disoriented, I suppose, for a while.

The last few weeks have been filled with "lasts." Her last high school sporting event, her last high school class, her last high school dance, her last upload into her Facebook senior year album. She turned eighteen. Birthday cards and gift bags filled with candy and empty gift boxes and certificates and pins and awards and, yes, a diploma still lay scattered atop our dining room table. Her older sister took days off from work to join in the celebrations. Her older brother, too far away to be here, wrote her what she described as the most beautiful and eloquent letter of love and advice. Significantly older than their little sister, these siblings offer a unique perspective. They are old enough to get the significance of the day, and they are young enough to get the significance of the day. The memories of what comes next -- good, bad, and ugly -- are still fresh in their mind.

The young moms, as it turns out, were coming in shifts to Starbucks while others held their places in a line of folding chairs that stretched around the block by the dance studio their children attend. They were registering for fall dance classes, hoping they had not blown the chance to get their daughters (and the occasional son) into the right class at the right time with the right friends. So complicated. So stressful. Such a royal pain in the ass. They seemed downright giddy, though, and I felt a small pang of nostalgic envy. For at least another few years, they will always know where those children are. For the next few years, at best, I will know (with at least a fair amount of certainty, most of the time) what city my youngest child is in. Beyond that, I will not have a clue.

Just before we moved a few months ago, I came across my daughter's old jazz shoes. For a few moments, I held onto them, running my fingers over the smooth leather, turning them over in my hands, marveling at how tiny they were. Reluctantly, I let them go. I gave them to a little girl whose family cannot afford such small luxuries.

I hope my daughter gets into the classes she wants. I wish I could help, but, like most things, it's out of my hands.