A Shock to My System

I’m the same age as Brooke Shields, model (“Nothing comes between me and my Calvins”) and actress (Blue Lagoon, short lived TV show “Suddenly Susan”). Technically, she’s a month and a half older than me, a fact that would have been important when I was 7, but not so much now that I’m 42. In a recent interview she’s quoted as saying “I keep thinking I’m younger than I am. The other day, I was working with a photographer to recreate an image we had done years ago. When I saw my face, I kind of went, ‘What is that?’ I assumed I was going to look the same, and I didn’t. It was a shock to my system.” Shields, a model and actress, must be photographed almost daily and surely has watched herself on film recently (she is in a new TV show, “Lipstick Jungle”). And yet, she was shocked to see herself? Or at least, shocked to see her self as she really is.

I don’t really find this that hard to believe. I’m not photographed often at all and although I was recently caught on a camera phone playing my son-in-law’s new electric guitar, I rarely see myself on film. But there are times when I do see a picture or catch myself on an in-store camera screen and go-“What is that?” We sometimes get a picture of ourselves in our heads and it stays there, in a sort of body image limbo. We do a double take and ask “Where did that 20-30-40 year old go? Where did that more mature, lightly-lined face come from? Did I always look like this much like my mother?”
The same goes for the inner self. It’s easy to find myself living in the image of myself that had been my status quo for years: mostly stay-at-home Mom (with the chauffeuring, laundry, and meal prep that go along with that), part-time music teacher, part-time volunteer worker, available for lunch with friends most days. It had a wardrobe, an image, a routine that while varying wildly from day to day, was pretty predictable and safe. But with age comes change. I began working full time 3 years ago. In the past year my only son graduated from high school and started college, my only daughter got married, and both my parents and in-laws celebrated their 50th wedding anniversaries. The landscape of my life has changed. I look at my daily and weekly routine and go “What is that?” And though I never assumed it was going to look the same, it has still been a shock to my system.

Little by little, I’m embracing this new life stage. It has its perks-no more driving kids around to their events, no more need to have dinner on the table at a certain time each night, less teenage angst to deal with, more time to myself, more quiet weekends. It has its pitfalls-becoming too work focused, going out to eat too much, watching too much TV winter evenings. This blog is born out of this time. I’m eager for a creative outlet, feeling a need to pour out some of what other’s have poured into my life over the years. I hope to share some of their stories and the impact they’ve had on me. I want to share thoughts, images, and articles about ‘growing up’ in a deliberate way. I want to look back at this time in my life in a few years and not have to say “What was that?” but instead see that I did my best to grow up gracefully.