Light Topics for a Birthday' Hangover': Beauty, Aging, Love, And Being Your Self

My 46th birthday was last week and as my daughter likes to remind me, that means I'm in my 47th year.

I'm not one of those people who will tell you that I still feel 24.  In fact, when I was 24, I said, "I feel 40."  And now I don't know what age I feel - maybe every age, depending on the day.

I stumbled onto a poem the week of my birthday by Denise Duhamel, called, "Fornicating."  Here is a quote from the poem, which I like very much (found in the The Best American collection from 2015):

"Anne Sexton wrote
Once I was beautiful.  Now I am myself..."

Maybe a sign or something considering that I am undeniably middle-aged.  And I've thought in the week since quite a bit about what it means to be seen as beautiful.  And what if feels like to be seen as my Self.

For women, aging and beauty, visibility and invisibility, worthiness, desirability, and identity are often inextricably connected in ways that I think it's hard for men to understand.  Well, truthfully, we women don't understand it, but we know it. 

One way I count myself lucky is that I've been around 'old' people, through my work, but also through my writing life, for a long time.  So, even as I rub on my face serum and anti-aging cream at night, I have a competing message that I have undeniably received from these 'old people.'  It is realistic and foresighted.  It says, "Your gonna have to let that go."

From my perch in my office chair, listening to women of all ages sitting on my couch, I hear vicious attacks.  The attacks are on themselves and the script started when they were very young and the words and meaning came through in secret and sad ways.  The script says things like, "You are more loved if you are more beautiful.  You are more loved if you are thinner.  But don't get too beautiful or too thin, because then you will be uppity and threatening.  But if you have to err on some side, err on being thin and beautiful."

The biggest problem is that for many women (at least ones in the United States, as far as I can tell, but it's probably more global than that), somehow being 'pretty' gets conflated with being loveable or being loved.

When I hear women talking cruelly to themselves - about being invisible as they age, about no one ever loving them because they weren't found beautiful enough, about mothers who rejected them because they weren't thin enough or feminine enough, I feel deep down sad, but my sadness is in part for myself because I also have received and taken to heart some of those messages.

But, because of my job, I've also been grappling with these issues of aging and physical change, since I was 32 years old.  And here's the deal, fellow women.  We have to start paying attention in new ways to what love and power really mean.  And we need to teach our daughters and sons to use different guides than the ones we may have been given:

First - What is real love?  We have to learn to recognize it, value it, and not settle for less than it.  And, I don't just mean romantic love, I mean any love at all.  When I was married, I had a thought hidden at that time from my waking mind, but a thought that drove some things about me nonetheless:   that is was really important that I stay attractive.   I never felt like I could dye my hair in front of my ex, or go without makeup on Christmas morning.  I felt that he required some artifice on my part.  I know now that was a sign that I wasn't really loved.  I didn't feel that being plain old me was enough.  It was unconscious, but I hoped that in being a shiny version of me, that I would be more loved, more acceptable.  I wish I had paid attention to the wrongness of that.   I have yet to fall in love in this middle part of my life, but I know in the wisest part of me - and you know this too - when someone is really loved, appearance seems an afterthought.  How many times have you gotten to know someone as a human being and they become MORE attractive to you?  Or their attractiveness seems inconsequential.  When you love someone, you see them in a whole way without making a decision or effort to do so - you see the essence of them when you look at them and it's beautiful to you.

And, this is the most important part:  by those who love you, you are seen the same way.   Let yourself feel that.  If you are not around people who love you for who you are, that is what needs to change.  That's the place to put your energy - not into how to lose 25 pounds or can you afford to get a tummy tuck?  

Second, we need to pay attention to our elders who are aging with wisdom, grace and energy and see what it is they have that we might want to cultivate in ourselves.  Older women, especially women who were known as beauties in their younger years, often tell me how hard it is to feel overlooked or invisible.  Losing part of your identity is, of course, demoralizing.  Losing perhaps your feeling of desirability, losing perhaps your sense of power.  But when we accept that our power and desirability can be so much more than perky boobs or a lack of crows feet, we allow in a fuller sense of what power might be.  My guess is that our power and desirability and energy and joie de vivre is rooted in what gives us creativity, ignites our passion, connects us with something essential in us, and lets us live truthfully and fearlessly.

Listen, I come from a long line of vain women, so I have a lot to overcome.  My grandmother, in the hospital at age 92 looked at me from her bed and said, "Kate...you look terrible."  What?!  "You need a little lipstick."  Even on her death bed, my Gran wore lipstick.

But mostly, in my 47th year, I am going to remember that the most beautiful thing to be is myself.

A second quote from the poem, Fornicating, sums up a bit of what I wrote above...

"it's easy to feel unbeautiful
when you have unmet desires."

Hey women - I know it may be easy to feel unbeautiful, but easy feelings are not always true.  Unmet desires are difficult (I have them too), but they are not as a result of lack of beauty.

Here is my wish for women, whether 6 or 46 or 96 - to know that you are loveable, worthy, and beautiful.  To know your own power, so that you experience the joy of being seen for your Self, but also so that you see your True Self.

Dream Bigger

 I have been with many, many people in the last days of their life on earth.  I try to be a comfort to others in their grief.  I believe we honor those who have gone before us by the way we live our lives.  In our love, their legacy is love; in our compassion, they live on in compassion; in the joy and beauty we find in life, we honor their memory and this is one way their spirits continue.  I believe we can do this for people in our family, I also believe we can do this for those we don't know personally, like the children and adults who lost their lives last Friday in Newtown, CT.

I am reading Letter from a Birmingham Jail by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  In the introduction, by his daughter, Rev. Bernice  King, she says that her father did what was necessary to eliminate the "Triple Evils of Poverty, Racism, and War."  At the end of his letter, Dr. King concludes, "Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear-drenched communities and in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all of their scintillating beauty."   Dr. King's words and visions inspire me just as much as his awesome actions in life.

So, this is what I want you to do to transform your sorrow.  I want you to dream bigger.   Dream bigger for yourself, but also dream bigger for this world and all its people.  Don't be embarrassed or sheepish. 

When I was in elementary school, I wanted to be the first woman President of the United States.  My fifth grade teacher told me that women couldn't be President.  This didn't dash my dream, but it shows how life can start muddying up our dreams so we can't see them anymore. 

My dreams have changed since 5th grade.  It feels vulnerable to write my dream, but it is a true one: When I give someone my full attention, I see what is loveable in them.  Sometimes I see what is loveable in them before they see it in themselves.  I dream to shine a light on that loveable thing, so that the person can feel it and see it for themselves.  I dream of a world where each person can feel that loveable part of themselves and interact with the world from a place of love and confidence and not from a place of fear or insecurity.  That is my dream.  It's a big dream. 

You probably have a dream too.  Take some time to think about it today, about how your life honors those who have come before you, about how you may have forgotten that you can clean off  those muddied up dreams or create new ones.  Think about that dream and then dream a little bigger. 

A quote attributed to the Buddha is this:  "In this world, hate never yet dispelled hate.  Only love dispels hate.  This is the law, ancient and inexhaustible."  After grieving, may your dreams be created in love.

this I believe: love

The weekly ritual after our team meeting when I worked in home hospice: We dimmed the conference room lights and lit a candle.  A colleague (usually a chaplain), read the names of those who died that week in our care.  If any of us had worked with that patient, we were encouraged to say a few words about the person, their family, or our experience as a caregiver.  I'll never forget the story a young nurse told.   She was a beautiful, intelligent woman. Tall and red-headed and possessing that air of competency and compassion that we all want in a nurse or doctor.  She had a quick, warm smile.   I'll call her Kate.  Kate worked in the poorest neighborhoods in St. Louis - the areas where we occasionally needed security escorts, where there were stop signs on corners covered in posters and decorated with teddy bears because it's where a kid had been shot and killed.

On this day during our memorial time, Kate told about a poor man, dying virtually alone.  He was in his early twenties - younger than we were!  He had a place to be, a 'home', but the people around him were not coping well with his care.  I don't remember if they were family or friends, but in his weakened and confused state he kept throwing himself out of his bed onto the floor.  They were angry and frustrated with this.  In hospice, we call this 'terminal restlessness', and odd, restless behaviors are not necessarily uncommon.  One day, Kate walked in and he was on the floor again.  Something dawned on her - he was so terribly weak, so wretchedly frail.  "He wants to die on the floor," she realized.  And she got down on the floor and put her arms around him.  After a short time, he died on the floor, in her arms.

I will always be awed by her love.  To me, this was an act of spontaneous love and mercy.  I witnessed and was a part of many such moments during my work in hospice.  It made me into, what Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. might call, an extremist for love.   There are many uncertainties in this life, but I know that we are put here to love one another.  To grow to be unafraid of loving one another.  To grow to be unafraid of feeling the love others have for us, and knowing we are loved. 

Recently, I have been saddened to witness and be touched by violence and death, both in my community in and my professional life.  I am humbled by the healing we all need. 

Violence and death pull up many uncertainties in us.  Yet, if I had to say I believed only one thing, I would have to say this:  Love.  I believe the boy who died in Kate's arms experienced some type of healing and peace through love and her willingness to overcome internal fears, and conventional rules and norms. 

I have friends from every spiritual and non-spiritual system of belief...but, it's hard for me to write about love without writing about God.  Almost daily, I witness something more powerful and profound, more miraculous than the many hard times that can be a part of our lives.  I call this "God."  And there's not much I can know about God for sure, but I have experienced love. 

In dark moments love may come to you in unexpected forms and places .  You are also an agent of love.  This I believe.

some thoughts about love and freedom

I was an animal loving kid, but not surprising for those who know me, I loved them mostly by reading books about them.  I must confess that I went through a pretty big marine mammal stage, probably around 3rd grade.  I was a little torn, because the boy I had a crush on loved chimpanzees, so I also felt a like I needed to brush up on primates.  Still, dolphins were really my thing.  Then, I read Born Free and it moved me right into a lion stage (probably exacerbated by the Chronicles of Narnia.) 

I loved Born Free, the story of Joy Adamson and her husband, George, naturalists living in Kenya.  They raised an orphaned lion cub, Elsa.  I was enthralled by how they cared for her, the affection between such a wild creature and humans.  And then, after raising her to adulthood, how they slowly set her free into the wild.  They helped her learn what would have been instinctual had she been raised by a lion mother - to hunt and kill, to protect herself, and socialize with other lions.  Eventually, the humans who loved Elsa mostly just watched her from afar - the lion fully integrated into a wild pride. 

Ooh, I still get choked up thinking about it.

It makes me think about love.  What is real love?

In my deepest heart, I believe that loving other people means giving them room to make choices, including the choice to have space from us.

We want people to love us like we love them.  We want to be reassured of their love.  When we become anxious that they are going away or we don't have them as close as we want them we try to get them to reassure us.  Sometimes we do this by throwing a tantrum, sometimes we do this by playing games, trying to make them jealous.  Sometimes we even go away ourselves, maybe, to make them chase us.  This is really just a way to control someone else's behavior.  Real love is given feely. 

If we want to give our love, we should give our love, but remove our expectation that it will be given back in the exact way we want it to be given.  Real love is not manipulating another person's choices.  Real love is honoring the other's freedom, and our own.

what's your code?

I saw a PBS special this week on TV Crusaders.  The creators and actors of characters like Hawkeye Pierce, House, and even Xena, Warrior Princess were interviewed.  It was fun and interesting.  On my 'to watch' list for life is the HBO series, The Wire.  This Crusaders special showed some bits of a character named Omar Little.  He was a gangster and he killed a lot of people, I guess, but he never killed anyone who wasn't in 'the game' (drugs).  He was talking with a cop in one clip they showed and the cop says, 'Everybody's got to have a code.' 

I was thinking about that and I like it.  It made me wonder what my code is and who influenced it.  One thing in particular has come to mind this week - maybe because of Thanksgiving, which I find to be the most patriotic holiday.  I was thinking about my dad and some influence he had on me - his code, I guess.  My dad was shaped by the military - he went to military school, was in college ROTC, the Army Reserves.  He'd tell you today that a guiding principle of his life is Duty, Honor, Country. 

Duty and honor are concepts that interest me a lot - I find that there are many ways to be a warrior, and not all of them are literally military.  Through my work in hospice, and of course, as a therapist, many of the warriors I witness look like caregivers.  They get up every single day to battle fatigue, grief, someone else's disease process or despair.  They commit themselves to the well-being and health of others -whether it's their kids or their aging parents, their patients, or community members.  They find honor in living this way and they are steadfast in their duties. 

When my kids were really little, I remember kind of thinking the word duty was funny because it was resonant to me of 'doo - doo.'  Always, highbrow humor at our house!  Some days, I felt like all I was doo-doo doing was duty.  I had to doo-doo the never-ending laundry, doo-doo the never-ending dishes, doo-doo the baths and diaper changes, doo-doo my paperwork for work, doo-doo taking care of the animals, doo-doo church commitments, etc., etc..  Why did I doo-doo all this, I asked myself?  Because I LOVED these people- my kids, my husband, my patients, my church friends.  Or I was supposed to.  Or I think I thought I did.  Oh, no!

See, somehow in all the duty, the responsibility,  I truly had lost touch with the love that was supposed to be motivating me toward all this action. 

Sometimes I get disgusted with gooey self-help words like self-care.  But here's what I think it means.  To be a grown up in the real sense of the world, I think we have to have an understanding of our own freedom.  The literal truth is that we have a lot of freedom.  When we take care of ourselves it gives us room, it gives us a sense of space, time, and freedom.  When we have this space, time and sense of freedom, we can get back to our 'duties', but we can do it with love and not resentment or rote operations.  My husband would tell you, 'I'm a simple man.'   (That might be his Code).  So this is what he says about my topic today: 'if you do something because you want to do it, it's just easier.'

Out of the mouths of babes.  You know, I don't know if I have a one-sentence code, but I know that I value being honorable and dutiful.  I also value being loving and having fun.  In fact I recommend the following:  honor, duty, loving and fun. And at least for today, that is my code.

Happy Thanksgiving and much LOVE to you and your families!

some things I've learned

Now, for something a little different.  Some things I've learned about life and people so far (and subject to change, I might add...):

1) Don't make decisions out of fear.  I've never made a good decision primarily motivated by fear and I haven't observed this to work for others, either. 

2) No matter what people say, they usually DO what they want.  If you're confused by someone, pay attention to their actions, not their words.

3) You can't make someone else change.  You can change your reaction to that person.

4) Most people are doing their best most of the time.

5) It's not about me.  In both good and bad, we tend to take overly much credit or overly much guilt/shame.  We benefit from putting ourselves in a more realistic perspective. 

6)  It is important to be careful with our words.  We probably heard this from someone when we were kids - think before you speak.

7) Try to find a vocation you like.  We spend a lot of time working, so it's better to like what you do.  Encourage your kids to study what they enjoy and find a way to make a vocation of it.

8)  Shame and secrets are destructive forces.  Keep pushing for honesty with yourself and judicious honesty with others.  When we are open, we find that much of what we were ashamed of isn't nearly as powerful as we thought.

9) Listen and pay attention to older people.  In our culture, which so values youth, we are missing out on much more interesting people.

10) In the scope of creation, we are little and there is much that is mysterious.   There is almost always a choice- choose love and compassion. 

That's it for the week.  I hope you have a good one.