One of the most lovely things that happens as you age is that you stop worrying about the unimportant little things. Am I wearing the cool brands, carrying the right purse, driving the right car? Does my bra match my underwear? Did I remember to shave my legs before laying out in the sun? Is it liquor before beer or beer before liquor?
Hitting fifty a few years ago was an awakening of sorts. Suddenly, I looked at things much differently. The things that had plagued me most of my adult life were a lot less important to me and so I just began to stop worrying about them. It was that deep breath you take before you jump into the cold lake on a hot summer day– breathe deep, don’t think, just go. And with that plunge into the water, the old me began to re-emerge–the very woman who seemingly had disappeared with a wedding ring and babies so many years ago.
The idea that I was missing from myself makes me think about something my daughter shared with me a few years ago when she first became a mother. Female flamingos can actually lose their brilliant pink color when becoming a mother. It’s believed that this is because most of their nourishment and energy goes into raising their young. Any mother of young children can very likely identify with the desaturated flamingos. Being a parent is exhausting and with the bulk of parenting responsibility still falling on the shoulders of women, it isn’t a surprise that we [moms] lose a bit of ourselves. Like the flamingos, we moms lose our “pink.”
I want to believe that we don’t really lose who we “are,” rather we assume a new temporary identity and who we were before is still there, it’s just covered up.
Imagine emerging bare naked from the tumultuous teens and early twenties, on the brink of discovering who you want to be as an adult and just finding your stride. Then you are handed a beautifully wrapped gift. You open the gift and it is a sensible, terry cloth robe. You love the robe and though it is a little stiff and unfamiliar at first, it becomes more comfortable and softer with wear. Magically, the robe soon fits perfectly; you get really comfortable in it and it becomes your favorite piece of clothing to wear. So that’s what you do; you wear that robe…for at least twenty five years while the bare naked truth of who you are is just below the shroud of gray terry cloth. For a long time, you don’t notice that you’ve been losing your pink because you are wearing that old robe. You’ve been too busy nursing babies, attending little league games, playing barbies, doing fifth grade math homework, driving kids back and forth to soccer practice, back and forth to friends’ houses and back and forth to the mall.
The good news is that, like flamingos, our pink returns. Now, more than ever, I am convinced that my “awakening” at fifty was my pink returning. It seeped from the back of my mind and the depths of my soul into my veins and made its way to the surface of my skin. As my pink resurfaced, I found such comfort in remembering the me I was in my early twenties; the me I wasn’t comfortable enough to embrace or love unconditionally all those years ago. The person I was before a wedding band, before creating a life, growing humans, giving birth to them and actually managing to safely raise them to adulthood; that vibrant young woman who was full of life, fun, loved learning, loved meeting people, loved making friends and was so driven to be someone who made a difference.
At fifty, my children were grown and I had my first grandchild. I was keenly aware that my life was more than half over and the “big picture” was much clearer at fifty than it had been at twenty three and that old terry cloth robe no longer kept me as warm as it used to and it no longer fit perfectly. So I hung it on the back of the bathroom door.
At fifty three, the robe still hangs on the back of the door and when my husband catches sight of it, he asks if I want to donate it or throw it out because I don’t really wear it much. But I don’t want to throw it out because occasionally, when I need it, I slip it on and it feels like a warm hug from an old familiar friend — the me I was for twenty five years; the me I am so glad I knew and I wouldn’t trade that part of me for anything.
However, life is a lot different these days. There is less laundry and fewer dishes to do, I rarely cook dinner, the only bedroom I have to worry about keeping clean is my own and the house is much quieter. I have a lot more time to focus on work, on writing, on reading. My husband and I have vastly different hobbies and we spend more time doing our own thing than we did for so many years when we were raising our daughters. The woman I was for all those years while raising kids takes a back seat to who I am now. I’m the one who doesn’t take life too seriously, who listens to the music she listened to at twenty one, who reconnected with old friends, who probably didn’t shave her legs this morning and who very possibly is not wearing a bra that matches her underwear but damn, my pink is back.
200 Chairs 