“I’m not going to miss out on the experience of being 50 just because other people are uncomfortable with it.”
Here’s how I got to the point of making that statement…
So it’s a new year, and I’m 50. (That happened in October but I’m still figuring out what it actually means to me.)
Naturally, this is an adjustment and I’m thinking a lot about my age. Odds are pretty pretty good that I’m past the halfway point of my life. Typically, a deeper awareness of the inevitability of one’s mortality usually comes to us via some kind of health wake-up call, regardless of how many friends or family have gone ahead to the happy hunting ground. (love that metaphor for some reason…hehe…sounds like C.A.R.P.)
I had a bunch of problems with shortness of breath and dizziness over the holidays and I’m grateful I didn’t have a lot of gigs scheduled because I would only have had to cancel. But I passed a pulmonary machine test, 95% blood oxygen in fact, no signs or elevations that indicate infection or inflammation in my blood work, no diabetes, chest xray was clear (thank you Universe) tho they did hear a bit of wheezing, I’m pretty sure now it was my “volcano” vaporizer that was causing or at least exacerbating/compounding whatever is going on. She’s still sending me to a pulmonary specialist, even with that confession. This week I have a nerve conduction test in four limbs for suspected nerve compression and also a bone density test and something else…losing track. heh.
But the point of all of that is that they discovered inadvertently, that I have hypothyroidism. They don’t come right out and say, “You have hypothyroidism,” although probably if I was in the office getting the news instead of phone I would have been handed a pamphlet called “Hypothyroidism and You.” I’d put money on that one. Instead they have a nurse tell me, “Your thyroid is low, which pharmacy can we send the Synthroid to? Come back in six weeks to be monitored with another blood draw.” That’s it. I gave it the name all by myself.
Okie dokie, so according to THE INTERNET it’s most likely an autoimmune thing where my body will just progressively destroy my thyroid tissue and doctors will compensate with synthetic thyroid for the rest of my life. Groovy. But I’m actually freaking GLAD there is a reason for feeling so shitty all the time that you can do something about without creating more symptoms from side effects (unlike FMS) and equally fearful that this treatment,too, will prove not to make any damned difference at all. I had been given it therapeutically in the past by different doctors based on symptoms alone, before having the symptoms set blamed on candidiasis or fibromyalgia. But not one of them ever told me how to take the hormone so it would actually be absorbed, and no one ever said they wanted to monitor it. I didn’t have insurance so after a few weeks or when the first bottle ran out I would not get more because I could not discern enough difference in how I felt to justify the cost. But as it turns out if you don’t take it exactly right and for at least 6 weeks it can’t be absorbed or reach a therapeutic level. Sigh.
blah blah…I won’t bore you with anymore details on my health picture right now, but anyway…hmmm…hypothyroidism. (Took my very first pill last night. I woke up feeling very strange–what I think people mean when they say they “rested.” Placebo effect? Seems too soon to feel such a dif … ) Which brings me back to my original inspiration for this post…
I’m aging. I’m aware of it. I’m working to make peace with it.
Part of the struggle is changing my interpretation of different labels. Like “submissive” for instance. When I picture in my brain a submissive…well fuck me…what I see is a skinny 20 something on her knees. Not a fifty year old woman with sore knees. When I imagine thin, someone, me, that loses the weight I need (not just want) to lose, I imagine myself in my 20s, or 30s….again…not the reality that significant weight loss at my age makes you look significantly older, not fit and young. When I think of singers that actually perform the kind of music I write and like to sing, my music which ranges from comedy to smokey to downright comehitherandfuckme, I again picture youth, and what youth usually means, such as energy, no chronic pain…things I haven’t had access to for most of my life., but still, like everyone else, associate with successful performing female musicians (especially those just starting out), espeically ones that create and try to express erotic ideas/content, which I do. No matter what else I accomplish for the rest of my life, I cannot be young ever again.
Accepting my age also involves accepting and forgiving myself for the unnecessary damage I have done to my body to age it faster and write my fate for the second half of my life. I cannot undo the damage of sunburns to my skin that now tries to kill me (I’ve already had a melanoma), nor whatever I’ve done to my lungs from that 8 years of smoking cigs or 30 years of smoking cannabis off and on might have done (for both treating physical pain, depressions and anxiety, and yes, for fun). I can’t undo the damage in my knees and feet that carrying too much weight my whole life has done. I probably can’t remove any sludge I’ve already deposited in my arteries, or the carcinogens I knowingly ingested because I liked how it felt or tasted (like char-grilled meat). Add heredity.
And that’s just the health stuff. There’s also the whole “omg…what have I done with my life? Who am I? What does it all mean? I was supposed to have done X, Y, and Z by now. Oh God I may NEVER do X, Y, OR Z! Where do I really belong in the world? Where am I going? Wtf happens AFTER this? Will there be enough money to get to that point without undo suffering?” It’s actually pretty similar to the first time around when you are in your early 20s thinking of all that, but minus the “it’s late or about to be too late” and the “OMG I’m actually going to die some day, probably from a disease!” factors.
Then there’s how people treat you. It changes. “The Golden Girls” did not help, in my opinion. I’m not entirely sure “Desperate Housewives” did either. I no longer think Cher is actually human so I can’t use her as an example either. Well at least it opened the door to sex after 50 being a plausible concept, and even made it OK if it’s a bit sexy, kinky even. But I guess I still don’t feel represented. I tell myself there are others that might feel that way so maybe “I” can represent that for them. Maybe that’s my role, my place in music’s underground. But I have had people call me “Ma’am” lately. Shivers. And another musician wrote to me to say, “wow, you’re old. I’m sorry for you.” I think pity or thinking I’m just “cute” for trying is the worst thing you feel coming at you. And then down the line you also get to be considered increasingly useless and in the way. Can’t wait.
So I’m putting a stop to this bullshit line of media induced thinking right here. They can dish it up but I don’t have to ingest it anymore. I am sexual and erotic and musical and outspoken and full figured because I am, not because I have permission to be from society. I welcome society to embrace me or go fuck themselves, whichever it might enjoy most.
I’ve always said, “I don’t want to lie about my age. I want a medal for every year I pull off.” I’ve never meant that more. Because I’ll tell you something…
Aging takes courage.
Respect, Ren
RenascentWoman 