Life of Red

… Then your eyes open and it packs quite a sharp punch in the nose.

From the age of 25 I felt the old age coming on and just didn’t want to get old.  Always felt too young to be old.  I was horribly offended when at the age of 25 a dude guessed my age to be 28. 

Ooohhhh to be 28 again… I wish.

I got married at the age of 20, divorced at the age of 30. I then experienced the twenties, I missed, in the first few years of my thirties.  I was single and legal and knew more than most twenty year olds.  Needless to say I had fun and all the while I was still being the responsible single Mom.  I knew that to properly take care of Mini Red and be a good Mom I had to take care of myself.  I wanted her to see that she still has to take care of herself  like Mommy did.

All the while I still felt like a young’un even though I knew I wasn’t. When I’d look in the mirror the person looking back didn’t look familiar.  As a teenager I was fugly and by the time I graduated High School things were definitely changing for me.  The divorce agreed with me too and I stepped it up a notch and dressed a helluva lot better.  Just ask Sis.  So when I was first divorced the person I expected to see in the mirror was that fugly chick and that wasn’t what I saw at all.  It took some getting used to for the mental to meet up with the physical. 

So as I moved along in my thirties I’ve had clues that I’m getting older and although many have heard me say something about being old I still felt young and felt I looked young too.  Last year I turned 40 and I was not happy, as some of you may have read.  People tend to say I don’t look 40 and I agree and love to hear that.  I still feel like I’m about mid to late 20’s but my wrinkles say otherwise.

So last week I was in Vegas and hung out with others much younger than I.  I arrived in Vegas tired after two months of craziness including the holidays, family, sickness and the biggie… Moving. I had only been in the house two weeks and left it in disarray to head to Vegas. I just didn’t feel I could keep up although one night I didn’t get home until six the next morning.

As I think about the events of last week and the fun as well as the stoopid things I did as I was hanging out with young’uns I made a HUGE realization.  I am soooo old!  I may have said I was old and felt old before but not really because I felt I defied it yet I haven’t.  I was fooling myself and I’m just this older chick.  When I was a little girl I remember Mom had a few single female friends and they had that divorcee air about them.  I now realize that is me and even the clothes I wear.  I’m not as young and hip as I thought I was.

Don’t get me wrong this isn’t a woe is me post it’s just another step in realizing who I am.  Sometimes we experience growing pains and this one is definitely painful but I’m coming to terms with it and I really don’t want it to keep me down.  There is too much that I haven’t experienced yet.  Now I just need to pull it all together and get it all done because time is flying by way too fast and I have a lot to do.

Monday:

At Work:  ***Tapping fingers on my desk***

In The Car: ***Tapping fingers on the steering wheel***

I’m just not sure what to do with myself.  Minnie Red is at the beach and Kima is in a new home.  Not sure I want to be home alone.  Oh sure there are things that need to be done but… Nah don’t wanna do any of that stuff.  I’m just not sure what I want to do.

Maybe see a movie?  So I headed towards White Flint.  Ditched the movie idea and did a little shopping and decided to go for a pedicure.  I chose a pink but jeeze it ended up being an obnoxious glow-in-the dark type pink but it’s growing on me and I’m kinda digging it.

On the way home I talked to Minnie Red.  She and Mom went out on the wave runner.  Sounds like they traveled all over the place even packing themselves a lunch.  They stopped at some random beach and chowed down.  Oh yeah and Minnie Red tells me there were some kids hanging out there too… Boys!  The oldest was about her age and his little brother kept trying to get her phone number for the older brother.  She got them to back off by telling them she has a boyfriend.  I love that Minnie Red and Mom are having this bonding time and Minnie Red is having some real summer vacation and at the beach no less.

I did have to call FN after talking to Minnie Red.  Seems she did a so called break up with her little mohawk friend due to another boy on the horizon.  This other boy is one she met when she and her Dad hang out at Renn Fest.  She seems to think FN is unaware of what is going on but the boy’s parents let him know about these two texting quite a bit lately.  FN has assured me that when the two will hang out at Renn Fest they will be watched like hawks especially by Minnie Red’s 17 yr old cousin who plans to be the third wheel.  Minnie Red will be in for a surprise when she realizes her Dad DOES know and it wasn’t by me.  At least he and I are on the same page about her.  I have no problem with boys who are friends or if she wants to say she is dating them because in reality it is only texting, emailing or calls and they aren’t seeing each other in person. She is too young for any kind of dating.

At Home: ***Tapping fingers on my face***

It’s like this every year and it just not something you can’t prepare for.  BUT… When in doubt go running.  I wanted to run and was waiting til later due to the heat.   When the time came I didn’t feel like running and could feel it wouldn’t be a good run but then… I did… I ran.  It was 9pm but I wasn’t planning on going for long.  I knew I had to do this or the running I did last week would be for nothing.

When I got home from running I found an email from Mrs. M.  I’ve been dealing with some crap lately, on a work level as well as personal.  I think I’ve been handling it all very well and just trying to push the bad stuff away and out of my mind.  Anyhow, I got this email from her and I have to say it left me in tears.  I don’t think anyone has ever done anything so nice and genuine for me.

“this is my version of sending you good karma…… I think you need a reminder of how great you are, with all of these emotional hits you’ve taken lately so….I can’t bear that you think bad things about yourself when you might possibly be the last person on Earth who should be (and there are so many good-for-nothings running around thinking they’re the shit!).“

The rest of her email I am keeping to myself.  I’m so lucky to have the friends I have.  Between them and running I have no worries except… for the big birthday coming up.

Ok so I wrote about how last week sucked and this week hasn’t been much better.

Waa waa waaaaa

I know, “Stop being a Fuckin Pansy Red!

Work has just been off the hook and lemme tell ya all about it.

I was not looking forward to work on Monday and was trying to think of a good reason why I didn’t work Saturday or Sunday.  That was until I thought of the perfect excuse… It’s was the freaking weekend!  I woke up Monday morning with a headache and took some Excedrin. Nothing unusual there.

When I got to the office I found a present from Imelda.  She is the best Boss and knows each of us so well.

Finally, I was feeling a little better and went off to lunch with the work crew.  The floaters came back at lunch and I was able to push them away again.  Until they came back again with the speech issue and nausea this time.  Now I was just hoping it would pass for a short while so I could get home.  I literally ran out of work the first chance I had.

This week was not starting off well but at least no more migraines.

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were some awful hours of more data scrubbing.  I think I’m gonna go blind and I’m sure I have carpel tunnel in my entire right arm.  In the midst of this Imelda had a birthday and got all grumpy about it until I reminded her I’m older.  Some of the people on our team are amazing and did some amazing work on her cube which now has a moat, a bridge, a tower and pink toile everywhere.  Along with that she received a beverage of one sort or another representing each of us, e.g. O’Douls from the Intern because he’s too young to drink alcohol.  If you’ve read any of Chelsea Handler’s books you will understand my drink to Imelda.

Oh and Imelda’s Hubby hates me for passing forward the Chelsea books, of which the first one is titled “My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands“.  For some reason he thinks I’m a bad influence on her.  Helllloooo who is forever sending me pictures of herself with all sorts of alcoholic drinks???  Ummmm… Imelda!!

What her Hubby fails to realize is that Imelda is Chelsea Handler’s married doppelganger. Imelda is the bad influence on me and it’s probably a good thing we don’t live closer to each other.  Although she has been stepping up her efforts to get me to move to Hagerstown and been sending me notices of homes for sale.

This week has also meant my car back in the shop and more money outta my pocket.  Hellllooo where’s my drink?

There has been something good in this awful week, besides the fact that it’s almost over.  I took a little time today to hang with Mom and Sis while Sis tried on wedding dresses.  She was just amazing looking!  My leetle sister looked like a Beautiful Woman!  Mom was having a hard time and was looking a little verclempt.  We then checked out the bridesmaid dresses.  Ugggh!  I hate this part because it involves me but a dress was found and I wouldn’t try it on so Sis did and she looked great.  I figured it would look awful on me since Sis and I couldn’t be more different and I figured my boobs wouldn’t fit in that dress, but I tried it and it looked really good on me too!  Mom did suggest I get a breast reduction but I will opt for more fabric in that area instead.  Who knows what Sis will decide but it was some nice bonding time for the three of us.

So at this point I have worked over 40 hrs this week.  I just need to get through tomorrow and get my toucas back to the beach, which should be easier now that I’m not scared to drive my car. 

I do have to send out a big thanks to two special guys… Ben Harper and John Legend.  You two have been the biggest help in getting me through all this data scrubbing with my sanity still somewhat intact and without any alcohol.