Buttercupchappati Chronicles

counting back or counting down?

Happy birthday to me.

51

Now come on, that is just a strange strange number.
51
Really?

Everyone thinks of 50 as a kind of half way marker (but do I really want to drag myself all the way to 100? Only if everything still works and I can look after it all by myself!). But if the way is downhill, why do the numbers go up? Maybe it's pushing those increasing numbers along that wears us out? I don't know.

I do know what makes me feel old, and what makes me connect with my younger self - who is never very far away.

Feeling old:

Housework, I'm telling you, it's killing you in all sorts of ways

Pictures of 70's fashion

Hanging out with people who decided early on in life that they were old

Being good at Trivial Pursuit

There is a hemline age marker you cannot cross, I cannot even define it, but when you try on something that is too short you just know, and it need only be too short by a  millimetre but it is tooooo short. sigh.

Writing thank you notes, apparently that makes me a dinosaur

Feeling young:

Well most of the time really but especially when I am with my boys, they get older not me!

Skipping, yep still a skipping girl

Peanut butter on toast

Earrings, and remember there is no such thing as a complete set

Red anything but especially lipstick and underwear

Laughing - best beauty cream in the known universe, forget about smile and laugh lines, they are proof that you are a living laughing being. Who wants to go to their grave with a smooth un-used face?

Buying the short dress anyway

And lastly, love love love, you know it's true what Saint John of Lennon said, it is all you need.

 

 

 

an open letter to whoever is in charge

the creator?

Whatever, that will do for now.

Thank you, yes I slept much better last night knowing that my laundry is now a place of cleanliness and order.

Why?

I mean, re-play that sentence in your head (as my number two son so often says to me after one of my comments). What in this life is so good about having a clean laundry?

In fact, what in this life is so good about having a clean house?

Is this some obscure cosmic joke? Ah yes, lets fit the girl babies with the cleaning gene, oh yeah, and ovaries.

Because, with respect, there were a thousand more important or even enjoyable things I could have done with that time. Same for the household males who were press ganged into helping. (Although, only have moderate pain on that front, most of the mess was theirs.)

The boys tell me, with great glee, that when faced with the prospect of visitors, I come over all 50's housewife and go into a frenzy of housework and properness. Yes, properness, if it is not a word, it should be, and is now.

And I have seen it happen over and over in intelligent, creative, important, busy women, whose lives are crammed full. Cleaning rears its ugly monster self, and in the grip of this beast everything else fades away.

Maybe it's the gathering thing, while the men are out hunting we are gathering up their crap from all corners of the cave.

But for the record, next time I would rather lie on the couch, eat Turkish Delight and watch Oprah save the world, again.