I turned 44 today. In other words, as of waking up this morning, I was no longer considered to be in my early 40s. I have now crossed over into the category of mid-40s.
By this time in my mother's life, she had just had brain surgery to remove a tumor, and told me that she would be looking forward to finishing treatment and celebrating in 5 years when she would get her last scan that, she believed, would come back clean. It never happened, the brain tumor came roaring back, and she died 2 weeks after her 49th birthday. I don't think there is a birthday that I will have clear through the rest of my 40s and into my 50s where I won't think of this as a perspective on my own age.
Since I'm feeling reflective on this day, I thought I'd give 44 short reflections on this life I've had so far.
1. When I was in the 1st grade, I remember sitting at my desk looking at a poster of all of the presidents and wondering why none of them were women. I'm still waiting.
2. I read the book "Grease" when I was 12 and thought that Danny should have picked Marty, because she was far more interesting.
3. Beavis and Butthead was a must right before pulling an all-nighter to study when I was in college.
4. I remember my friend, Kori, and I staying up all night when we were 16, because we had done our hair and it turned out perfectly. We wanted to go to the mall the next day with that great hair.
5. After spending the first weekend hanging out with my husband, I remember my roommate telling me that I "floated" into the house. She told me that she knew I would end up with him, and so did I.
6. I remember watching some of the most amazing bands from the PacNW in the 1990s at a little club called Crazy Horse in Boise, Idaho including Fastbacks, 7 Year Bitch, Coffin Break, Dinosaur Jr, Tad, Mother Love Bone, Sleater Kinney, Hammerbox, Mudhoney, Flop, Green Apple Quick Step, and yes, Nirvana.
7. I always loved the intro to the Wonder Woman show when she said, "You have little regard for womanhood, you must learn respect." then punched the guy in the face.
8. Riding my 10-speed bike around Nampa, Idaho when I was a teenager was my idea of freedom.
9. I remember wondering why it was so easy for that crazy Hinckley to get a gun and shoot the president.
10. I remember growing up in a rural community where owning a gun was no big deal, because every body had one, and you damn sure didn't treat it like a toy.
11. I planned my first event at age 16. It was a battle of the bands talent show for the Art Club, and I made every mistake possible.
12. I was taking a nap when the news came on tv that Kurt Cobain was dead. My boyfriend woke me up, and we stared at the tv in disbelief. We went to Grainy's Basement in Boise that night and did shots of Jagermeister with a room full of sad, silent people.
13. I remember cutting class with my friend, Missy, to go to the Idaho State capital building to protest the fact that Idaho refused to recognize Martin Luther King Day as an official holiday. We were 17.
14. I remember the last conversation I had with my grandmother. It was 2 weeks after I was married, and I called her while working late one night. We had a circular conversation where I repeated myself several times, because she was in the early stages of Alzheimer's and kept asking the same questions.
15. I used to buy cigarettes out of a machine on the second floor of the Karcher Mall for $1.50 per pack. I hid them in my pencil case and we smoked them out in the tennis courts at West Jr. High. The only adult they ever sent out to talk to us was a school guidance counselor who was an avid smoker himself, and was also one of my dad's poker buddies. We never got in trouble.
16. The first time I read "1984", I knew it was one of the most important books I would ever read. I reread it every few years. I'm about due again.
17. I had never felt so strange as I did in the hours right after I gave birth to Rachael. She was next to me, but I couldn't stop thinking about her and wondering if she was comfortable and okay. Two days later, she was still all I could think about. I told my mother about this, and she said it would never go away. It still hasn't.
18. I was standing in the middle of the floor at the Bank of America Center during Queensryche's soundcheck. Just me. I closed my eyes and smiled, and when I opened them, Geoff Tate had been watching me. He smiled, and looked at me while singing for the next minute. I thought my heart was going to explode. It was a fan's ultimate dream.
19. Jeff took me to New Orleans for my 43rd birthday and we had dinner at Commander's Palace. It was one of the best meals I've ever eaten.
20. Watching the Ramones perform at Bumbershoot in the late 90s was a wonderful bucket list show I will never forget.
21. I had just started working for the Museum of Flight in Seattle and it was my first fundraising auction. I saw a 'Day on the Set with Harrison Ford' package sell for $85,000 and was nearly ready to pass out. I purchased my first home for $82,000.
22. I shed a few tears the night Barack Obama was elected, because I really didn't think our country would actually shed its racism and elect him. Unfortunately, I would shed many tears of anger in the years to follow as I watched our country's racism rear its ugly head every time he tried to get anything done.
23. I was a diehard Republican from a Republican family until I moved to Seattle. After living in Seattle for 6 months and having a better standard of living than I had ever experienced, I embraced liberalism, and have never looked back.
24. I remember escorting a teenager into the women's clinic when a tall, fat man with a beard wearing a yellow t-shirt screamed in my ear that Jesus was going to send me straight to Hell. I muffled my laugh, got the girl inside the clinic, burst out laughing, and told her that I didn't have the heart to tell that guy that I was Jewish and we don't believe in Hell. She was at the clinic getting birth control pills and treatment for an STD.
25. I remember being consumed with rage after going out of my way to get out of class early, arrange a ride with my roommate to get to Planned Parenthood to have my annual pap smear only to have my appointment cancelled, because some asshole had phoned in a bomb threat. I was in my sophomore year of college. It would take me another two months to get to a make up appointment.
26. Stealing a package of Chocodiles from my dad's stash was always one of my favorite things to do.
27. The first time I had to sue an employer for shorting me on wages and benefits, I lost, but I didn't lose the second time I had to do it. Three years later, I would start my own business.
28. Fantasy Island and Star Trek were some of my favorite shows when I was a little kid, because anything could happen.
29. I'll never be able to thank Ray Missouri enough for introducing me to Blondie, Sex Pistols, and Pink Floyd when I was in the 2nd grade. My mom had to have surgery, we had no family to stay with, so CPS put us in a foster home with the Missouri Family. Ray was their adopted, teenage son who took it upon himself to educate me on what constituted "good music".
30. The first video I saw on MTV was Black Sabbath's "Paranoid". It's still my favorite Sabbath song to this day.
31. Jeff and I traveled to New York City less than a year before the Towers came down. We rode the train passing through the bottom floor and I commented that the last time I was there, when I was 19, you couldn't go near the Towers, because they had been bombed. I told him that they had re-built them so well you'd never would have known they were bombed.
32. Jerusalem was magic. I've never felt that way about any place I've ever visited. I'm a skeptic at heart, and a bit of a cynic, but there hasn't been a day that has gone by since I've been there that I haven't wished I could go back.
33. The moment I realized that I couldn't make a living in the music industry, because the business was changing too rapidly and there was no stability in it was one of the worst moments of my life. I cried hysterically while on the phone to my mom. Up to that point in my life, it was all I had ever wanted to do. A few months later, I ended up in the nonprofit world, but it took me years to feel like I belonged there.
34. Every now and again I think I was too old when I had Shayna. She has a difficult personality, and is very stubborn and persistent, which are things much easier dealt with at a younger age. She is 7 1/2 and still comes into our room to sleep in our bed at night. We are both too tired to kick her out and deal with the tantrum. We just figure she will age out of it.
35. I saw the first Star Wars movie (A New Hope) at a drive-in, and was ecstatic when I got the Luke, Leah, and Darth Vader action figures for my birthday. I was 6 years old.
36. My favorite video games to play at the arcade when I was in the 3rd grade were Asteroids and Ms. Pac Man. Now video games look like movies.
37. I never got into Dungeons & Dragons in high school, but once pretended to be into it just to get a guy to like me. It didn't last, and I felt stupid about faking my D&D interest for several years after that.
38. I was never afraid to fly after 9/11. Jeff and I went to Buenos Aires a month after the attack. I emailed my mom everyday from the business center at the hotel to assure her that I was safe, and called her the moment we got back to Seattle. My feeling always was that once we alter the way we live, the terrorists win.
39. Turning 40 was the only age I had ever dreaded, but the morning of my 40th birthday I woke up not giving a damn about pleasing anyone. I had shed every ounce of the need to be liked, to please people who didn't matter to my life, and to deal with bullshit. My biggest regret since then is not having had this attitude a heck of a lot sooner in life.
40. I knew the moment my mom passed away that I would be burying my dad within 5 years. She took care of him, and all of his health issues. I knew he wouldn't treat his health as well. He died 4 1/2 years after she did.
41. I used to stand next to the tv in my room on Sunday night with the volume turned down to 2, so I could watch the "Young Ones". I was in high school, and it came on past my bedtime, but I loved that show.
42. Watching Rachael do her Torah reading during her bat mitzvah was one of the best things I've ever seen. I have always been proud of my girls, but on that day, it was the most proud I had ever been of anything in my life, including my own accomplishments.
43. I've never not liked cartoons. I watched them when I was a little kid on Saturday morning (Flintstones, Space Ghost, Scooby Doo, Bugs Bunny), when I was an older little kid when Fox got its broadcast license (Inspector Gadget, He-Man), I watched them when I was in college (Ren & Stimpy, Beavis & Butthead, Aeon Flux, Liquid Television), and I watch them now (Family Guy, Robot Chicken, American Dad). It will be interesting to see what cartoons I'll be watching when I'm in the old folks home.
44. I've done a lot I regret. I've done a lot that I'm proud of. I spend every day trying my best to take care of my family, contribute to my community, and make the world a better place, while trying to improve myself. This will be my mandate for the foreseeable future, and if I can be a change agent in the process, I'm good with that, too.
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