I just sent my daughter a text which read in part "fuck a duck"  -- and I have to think how things have changed as the years go by.  My mother would have had a heart attack, foamed at the mouth, and laid flat out before she would ever use the word "fuck".  She actually used to spell "crap" - and then apologize.  How times have changed!!

I watch my children raise their children and am amazed -- how much they do together with their children - the places they go, the things they see, the experiences they have -- far more than I ever did with my children.  And definitely more than mine did with me.  Some difference, of course, is the money -- they are far better off at a younger age than I was -- but even the free things are outstanding. 

By the way, I am encouraging my grandchildren to have teen age sex (when they get there) so that possibly I can get Great Grandchildren somewhat sooner than later -- since I am somewhat older as a grandmother -- and I wish to see my Greats!

Bye for now.

There has to be somewhere where my heart can bleed out -- where I can express all the pain and the lonliness now that GiGi McGillacutty Stuart has been put down.  She was my best friend -- home with me for the last 12 years -- and I put her down.  I do not understand death.  I do not understand why she (and they) had to leave me.  I totally don't understand.  Life should go on.  Why must it stop?  My heart is not happy. 

And then you have....

Tomorrow I put GiGi down.  She is the last of my caretaking responsibilities.  For 33 1/2 years, I have cared for children, parents, couple of dogs and a cat.  Now they have, in effect, left me.  Some through death -- some from moving away physically -- and sometimes mentally -- Didn't think of myself as "caretaker" -- never ever considered that in defining me.  But now that GiGi is leaving me (I'm putting her down - but note that "she is leaving me"), I have to ask -- "what's left?".  It brings up so many questions -- Who am I now?  Who was I then?  Why can't I be that now?  What is life about?  What will the next 25 years be about?  No more caretaking leaves me with nothing important to do -- no one depending on me. 

Leaving - but not on a Jet Plane (Thank you Peter, Paul & Mary)

I never understood why my mother cried each time the kids, Darrell & I would leave their home in Buffalo - and head back to our home in North Carolina. Geesh - what's up with that? Ah youth. How stupid.

Well, my kids and my grandkids left this morning after a raucous, noisy, energetic 10 delightful day visit. And here I am crying. If I had to define it, it leaves me feeling old. Not sure why. I have a great life -- full, I thought. Until the kids leave. And then this emptiness sets in -- and I realize I will never be young....and as hard as I attempt to be part of their lives, that is all I am....a part. I can touch their youth. I can hold them hard. And then they go off -- to live their life. Like I lived mine.

And I lived mine well. Normal life. Never did make the big deal, remembered by everyone on earth person I thought I would be. But the song "My Way" has worked large in my life. So I have absolutely no, none, zilch, nada complaints.

But when the kids leave, I realize I am vulnerable to getting old. I am forever for the rest of my life going be a destination. A place to come and visit where we have fun, drink, eat, love, laugh, hug, enjoy -- and just when I am used to the noise that little ones make, YIKES it is quiet again. The quiet I thought I liked.

All of which means I am on my way to elderly. A long ways from it in my mind. Not so far away in years. There is no turning back. There is no grabbing my son and daughter and making them little ones again so we can go through it all again. No better or worse than last time. Just again.

Not going to happen. ( I am so not pleased with that reality.) (On the way to elderly, does one ever get pleased with that reality?)

If I cannot grab back that youth, then I am left with one option and one option only. I am going to have to live "on the way to elderly" loudly with gusto, enthusiasm, and "my way" just as I did their youth and mine.

So the next time they leave me for their homes out-of-state, I am not going to stand quietly crying in the doorway for none to see and none to know. Nope, I am going to run down the driveway after their car screaming at the top of my lungs "DON'T LEAVE ME!"

And that's how to act On The Way to Elderly.