2011 is almost over, and my 50th birthday is waiting for me in 2012. I am always hopeful that each new year will bring good things, but then years come and go and I am another year older and somehow in the same spot. Others around me are thriving and growing; this is as it should be I suppose. And it isn't middle age any more is it? Not too many live to the century mark, so the midpoint was reached a while ago. That is OK; it is what is supposed to happen.
I do know how fortunate I am, but it doesn't stop me from feeling regret or wanting things to be different.
Perhaps in a parallel universe, I am what I wish I were in this one. That's something. Conversely, a universe exists in which I am all ready dead. Glad to be cognizant of this one then. 2012, give me what you've got.
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Friday, December 16, 2011
Kicking my Butt
Yesterday marked the halfway point in my 50th year on the planet, and, as usual, I thought about what I wanted to write but let the day go by without writing anything but work related emails and posts to my current literature class. Oh, I wrote two Christmas cards, but one was to the newspaper delivery woman, so I don't think that counts as writing even if I used a pen. As with much of my writing, I put it off, and it isn't for lack of ideas; I compose sentences and paragraphs, poems and essays, in my head all the live-long day, but the act of sitting and writing is daunting and fraught with messy obstacles. Just now, I have inched ever so slightly away from my opening which was to introduce the midway point of my 50th year on the planet and say something profound about having come halfway through the year, a whole six months, and look what I've done all ready. That is not going to happen.
As it turns out, my 50th year is kicking my butt nine ways to Sunday. Since my 49th birthday, I have not accomplished anything on my initial list of things that I wanted to do before turning 50, and, now that I am six months into it, I'm in danger of coasting to June. Coasting is fine, I suppose, if one is happy or at least content with the living of it. What am I coasting in or on? Skates? A sled? A car? On a bike? I haven't been on a bike in years. Or skates for that matter. Whatever it is, I'm heading for 50 with reminders all around. My friends from high school who were always a few months to a year older are having their birthdays. My teenage daughters teeter precariously on the precipice of saying that I am old to me and wait for the reaction. One compliments me at every chance, and the other matter-of-factly states that well, yes, you are old.
So here I am coasting and riding along, not always looking where I am going but following the road as it comes up. I'm healthy, husband and kids are healthy, we have jobs we don't hate, we are okay. My job isn't particularly going anyplace special, but I enjoy it and plod along in the day-to-day grading of papers and writing of emails. I was able to procure a supplemental adjunct position to add to my workload and paycheck in 2012, proving to myself that I can be hired even at almost 50, which I have been reading and hearing about a lot lately and how difficult it is. Teaching online is great in this case, because everything is done in writing and no one sees me. Perhaps if they did, they would not have hired me.
I have sent some poems out and been rejected so far this year, and I have applied for a poetry residency at the Millay Colony which I desperately want. I won't hear about that until February, but that would be a wonderful birthday present or writing coup or whatever it will be for me; in any case, I will be ecstatic if it happens. In the next few weeks, I am going to work on a collection for a contest for poets over 40. While I'm still in my 40s, I think that would be a good thing to do. So many will enter though, and the chances are slim. I am going to do it though, because at the end of my work I will have a finished collection. During the residency I could revise or work on something new. If that turns out to be a rejection, I will just have to suck it up and come here and write about it.
Promise exists in the next six months as long as I don't let the things that have been kicking my butt continue to do so. I have never been very good at fighting back, but maybe I can dodge those steel-toed boots with some footwork or possibly, changing the metaphor again, riding that bike with my feet on the pedals.
As it turns out, my 50th year is kicking my butt nine ways to Sunday. Since my 49th birthday, I have not accomplished anything on my initial list of things that I wanted to do before turning 50, and, now that I am six months into it, I'm in danger of coasting to June. Coasting is fine, I suppose, if one is happy or at least content with the living of it. What am I coasting in or on? Skates? A sled? A car? On a bike? I haven't been on a bike in years. Or skates for that matter. Whatever it is, I'm heading for 50 with reminders all around. My friends from high school who were always a few months to a year older are having their birthdays. My teenage daughters teeter precariously on the precipice of saying that I am old to me and wait for the reaction. One compliments me at every chance, and the other matter-of-factly states that well, yes, you are old.
So here I am coasting and riding along, not always looking where I am going but following the road as it comes up. I'm healthy, husband and kids are healthy, we have jobs we don't hate, we are okay. My job isn't particularly going anyplace special, but I enjoy it and plod along in the day-to-day grading of papers and writing of emails. I was able to procure a supplemental adjunct position to add to my workload and paycheck in 2012, proving to myself that I can be hired even at almost 50, which I have been reading and hearing about a lot lately and how difficult it is. Teaching online is great in this case, because everything is done in writing and no one sees me. Perhaps if they did, they would not have hired me.
I have sent some poems out and been rejected so far this year, and I have applied for a poetry residency at the Millay Colony which I desperately want. I won't hear about that until February, but that would be a wonderful birthday present or writing coup or whatever it will be for me; in any case, I will be ecstatic if it happens. In the next few weeks, I am going to work on a collection for a contest for poets over 40. While I'm still in my 40s, I think that would be a good thing to do. So many will enter though, and the chances are slim. I am going to do it though, because at the end of my work I will have a finished collection. During the residency I could revise or work on something new. If that turns out to be a rejection, I will just have to suck it up and come here and write about it.
Promise exists in the next six months as long as I don't let the things that have been kicking my butt continue to do so. I have never been very good at fighting back, but maybe I can dodge those steel-toed boots with some footwork or possibly, changing the metaphor again, riding that bike with my feet on the pedals.
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