My 50th birthday has come and gone.
"50th birthday?"
Funny you should ask, because if it hadn't been my own birthday I probably wouldn't have noticed either. You'd think after all the blatant hinting I've done (ie: my "Pushing Fifty" blog that's been running for the last two years) someone might have planned something to acknowledge the milestone.
But no.
I'd already made the necessary adjustments, knowing there'd be no family trip to Mexico. I'd made peace with the unfortunate timing of our lack of finances. I knew that neither David Tutera or Wendy Williams would be coming to my rescue. I was, however, naive enough to think there'd still be some kind of fun surprise awaiting me on Friday, August 13th.
There was indeed one very big surprise, that being the fact there was NO birthday celebration planned at all, much less a "50th" birthday celebration.
My husband (bless his heart) decided at the last minute to invite another couple to go to dinner with us but they weren't available. Late Friday afternoon he informed me that his "plans" had fallen through. Our friends couldn't go out with us after all, so he wanted to know if I'd like him to call another couple and invite them to meet us somewhere for dinner instead.
I was so stunned, I wondered if he were tricking me somehow. I know him too well though. He's not that good at pulling off such stunts.
I'm not ashamed to admit I freaked out when the reality set in.
Not only was I not having a fabulous 50th birthday bash, we weren't doing anything at all. NOT A THING!
I told him to forget dinner altogether, I wasn't hungry. He didn't understand why we couldn't go out to eat anyway "just because no one was available" to go with us.
Either I am a very poor communicator or he is a very poor listener because I thought I'd made myself very clear. It's almost embarrassing to talk about the anticlimactic ending to the day I'd been raving about for months.
In fairness, all was not lost as far as the basic "birthday" goes. I got several great phone calls that day from my family and a couple friends. My facebook page was over-run with birthday wishes. Walt also bought me a new "Flip" camera which I'd asked for. He gave it to me a day ahead of time. Silly me! I thought he was giving it to me early so I'd have it to take pictures at my party. You know ... the party that never happened!
No big dinner with all our friends. None of those hideous black balloons or "over the hill" jokes. No funny cards jaunting me about my age, and there are definitely no pictures to record the non-event.
It was just another birthday...only with less pomp and circumstance than I've been treated with on my other birthdays.
In retrospect, my life has become quite ironic in that way. The winds of fate have shifted and suddenly nothing goes as I expect anymore.
Whatever. It is what it is. Life goes on. (Insert any other appropriate cliche' here)
Happy Belated 50th Birthday to me!
Showing posts with label men. Show all posts
Showing posts with label men. Show all posts
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Friday, May 8, 2009
Mental Pause
My wonderful husband, Walter and I were having dinner a couple weeks ago when our conversation turned to the subject of sleep. I mentioned how relieved I was that I'd been sleeping like a baby since we'd returned from Savannah several days before. This was a much welcomed development, since I hadn't slept through the night for a number of months preceding.
After listening to me for a few seconds, Walt shrugged his shoulders and said quite innocently, "You must be going through menopause."
What?
The atmosphere suddenly became a little less than romantic.
I couldn't help but wonder where in the world Walt had been for the last few months.
In the time that has passed since shortly after last Thanksgiving I have:
1.Been forbidden to have any part in the lives of three of my precious grandchildren.
2.Watched my youngest daughter nearly die of pregnancy related complications.
3.Suffered through my fourteen year old son's emotional breakdown (to the point I had to remove him from school and put him in therapy)
4.Experienced an 80% loss in our electrical contracting business (and subsequent income).
5.Sat by the same daughter's bedside as the surgeon forcefully removed her pre-mature baby at 24 weeks 4 days gestation (that's a 5 month pregnancy if you do the math). Knowing it was the only possible chance for saving both of their lives was little consolation.
6.Helplessly stood by as the pre-mature baby died two weeks thereafter.
7.Grieved accordingly.
Need I go on?
Because those are just some of the reasons my brain had been too full to sleep!
Suffice to say I was a bit taken back by my husband's rather pat answer to the issue.
If I'd truly been "hormonal" I would have sprang across the table and strangled him on the spot. Don't tell ME about hormonal!
Within a New York minute of Walt's comment (and without the aid of strangulation) I believe I'd effectively set him straight on the matter. Never-the-less, the question remains ...why do men always seem to think that every negative emotional reaction we women experience is somehow related to our hormones?
Any one of the aforementioned situations would have merited a few sleepless nights, with or without hormonal interference. And yet Walt saw none of those things as significant in their own right?
Noooooooo .... the source of my insomniatic state had to be narrowed down to that one thing, and that one thing alone.
Hormones.
It's an age old question and I have no reason to believe that I will be the one to come up with an answer.
Maybe he was right. Maybe what I was experiencing was not a "natural" reaction to the truckload of unusually stressful situations that hit me without warning. If only I'd realized that possibility! Had it not been for my hormonal state of being, I probably would have been able to skip obliviously and happily through the entire ordeal!
Perhaps there is no such thing as "stress" aside from hormonal influence after all! Wow! What a revelation!
Of course, it would have to be a MAN who would come up with such a simple answer. We women are way too hormonal to ever think of such a thing.
Ladies, I think you will agree ... sometimes we just have to wonder what men are thinking and why they happen to be thinking it! My best guess is that their minds are over-saturated with testosterone thus rendering them incapable of grasping a true-er and more complex explanation.
I've come to this conclusion. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em!
Just blame it on the hormones!
After listening to me for a few seconds, Walt shrugged his shoulders and said quite innocently, "You must be going through menopause."
What?
The atmosphere suddenly became a little less than romantic.
I couldn't help but wonder where in the world Walt had been for the last few months.
In the time that has passed since shortly after last Thanksgiving I have:
1.Been forbidden to have any part in the lives of three of my precious grandchildren.
2.Watched my youngest daughter nearly die of pregnancy related complications.
3.Suffered through my fourteen year old son's emotional breakdown (to the point I had to remove him from school and put him in therapy)
4.Experienced an 80% loss in our electrical contracting business (and subsequent income).
5.Sat by the same daughter's bedside as the surgeon forcefully removed her pre-mature baby at 24 weeks 4 days gestation (that's a 5 month pregnancy if you do the math). Knowing it was the only possible chance for saving both of their lives was little consolation.
6.Helplessly stood by as the pre-mature baby died two weeks thereafter.
7.Grieved accordingly.
Need I go on?
Because those are just some of the reasons my brain had been too full to sleep!
Suffice to say I was a bit taken back by my husband's rather pat answer to the issue.
If I'd truly been "hormonal" I would have sprang across the table and strangled him on the spot. Don't tell ME about hormonal!
Within a New York minute of Walt's comment (and without the aid of strangulation) I believe I'd effectively set him straight on the matter. Never-the-less, the question remains ...why do men always seem to think that every negative emotional reaction we women experience is somehow related to our hormones?
Any one of the aforementioned situations would have merited a few sleepless nights, with or without hormonal interference. And yet Walt saw none of those things as significant in their own right?
Noooooooo .... the source of my insomniatic state had to be narrowed down to that one thing, and that one thing alone.
Hormones.
It's an age old question and I have no reason to believe that I will be the one to come up with an answer.
Maybe he was right. Maybe what I was experiencing was not a "natural" reaction to the truckload of unusually stressful situations that hit me without warning. If only I'd realized that possibility! Had it not been for my hormonal state of being, I probably would have been able to skip obliviously and happily through the entire ordeal!
Perhaps there is no such thing as "stress" aside from hormonal influence after all! Wow! What a revelation!
Of course, it would have to be a MAN who would come up with such a simple answer. We women are way too hormonal to ever think of such a thing.
Ladies, I think you will agree ... sometimes we just have to wonder what men are thinking and why they happen to be thinking it! My best guess is that their minds are over-saturated with testosterone thus rendering them incapable of grasping a true-er and more complex explanation.
I've come to this conclusion. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em!
Just blame it on the hormones!
Friday, March 6, 2009
In The Dark
Help!
Mr. Taylor is out of town and I don't know how to operate the majority of our house lights.
You think I'm kidding? Well, I'm not.
Such occurrences are common in the Taylor household. My wonderful husband, having a tangent for all things electrical, likes to periodically re-program the automated lighting system in our home.
Apparently he grew bored with the way things were working sometime between the last time he went out of town without me, and yesterday when he left again.
I discovered that fact in the early evening when I realized it was growing dark outside and neither the lights in the keeping room or living room had turned themselves on yet.
For a good ten minutes I plundered around in the twilight looking for the magic box that dictates such matters. The last time I was in this position, both sets could be controlled by a gadget that sits on our bedside stand. Obviously that has changed and no one bothered to send me a memo.
I finally met with success when I recalled seeing a new magic box sitting on the end table in the keeping room. Feeling my way back through the house, I located it and repeatedly pressed buttons until Voila'!
There was light!
After that, all was well in my little corner of the world until 11:00 p.m. which happens to be the designated hour for "lights out". At that time I was sitting on the bed watching videos on my laptop computer when I heard the tell-tale click that accompanies the night-time darkness through out the house.
Except for the glow of my computer screen, I found myself once again sitting unwittingly alone in the dark.
Thank goodness the magic box that sits beside our bed still works for our master bedroom lights! Otherwise I would have been forced to go right to sleep.
Which probably would have been a good idea given the fact that at promptly 6:30 a.m. 365 days a year, our room lights up as bright as the noon day sun! There are no pesky, noise making alarm clocks for us! Instead it's wakey wakey, rise and shine via a bright light in my face ... whether I need it or not.
While, in time I usually manage to figure out how to work the rest of the lighting mechanisms, I've never mastered the "alarm lights" that faithfully announce the break of dawn. Because I was clueless as to how to turn the darn thing off, I use to unplug the clock before I went to bed if I didn't otherwise have to wake up at the 6:30 the next morning.
Eventually I succumbed to the powers that be and learned to deal with it.
Oddly enough I am not technically challenged. I do have a degree in science. Back in the days of working in the hospital lab, my job required a decent knowledge of instrumentation. I could dis-assemble a number of extravagantly expensive pieces of medical equipment, put them back together and calibrate them without blinking an eye.
And yet I am challenged by a matter so simple as turning my own house lights off and on.
I have to wonder if keeping me in the dark is my husband's way of making himself feel needed. With that in mind, I suppose it really is a small price to pay.
Mr. Taylor is out of town and I don't know how to operate the majority of our house lights.
You think I'm kidding? Well, I'm not.
Such occurrences are common in the Taylor household. My wonderful husband, having a tangent for all things electrical, likes to periodically re-program the automated lighting system in our home.
Apparently he grew bored with the way things were working sometime between the last time he went out of town without me, and yesterday when he left again.
I discovered that fact in the early evening when I realized it was growing dark outside and neither the lights in the keeping room or living room had turned themselves on yet.
For a good ten minutes I plundered around in the twilight looking for the magic box that dictates such matters. The last time I was in this position, both sets could be controlled by a gadget that sits on our bedside stand. Obviously that has changed and no one bothered to send me a memo.
I finally met with success when I recalled seeing a new magic box sitting on the end table in the keeping room. Feeling my way back through the house, I located it and repeatedly pressed buttons until Voila'!
There was light!
After that, all was well in my little corner of the world until 11:00 p.m. which happens to be the designated hour for "lights out". At that time I was sitting on the bed watching videos on my laptop computer when I heard the tell-tale click that accompanies the night-time darkness through out the house.
Except for the glow of my computer screen, I found myself once again sitting unwittingly alone in the dark.
Thank goodness the magic box that sits beside our bed still works for our master bedroom lights! Otherwise I would have been forced to go right to sleep.
Which probably would have been a good idea given the fact that at promptly 6:30 a.m. 365 days a year, our room lights up as bright as the noon day sun! There are no pesky, noise making alarm clocks for us! Instead it's wakey wakey, rise and shine via a bright light in my face ... whether I need it or not.
While, in time I usually manage to figure out how to work the rest of the lighting mechanisms, I've never mastered the "alarm lights" that faithfully announce the break of dawn. Because I was clueless as to how to turn the darn thing off, I use to unplug the clock before I went to bed if I didn't otherwise have to wake up at the 6:30 the next morning.
Eventually I succumbed to the powers that be and learned to deal with it.
Oddly enough I am not technically challenged. I do have a degree in science. Back in the days of working in the hospital lab, my job required a decent knowledge of instrumentation. I could dis-assemble a number of extravagantly expensive pieces of medical equipment, put them back together and calibrate them without blinking an eye.
And yet I am challenged by a matter so simple as turning my own house lights off and on.
I have to wonder if keeping me in the dark is my husband's way of making himself feel needed. With that in mind, I suppose it really is a small price to pay.
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