Tag Archives: women

Confessions of a Memory Hoarder

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Along with routinely sharing a great deal of storytelling throughout my youth, my parents left me with many family photo albums and boxes of both our family and distant family memories (including letters, scrapbooks, military artifacts, and more). My mom even wrote a short autobiography in her later years, which is packed with her lifelong stories, and is such a treasure for me.

Throughout my life I have always been one to collect and preserve memories. Some people might even say I’m a “memory hoarder” and they would probably be right.

Ah, memories, and the stories behind them. They were important to my mom and they are important to me.

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Being a Mom

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I wrote this several decades ago, but no matter how much time passes, it is still so true!

As Mother’s Day approaches, I was thinking about something that my young son said to me several years ago. We had been talking about college, and what it means to get a degree. I had told him about my own college experiences, including graduate work. He had listened intently, and then asked in an almost accusatory tone, “You went to that much school and only became a mom?”

I had laughed then. And now, years later, it still makes me smile. That sentence is right up there near the top of the list of priceless things my kids have said to me. On that special list, it’s right under the question, “Did you vote for George Washington?” and is also near the sweet proclamation once uttered by my younger son, “Mom, I’ll love you even when you’re dead and I have a new Mom.”

Ah, yes… being a mom. It is definitely something unique and wonderful.

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The Male Frontal Cortex – A Terrible Disease Comes To Light

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I just went into the bathroom and found the small garbage can there overflowing with the plastic covering from some of my husband’s dry-cleaning.  Ok, so maybe that doesn’t sound like the biggest issue in the world, but the garbage piling up is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the very serious ailment that my husband and kids have, “IENDOINM” syndrome. So very sad…maybe members of your family have it, too…

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Weighty Matters

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wedding_snippedWho else out there is desperately hoping to NOT double their dress size from what it was when they were married? Anyone? 

The other day, while cleaning out the attic, I found a little yellow ballerina tutu that I wore in the 2nd grade. I marveled at the size of it…..such a tiny waist.

For a moment, seeing that tiny waist brought me back in time to my wedding…there, I wore a very petite (for my height!), size 8 gown…with a tiny, tiny waist…I remember people even commenting on it, so tiny… 

What the hell happened?   Continue reading →

Men (o) Pause – the real story

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Linguistics experts will provide one explanation relating to the origins of the word, “menopause”. Their root analysis will have to do with the “end of fertility in a woman” or something equally simplistic. Those linguistics experts must all be men. There is nothing simplistic about the menopausal experience, and I am 100% convinced that the term, “menopause”, really originated from the root term, “Men Pause”… because that is what they do when confronted with their wife (or significant other’s) symptoms…

What do you think?

menopause_mood_swings_large_mug

I’m sure there are a few men out there who actually do have the capacity to sympathize with the middle-aged women in their lives… perhaps running to turn on the air conditioner or providing a cold glass of water at just the right moment.

My husband wasn’t one of them.

His approach in life is more, “What you don’t acknowledge doesn’t really exist, right?” So I could flash away and he wouldn’t flinch. Ever.

Some of my menopausal friends, though, have husbands who really seem to WANT to help or understand, maybe even engage with them when they are “experiencing symptoms”. But something usually stops them from being successful in their intent, because they PAUSE in their tracks. Is it that they fundamentally don’t know WHAT to do? Or is it something more? Is there something just taboo about a man trying to relate to a female issue involving blood, hormones and sexual reproductive organs?

Or is it as simple as fear. My vote is fear.

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Female Forever Friends

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How many of you out there love “Sex and the City”? Well, it’s my favorite show of all time. The other day I saw the episode (again) where Carrie helps get a stuck diaphragm literally “out of” Samantha. Carrie takes a stiff drink and “goes in” to help…

I am proud to say that I have friends who would do that for me. 

I am even prouder to say I have never required them to do so.

Forever friends are never obsolete

Forever friends are never obsolete

Lifetime friends. I have many…not a singular core group like in Sex and the City, but unbelievably good friends who I have discovered at different times and in a variety of interest areas of my life.

Some are from my childhood, others are from my wilder college and young single’s days, still others I met early on in my soccer mom transformation; becoming friends while hauling strangers’ kids to yet another field trip and meeting up at fundraising events.

They are actually an incredibly varied group from all walks of life. I trust them. I love them. I laugh with them (and sometimes, at them, as only a great friend can). And there is a huge comfort in knowing they are out there, at the other end of a text message, always willing to be supportive or make just the right joke for a particular crisis or situation.

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