TAKING STOCK

TAKING STOCK

I’ve got another birthday headed my way, and I’ve been thinking of things I don’t give a shit about anymore. The stuff I don’t need, probably never dd. I compare it to a kid throwing candy wrappers out the car window after eating all the candy. A lot of crap blew out my window too, and I didn’t pay it any mind. So then this ridiculous question pops into my head.

Was this littering?

Oh my god. Are you kidding me? But the sillier the question, the more inclined I am to consider it. What might I discover about myself? Maybe something new!

Okay, what’s in the road behind me?? Well, caring about my looks. Enjoying the ability to attract a man. Not that I was a knockout, but I did have my day. My looks left on their own, that had nothing to do with me. I did have a choice, however. I could have bemoaned this loss, gotten a facelift, shots of botox, the whole nine yards, or I could have simply accepted it. Luckily I seem to have accepted it without even noticing. I had other things on my mind and I was writing about them. There’s nothing like writing. You get not just clarity, but a kind of satisfaction. Sometimes, it’s almost physical.

Am I vain about my writing? I write for myself, for the adventure of it, but if others like some of it, I am over the moon. I’m not vain, I am thankful.

I love that for years now I leave the house without checking in a mirror. I know what I look like. I am an old woman, eighty-four ir right around the corner. I am also perfectly willing to go out wearing the clothes I slept in because I was too lazy to take them off the night before. Sometimes two or three days before, if Im completely honest here. I will admit trying to whiten my teeth, but it’s really boring and I keep forgetting, so I fail. My ankles are now my best feature. I am proud of them.

I have memories of love, I have memories of sex, and of sex and love, and I remain grateful for them, but the freedom from being shackled to vanity is almost as good as knowing how to fly, although I would really like to be able to fly. If I were given the choice between flight and almost anything else, I might choose flight. Unless it was about Trump and his psycho-fants disappearing off the face of the earth. That would take precedence.

Oh my god. I might have written a gratitude list. My first one.

Because honestly, when all is said and done, I did eat all the candy.