It's Okay To Be Me ~

The wind is blowing, the temperatures are in the teens, and winter is definitely here this week.  Today, I have an entire day off.  I sit here in my warm office, with my very old dog, Popcorn, at my feet.  Popcorn, Poppy, is a good boy, and even though he no longer sees or hears very well, he has a weak heart, few teeth, horrific breath, and can’t quite control his bowels…he is loved.

Aging is a weird thing.  One day you’re young and full of vigor and excitement, the next day you’re sitting around wondering what the heck happened, where did the time go?

I am 54.  Fifty freaking four.  I’ll be 55 next month on my birthday.  Even if I am lucky and live until 90, that means my life is more than half over and the vibrant years are mostly behind me.  What does it mean?

I had lunch with a very dear friend last week.  We went to a Japanese restaurant for sushi, which neither one of us ordered as it turned out ~ the crab/asian pear salad was too enticing.  We sat there for hours talking about everything and anything.  It was the best therapy.  My friend Linda and I have so much in common, even though she speaks with a delightful British accent and I have my Philly twang.  We each have a daughter and son, in that order, born within months of each other.  We have husbands that have stuck by us through thick and thin.  We are not wealthy, but not poor and we are lucky to work in jobs that allow us to meet for lunch for hours in the middle of the week.

We talked about so many things, but mostly about something that both of us do incessantly - worry.  My reputation in my family is that I am and always have been, an over-protective mom and a worrier that knows no limits.  All my life, everyone has called me “nuts”, “over-the-top”, and “ridiculous”.  The teasing never stopped, not when I was a young mom, not when I had children in school, and not now that they are older and on their own. I always thought it was a personality flaw, something awful that I should work on, but never could seem to rectify.  The realization that I could never stop worrying, no matter how much I tried, definitely hurt my self-esteem.

Linda did something at that lunch that no one has ever done before.  Linda told me that it’s okay to be me, and it’s okay to worry.  In order to worry as well as each of us do, (we certainly excel) an excellent imagination is needed.  An imagination, a creativity, that also appears in so many other areas of our lives and contributes so much joy to not only our lives but also the lives of others close to us, and those not so close.  If we took that imagination away, we wouldn’t be who we are, and, you know what, who we are is pretty wonderful!  Each of us would do anything in the world for our children. We know no bounds; there is nothing our children could ask of us that we won’t do for them.  We support and care for our husbands, our Moms (both of us have lost our Dads – but we cared for them when they were here, too).  We have brothers, friends, nieces and nephews who love us for our uniqueness – a uniqueness that would perhaps be minimized if we could ever rid ourselves of the worry gene, for that gene wouldn’t go away alone.

I am no longer going to apologize for worrying so much or even try too hard to stop.  Linda taught me something wonderful and eye opening -  the fact that it’s okay to be me ~ which also means it is amazingly right and fantastic for you to be you!