"I gave that bastard the best years of my life!" cries the over-weight, middle aged lady's reflection, while she is examining her facial creases. She puckers her lips and shakes her head at the amount of lines framing her upper lip. She had (erroneously) assumed only smokers would have that problem. She holds up her eyebrows for a makeshift eyebrow lift but that just produces deeper wrinkles on her forward. She stops and stares, then reaches both hands toward her hair line, pushing the forehead back and sees that the eyes get a bit of a lift. She thinks, "Oooh. That's nice. I may look like I'm startled but at least my forehead is much smoother."
As I walked away from the mirror wondering when this new found 'vainness' showed up, I asked myself, did I really give that bastard the best years of my life? Or were my roaring twenties the best years?
Was my life so perfect in my 20's?
Sure, I weighed around 110 pounds but my diet consisted of margaritas, tequila shots, and tequila slammers. Dinner would have been a wedge of lime.
I worked full-time during the day and attended college part-time at night. I lived paycheck to paycheck and lived to P.A.R.T.Y! My schedule looked like this: Monday night: (college classes) Tuesday night (nothing), Wednesday night (college classes), Thursday night (happy hour), Friday night (happy hour), Saturday night (club hopping) and Sunday (hangover recoop day . . . which always meant a little "hair of the dog"). This schedule would be repeated every week.
So I'm gonna say my early 20's to mid 20's were not my best years. Fun maybe, but not the best.
My late 20's had me moving to another state to attend college full-time. Looking back, I don't think those three years would be considered my best either. Mainly because I was waiting for my life to happen instead of making my life happen.
I met the vileman around 30 and though we spent a little more than a year apart from late 2001 to early 2003, during that time, he was always "present" (if that makes sense). In other words, I was unable to get rid of him back then.
I think my self-esteem took a dive off a cliff in 1995 and sunk like the Titanic.
My 30's and early 40's had me caring for others, yet ignoring my own needs. I worked but it was a job, not a 'career' and I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom. I thought if I became a stay-at-home mom, I would have time to lose all the weight . . . I only gained more. My wardrobe as a stay-at-home-mom wasn't cute like I had envisioned. It consisted of shorts, tee shirts from Walmart and flipflops. Instead of getting more sleep, I got less. But biggest mistake of all, I quit living and experiencing things, using the excuse "I'm too fat" to meet new people, go to church, go to office parties, and so on.
The truth is, I haven't given anyone or myself the best years of my life.
The best years of my life are happening now. I'm happier, older, wiser . . . ahem; my drowned self-esteem has been resuscitated. I'm in rebuilding mode.
When you rebuild, you make it stronger and better.
And what about those wrinkles?
For now, I'm going to call them life lessons . . . I may have lost my way over the past 25 years but I know I'm now on the right path.
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13 comments:
The best years of your life aren't an age, they're a feeling. They're a happiness, they're the ability to look back and think 'whatever I did and however I got there, it was worth it and I don't regret it. That's what you have a chance at now I think, to live without regret and to look at yourself and no that each step you take is putting you where you want to be.
Love the ending of this post!
Hey a few weeks with your favorite new creams and I bet your skin will be more beautifu;!
you'll love this - a woman's (in my free weights class) grandmother thinks WE are all going to have more smoker's lip wrinkles because of drinking out of water bottles! She may be on to something. (We had a long discussion about the water bottles that day.) But at least it is water. In the grandma's day it would have been cocktails and cigarettes. . .
Much of what you talk about I call "waiting". I still feel that way much of the time. It is waiting or "perpetual waiting". I can't figure out if it is disordered thinking or just part of the package deal of having kids.
http://lynnsweigh.blogspot.com/2009/02/this-is-time.html
If you don't normally read Lynn's blog - you might want to go read this one.
Good for you, Doc! Absolutely, the best years of your life are just starting.
You've only just begun to live!!
I know what you mean - and from now on, these will be the best years of your life!!
I love reading your posts - I still think you should be a writer!! ;)
The best is yet to come! Go get it!
I love your attitude...believe it or not, reading you always cheers me up! :-)
You know what the turtle in Kung Fu Panda says... "The past is history, the future is a mystery, today is a gift. That's why they call it the present." Today is all any of us have. You are really making a difference in your today's. Very inspiring posts. (And I'm sure a lot of people would examine their 20s and go, good gracious that was a lost decade.)
I love this post! You could play with it a bit and sell it for one of those 'my turn' columns in magazines. :D
I love that line....waiting for my life to happen instead of making it happen....
How true those words are!
I think the best years of your life are the ones being lived right now!
As for those wrinkles....you earned them! Some people never live long enough to even get them.....
Not sure where to post this but I wanted to ask if anyone has heard of National Clicks?
Can someone help me find it?
Overheard some co-workers talking about it all week but didn't have time to ask so I thought I would post it here to see if someone could help me out.
Seems to be getting alot of buzz right now.
Thanks
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