nina turns 60

my fat body

I want to write about being fat. About how people bristle when I describe myself as fat. Well, not bristle, but rush to assure me that no, I am not fat, because fat is bad and I am not bad. I want write that I did not stop eating sugar to lose weight. I have not tried to lose weight for decades. I have defiantly not tried to lose weight. But then, when I stopped eating sugar for a few months I did lose weight. People noticed. People commented on how good I looked. People assumed I'd been trying to accomplish this thing they were praising me for. It was both weird and satisfying. I thrive on praise—for good or ill. I glowed under this positive scrutiny. But I am also disturbed by it. I'm endlessly outraged that women's bodies are always considered an appropriate subject for public commentary. That my body, the shape of it, how it is or isn't pleasing to others is something that my family, my colleagues*, etc. think is fair game for scrutiny and discussion not initiated by me, the owner of said body. If I were fatter and/or lived in a more populous place, strangers would also have their say. 

It's been this way since I was a tween and there was much speculation around the neighborhood on what my boobs would look like when they came in, this transformation of my body into something public, something that was for others.

I just want my body to be mine. Who would have thought that would be such a radical notion?

 

*My family and colleagues are lovely. They are just doing what's expected. I don't blame them. Too much. 

 

Perio-Periods & Other Messy Thoughts

It's my birthday tomorrow, my 52nd birthday, and I am currently bleeding heavily into the biggest size maxi pad they sell at the grocery store. I have a foggy Monday morning brain after waking up in the middle of the night - as I always do now - to change another soaked maxi pad and red stained panties. It took me forever to fall back asleep because I immediately started bleeding through again. It's become necessary to have "period sheets" because there's no way to keep the flow contained on those first couple of nights. 

This is my first period since mid-August, over nine weeks coming. I was hoping it was gone for good, though I knew that was unlikely. Menopause is a big transition, and like other lifebody transitions, it takes its own sweet time. The only option is to ride it out. 

It's not just messy physically, it's sloppy emotionally, too. My highs are higher and my lows hang on longer and dip down deeper. The sense of big changes on the horizon goes far beyond what is happening to my body. Hijo will graduate in 2-1/2 years. My parents are elderly. There will come a time in the not-too-distant future when I will be unmoored from the largest forces in my life. I have to figure out what to do with this terrible, exhilarating freedom.

I watch Hijo go through adolescence and in a way, I am too; a middle-aged version of figuring out who I want to be, and what I want, and what's really, deeply important to me. Just when I think I know one thing for sure, another thing occurs to me and I'm back in a messy world of vast possibilities. There is no single, clear path. All I can do as I move forward is to keep putting out absorbent materials and to do my best to wash out the inevitable stains. 

 

NaPoWriMo day 4: advice for mothers of adolescent boys

Do not reminisce about your first crush
in junior high, the one who sat behind
you in L.A.S.S. and always liked other girls. 

Try not to wince at the orthodontist's office
when they show him the wires and talk
of wax and rubber bands and how to brush.

Instead make fart jokes and refuse
to remember what cut you.

You two have your own language now,
fearless as the deer in the yard
who prickle and leap
away from danger
without the need to think. 

 

much obliged

 

Hijo's dad hasn't been doing so well. The poor economy has affected him a lot more deeply than anyone else I know, which is not surprising given that he is an uneducated brown man who, although a citizen, still speaks English with a heavy accent and has a penchant for crazy ideas. 

He's been sketchily employed for the last few years, getting hired for temp jobs or as a contract worker if he's lucky, but then getting laid off. For awhile he attended a local community college, seemed to be gaining some good skills, but he dropped out before he completed the program, his benefits had run out.

As far as I know right now, he has a job, but no permanent home. Hijo has seen him less this summer than at any time in his life.

Like most parents I make many sacrifices, big and small, for the sake of my son. But just how far is one expected to go?

What, exactly, do I owe Hijo's dad?

gums and lipids

When you are about to turn 50 and you go to the doctor for a check up, they start asking you to do all sorts of fun things like sign up to have a camera crawl inside you and wander around your intestines. I agreed to get a tDap booster and all sorts of other things, but I'm holding off on the butt-cam for now.

The nice thing about going to see medical professionals at this age is that they are no longer older, stern authority figures. They are perky, nice authority figures who are often younger than I. Changes the power dynamic just enough so that I can talk to them like an adult instead of a terrified kid.

I also went to the dentist for the first time in a very long time. Not suprisingly, I need a lot of work done that will require hours of listening to that horrible drill and thousands of dollars that I don't have  (even with insurance). My gums, however are fabulous, about which I am inordinately proud.

My lipids are pretty awesome, too, apparently. So, that's what I'm clinging to, gums and lipids. I can work with that.