It has been a day. A day of cleansing. A day of purging. Of reminiscing. Of beginning again. And although so much more can be accomplished when she has Erma’s help, Sylvia appreciates working by herself today. In her solitude, she takes her time and allows herself to bloom in her own way and in her own time. She just might be enough today– for herself anyway.
Just because no one sees you standing on your own and basking in your own glory doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. You know, and that’s what matters.
“Where have you been hiding today after your long, productive night of writing?” Erma inquired.
With both a tear and a smile, Sylvia thoughtfully replied, “I was pleasantly spending time in the room of Remember.”
“The name of the room is Remember—the room where with patience, with charity, with quietness of heart, we remember consciously to remember the lives we have lived. ~Frederick Buechner
Sylvia never really thought about it until yesterday. After a burst of anger followed by a short period of self-deprecation and sadness, she stops herself dead in her tracks. Neither the vexation nor the momentary lack of self-approval is who she is. They are volatile but thankfully short-lived. She is best who she is when she is standing still in the fresh air. No desire to make herself or anyone else happy.
Boredom, anger, sadness, or fear are not ‘yours,’ not personal. They are conditions of the human mind. They come and go. Nothing that comes and goes is you. ~Eckhart Tolle
“Wide open. Closed. Squinting. Teary. Winking. They say it all, don’t they?” Sylvia asked of her friend rhetorically. Erma, with a quick roll of hers, replied.
At once, the two friends sitting across from each other with masks covering all but their eyes, broke out in laughter. Their friendship was so easy because they knew each other deeply and could read each other’s movements. Words, though never lacking, were rarely needed these days. Their eyes always recounted their stories.
Almost nothing need be said when you have eyes. ~Tarjei Vesaas
Sylvia hasn’t returned calls lately. She hasn’t written all of her thank-you notes for the outpouring of support and sympathy she has received. She’s getting there little by little, but she feels apologies are in order. She doesn’t want anyone to think she’s self-absorbed.
“Are you nuts? Stop apologizing for being human,” scolds Erma. “There is a time and a place to ask for forgiveness. Now is neither the time nor the place, Syl. Swallow the words ‘I’m sorry’ as if they are chocolate today. Trust me, they melt in your mouth like M&Ms when they aren’t called for.”
The beginning of the week and the end of a day. Ah, Mondays. Sylvia and Erma have a late afternoon chat and decide not to look too far ahead for a change. In fact, Sylvia tells her friend that she refuses to swallow, taste, or commit to anything more than a sip at a time. She just wants to sit and savor momentary satisfaction. ************** “Our souls are satisfied one sip at a time.” ~Marnie Swedberg ************** #overfiftyandfine #womenhelpingwomen
As Sylvia prepares for another first, Erma reminds her that all of us are experiencing firsts again. New day. New perspective. Fresh cup of coffee. Even the things that are done ritualistically have a freshness to them.
It’s a perfect day to re-read a favorite and find a little something new in it to feed your spirit and/or cleanse your soul. Soak it in or let it go. It’ll be the last first of its kind.
In a world overflowing with self-help books, Sylvia and Erma on occasion opt for support groups where women help women, listen to each other, and allow one another to speak without judgment.
“Hi, I’m Sylvia. I’m fifty-six. And yes, I’m a pauser.”
“Welcome, Sylvia,” they replied eagerly in an almost cult-like unison.
There, I said it. In a room full of peris, mid-mennies, and posts, I came clean. As beads of sweat trickled down the nape of my neck, and a small pool of salinity collected between my breasts (the rust likely to cause the bra’s underwire to give way prematurely), I proclaimed the obvious. And as difficult as the admission was, not one woman raised an eyebrow. After all, the bevy was there for all the same reasons. The commiseration. The camaraderie. And, of course, the seemingly endless supply of donuts which were appropriately labeled energy boosters and mood lifters. All of us- either dreading the onset, in the throes of this midlife rite of passage, or anxiously awaiting the day when hot flashes and night sweats disappeared and libidos returned. Yes, all of us were “pausing” at different ages of our advanced adult lives.
Oddly enough, I was smiling, but not for the reason some might think. I was neither happy to be in the midst of other women equally affected by the pause nor excited to participate in the sharing of menopausal woes. I, with a grin on my face that was likely so broad that my eyes disappeared in the elation, was like the cat that swallowed the canary. I, though profusely perspiring after my introduction, had scanned the crowd and noticed that which set me apart from many. My hair was coiffed. My clothes were stylish. I could string together sentences without losing concentration midstream. And although I knew that I had experienced the southward migration of both bosom and buttocks, I remained fairly unscathed by comparison.
And then as clear as the sparkling glass slider that I ran into at my neighbor’s exceedingly pristine home, it hit me. Smack dab right in the face. I was comparing myself to others. It was an episode of “Mean Girls” on hormone-replacement therapy. I had paused. I was pausing. And in the thirty minutes it took me to get up the courage to make public admission of my current state of womanhood, I realized that I was no longer smiling, admittedly due to recognition of my petty and inappropriate comparisons. I discovered at that very moment that I could and should beam rather than gloat because I was pausing among other wonderfully moody and semi-neurotic women. We were in this together- mind, body, and spirit.
Menopause. It’s to women-of-a-certain-age what Wednesday night poker and senior basketball leagues are to men coping with enlarged prostates and erectile dysfunction.
Nothing like the pause – and doughnuts- to bring women together.
And perhaps the group method, whether formally sanctioned or impromptu at a donut shop or wine bar, #womenhelpingwomen shows all the Sylvias that all of the Ermas are not out there judging. So, let us stop being critical of ourselves and each other, and bask in the pause!
********************
Beautiful, Sexy, and Flawed! We all are!
When I was suddenly thrust into what everyone calls menopause (Orchids) earlier than my body planned, I decided someone needed to take charge on so many levels. It was time to not only change the vernacular, but to speak up and say “Hey! This isn’t an old lady’s disease! We aren’t old! We are strong and dammit, we are beautiful and sexy too!~Lisa Jey Davis, Getting Over Your Ovaries
