Tag: Marriage

Why A 50 Year Old Woman Don’t Give A Damn

Picture, if you will, the next few scenarios I am about to share that, as of late, have become extremely commonplace in my daily walk. Scenarios that I have to laugh about and make light or I might punch someone in the titty one day. I encourage you to continue reading at your leisure but also to turn around NOW if you scare easily. If you’re a lady under 50, I recommend you take notes. If you’re a lady over 50…use this as comfort in knowing that you’re not alone. Hopefully some giggles erupt over some of the crap that is our penance to Aunt Flo for finally getting rid of her for good and WITHOUT being due to a pregnancy. LOL!!!

{Sending out a round of celebratory high fives as we have finally arrived!}

My day began something like this. While walking back to the bedroom this morning to try and remember why I had originally walked to the kitchen, I sneezed unexpectedly and tweaked the back that had JUST started feeling a little better from a lake weekend where we spent two nights in an unfamiliar bed, all while starting to sweat profusely in a room that is clearly 68 degrees, per the thermostat. Sound familiar?

Just the thought of that moment had me shaking my head in disbelief, but it reminded me of the other day while I was talking to my husband about a new hangout spot we had built in our back yard. I was trying to tell him that I wanted a new set of “things” for which I could not think of the English word to save my life. A new sitting spot where the two new “things” would be almost facing each other with a small table in between to put drinks while sharing a delightful conversation or a hearty laugh. Chairs! I wanted a new set of CHAIRS! I could verbalize that I found them on Amazon at a great price, they could be delivered the same week and they were comfy because I had sat in one several times at the salon where my daughter works. But I could NOT think of the word CHAIR! What is wrong with my brain?! I am a writer and the main thing that makes a writer a writer is the use of words! And I couldn’t think of a basic, everyday, mundane word such as CHAIR. LOL! Well, guess what. I’m going to turn this into an infomercial and say “But wait…there’s more!”

If you’re happy and you know it, thank your meds! ~ Quote by Maxine, created by John Wagner and copyright owned by Hallmark Licensing, LLC

All of my friends and family know that I have been a long time fan of Hallmark movies; watched them every Saturday and Sunday morning before the rest of the household woke up since 2018 and occasionally during a week night if we don’t sit outside on our back porch after work. But now, when I sit in the recliner, that magic recliner dust, to which all 50-and-aboves become allergic, kicks in and the Hallmark starts watching me. My how quickly those roles reverse! {smh}

To allow this story more time to unfold, I can say that most of you know I’m a Hospice Social Worker and have been for a lot of years now, which keeps me in my car the majority of the day driving from patient to patient. Once I’m inside the patient’s home, I typically sit some more. Nowadays, if there is more than a 45 minute drive between patients, my left hip, which I now refer to as “my old lady hip”, IS GOING to start doing this thing where it feels inflamed or pinched and the only thing that will make it stop is to stand up and stop stressing it out by sitting on it too long. Is this what my sweet little southern Grandmama who used to drive a tractor to rake hay every summer and fried the BEST fried chicken this side of the Mississippi used to call “the bursitis”?! Did I finally come of age and earn my BURSITIS and is this my BURSITIS ACTING UP?!? Damn. LOL!!!

And for the love of all that is Holy and good, please don’t create a minor inconvenience for me…I will literally blow up inside…internally combust…and even though I have a very experienced, professional-grade poker face and can bite my tongue with the best of them…just don’t. This is to protect your feelings, not mine. Mine can’t be hurt any longer because I don’t have any. (It is currently in question as to whether menopause or all of these years as a social worker stole said feelings. The jury is still out, but what I can tell you though is that they…for certain…ain’t there! LOL!!!) So help me, help you…and just don’t. =)

This would be a good place to also insert “zero tolerance for dumb”. But that could be a whole post to itself, so let me NOT go down that rabbit hole today.

I now cry if the hubby doesn’t snuggle with me before falling asleep…is he mad at me…is he rethinking his choice to marry me…does my breath stink…are my hairy legs grossing him out. Yet, starts sweating the second hubby snuggles; sad to mad in a tenth of a second. Dammmittttt. (To be clear, not mad at him of course…just the stupidity of this whole situation. LOL!)

Seriously.

I know.

I can’t even stand myself some days. LOLOLOL!!!

And finally, we can’t leave out the fact that oftentimes I wake up in the middle of the night with my elbow KILLING ME and fingers and hand hurting; yet my fingers and hand are strangely numb at the same time. All because I chose to sleep on my belly with my elbow bent at too severe of an angle. Heaven forbid you should bend a bendy thing and rest your head on it for a while expecting no consequences other than some comfy sleep, because there are definitely consequences other than comfy sleep. (Insert millionth eye roll in this spot.)

Good times folks! Good times.

So this is me. This is my life now. LOL!!! I don’t even know if my RBF is really RBF anymore. It might need to be changed to RMF. Resting Menopause Face! (Insert sinister giggling in this spot.)

This my friend, is an excellent depiction of “Why a 50 Year Old Woman Don’t Give A Damn”. She is tired, she hates dumb and dumb is everywhere, she is dealing with aches and pains that have comical origins, gets hot for no apparent reason other than her hormones think she should sweat like a man digging ditches by hand in south Florida in the middle of August…RIGHT NOW…not later. Right now. She simply no longer has the energy to filter what comes out of her mouth because of ALL THE THINGS. LOL!!!

Shaking my head as I sit here and sip my coffee and think the next post should be written in honor of all the men who live with us, don’t kill us and never lock us up in the shed for some peace…though they consider it daily! Cuz, man! Truth be told, y’all are the real MVP’s! Coffee cups all over raised to you guys! Right ladies?!?

~paula

Are You Having a Cookout?

{Our view of the back yard from the porch}

The weekend was finally upon us. The ever cherished, elusive, long awaited Friday afternoon had finally arrived. I made it through my work day in time to get back into town for a scheduled grocery pick up. Patient visits completed for the week, phone calls placed tying up all of the loose ends, community resource referrals made…even found a moment to stop for a pee break…you know…the typical Home Health and Hospice Social Worker day. As I sat in spot #21 staring off into space trying to shake off the week, the young man arrived with my gabillion dollar prize…two weeks worth of groceries. Pleasantries swapped, bar codes scanned, agreed upon car door opened and groceries piled into the car. Magic! The next comment got my attention. “Are you having a cook out?” I said “we are” with a smile on my face. It’s a very common question when we check out.

Love the life you live, live the life you love. ~Bob Marley

A fairly common assumption was made from the looks of what was actually a very common grocery list that happens literally every time I get paid. Meats, charcoal and beer. I mean there are veggies, snacks, toiletries and other household items, but why wouldn’t every single cashier or grocery pick up worker not assume we are having a cookout? This young man had no idea we buy this stuff every two weeks; had no idea that we cook that much meat on the grill each week. He had no idea we have a “cookout” numerous days per week. I have often said “every night is a Friday night at the Cox House”. And that’s basically the truth. We love hanging out on the back porch with a beer and a cigar, something yummy on the grill or in the smoker. It’s simply what we do. It can be just the two of us, part of the family, the whole family or just a friend or two. If it’s what we love, why not do it several days a week?

{The red rocking chairs where you can find my behind OFTEN}

The Bob Marley quote came to my mind. “Love the life you live, live the life you love.” I smiled inwardly and mouthed, “We’re doing it Bob, we’re doing it.” I definitely whispered it though so the grocery pick up guy wouldn’t think I had lost it. Ha!

What are the signs you’re ‘loving the life you live and living the life you love’? Are you? We definitely work to live around here; we don’t live to work. There’s definitely a difference. What are your thoughts? I think you should grab a cup of coffee…or a cigar… and see what you figure out for yourself. I challenge you to make some changes if you need to. I did. Life is too short folks! =)

~paula

Marriage and Term Limits

I have said a couple times lately that I think the fine institution of marriage needs term limits; like at year 15, you both could yell “SWAP”. Ha! What that vision would include is that somewhere during year 12 when you fantasize about pinching their nose clean off their face because they continue to leave their crap all over the house for you to clean, you could just tell yourself, “don’t do it, just a few more short years”. Ha! (I feel the need to insert “just kidding” right here. Hopefully that wasn’t necessary, but either way, just wanted to be on the safe side. Ha!)

I do have something on my mind though about this very topic. Picture this. You’re sitting at your desk when a new co-worker comes around to meet you. The both of you hit it off nicely and after a week or so of brief office chit chat, you go for a quick lunch one day. After several quick lunch dates that go fairly well, you decide to go out for dinner and a movie one Friday night. It gets to where you start noticing increased heart rate; a little excitement when you see this new interest round the corner to your office or when you see their name pop up on your phone; you feel your cheeks blush with certain eye contact or simple touches and just the thought of a kiss makes you giddy with anticipation. You begin hanging out more and more, determine that you are now going steady and get to the moment of saying those precious three little words, “I love you.” After that, you are attached to the person…feelings of possessiveness come into play, they are yours…your special person. You feel safety when you’re with them and seek them out while in a crowd. You’re just naturally drawn to them.

Typically the next step would include meeting the families, later getting engaged and finally marriage…Lord willing and the Creeks don’t rise. Right? So which part is the love part? All those mushy feelings or the part where you say “I love you”…which to me signifies that you will love them or continue the act of loving them for an undetermined amount of time? With this comes the question of today…is love a noun or a verb?

I’ve come to realize that we have a very skewed view of love when we see love as the noun…those mushy feelings if you will. Let me just tell you, feelings come and go as quick as Aunt Sally’s Homemade Banana Pudding or Uncle Fred’s Scratch and Win Lotto money. (insert eye roll)

Marriages have been thrown away for the sheer fact that one or both spouses don’t feel like they love the other any more. If love is a feeling, then yes, you probably don’t love them anymore. If love is an action (verb), you can choose whether you do or not. I think real change happens in a failing marriage when you come to view love as an action and not a feeling. You can make that choice to “act” all day long, but feelings, you have no control over; they come and go with the wind.

When we vow to love someone for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, til death do us part, do we really know what we are promising? I’ve posed the question before…if we knew what til death do us part meant for us as a couple, would we still walk that aisle?

As a hospice Social Worker, my eyes are wide open as to what that phrasing means. We are saying that we will love our spouse until they take their final breath; that we will wipe their behind when they are unable to do so themselves; that we will make difficult decisions about nursing home placement; that we will spend some lonely years when the kids move out to live their own dream; that we will possibly lose our ability to help our mate when they experience a decline in health because we ourselves are experiencing a decline in health; we may look at each other from one wheelchair to another and chuckle at the fine situation you both find yourselves in this time.

Of course, all of this time from the aisle of the church to a spouse’s final breath is riddled with bad but also with much good. Funny memories are created from eating Ramen Noodles and dented-can-mystery-meat from the clearance bin because diapers and formula are super expensive; moments spent on the back porch after the babies are down for the night; sweet moments spent on the couch under a cozy blanket while you watch television…or while the television watches you cuddle and smooch; moments of pride as you see your children grow and chase their own dreams; grandbabies being born…just so many good times also.

I find myself back to the difficult question of how can one couple make it to the final breath and some make it only to ten years and a divorce attorney? I’ve decided it’s all in your perspective. You can make that choice to love or you can hit the road the moment the mushy feelings flee the scene. But I can assure you, the next relationship you run to will entail all of those same feelings initially but they too will finally dissipate. How many times do we change partners to chase those feel good mushy lovey dovey feelings that accompany new love? How many is enough?

Sipping some delicious warm soothing “muddy water” as a friend recently called it and thinking to myself that after 26 years of marriage…and no term limits…I might better view love as an action because those mushy feelings have been g-g-g-gone for a minute now. Ha! ~paula

For Whom Do You Sing Harmony?

I adore singing in the choir. I have some of my most carefree moments of each week…goofing, laughing, singing, harmonizing and practicing with my fellow choir members…who just happen to be some of my closest friends.

I sing alto, as did my sweet little mama. She managed to teach me that I would love choir…or else. Ha!

During my early years in choir, she was my choir director. Let me just tell you, when your mama was the choir director…you sang in the choir. Needless to say, I can’t say I always had a passion for singing or harmony, but it is now as much a part of who I am as my skin color, eye color, hair color and my facial features. I LOVE TO SING.

But to say I love to sing, is not really the full picture of what I love about this topic. I do sing pretty much all day long…in between patients, on the way to church, in the shower, while I listen to music on the beach… I even have to school myself NOT to hum while I’m in a conversation with someone because it could be construed as inattentiveness to what is being said. I have it bad. Ha! But the truth of what I love about singing is the harmony.

When I sing to the radio, I’m full on harmonizing. I sing alto in the choir which is primarily harmony. I feel a little disappointed when the alto line has to sing the melody and the sopranos have to bust out the harmony.

Sidenote: I realized recently that Sopranos don’t typically like to sing harmony either…so music writers…stop that. Ha! On second thought, maybe you should keep doing that occasionally so we are forced out of our comfort zones more often. But that’s a whole other topic.

Google depicts harmony as a noun that is: 1- the combination of simultaneously sounded musical notes to produce chords and chord progressions that have a pleasing effect. 2- agreement or concord. Synonyms: accord, agreement, peace, peacefulness, amicability, friendship, fellowship, cooperation, understanding, unity, rapport, like-mindedness. Basically, in music, harmony is a note that compliments the main note, the melody.

As you have gotten to know me…you knew I wouldn’t be able to let this go, right? You knew I would have to take this a step further. I couldn’t just let the definition of harmony be the end, right? There are so many life lessons all wrapped up into this one little topic. (#deepthinkerprobs)

I think that in life, we have to be the harmony to our fellow man’s melody.

As a Social Worker, I must be the harmony to my patient’s melody as I work along side them as they make decisions. I absolutely can not be the melody for my patient or families. They are the melody. I am the harmony. I accompany them as they make decisions they will live with for the rest of their lives. They are the lead. I provide necessary accompaniment.

As a wife, I must be the harmony to my husband’s melody. In this day and age it is frowned upon to say this, but he has the task of leading and I have the task of accompanying him as he accomplishes that task. Do I always play perfect harmony with him? Like, a big hell no to that. He makes me angry and crazy and absolutely nuts at times and I purposely turn that harmony right into a ‘dissonant’ chord. (Fellow music folks, do you see what I did there? Ha!) But luckily, dissonant chords are a ‘thing’ also. When a dissonant chord resolves itself into beautiful harmony again, life is good, right? That means kissing, folks. And kissing is good, right? Ha!

Moving right along. As a mother, I must be the harmony to my children’s ambitions in life. They have so many decisions to make along the way. I can’t run their lives for them. As much as we want to stop them from making the same mistakes we made, they have to live their life on their own. We can educate…harmonize, if you will…but we have to let them be their own melody. At the end of the day, they are the ones who have to lie their head down on their own pillow at night and live with their own thoughts. Not us. We live with our own thoughts.

I should probably revisit my earlier comment “we have to be the harmony to our fellow man’s melody”. What does that really mean? If we are always the harmony for others, when do we get to be our own melody? Almost always would be the answer. If everyone learned to compliment other’s melodies, there would always be someone available to be your harmony as well.

“Your true character is most accurately measured by how you treat those who can do nothing for you.” – Mother Teresa

Just sipping some Vanilla Bean Crème Brûlée Coffee and thinking about puttin’ on a kitchen concert. Where’s my spatula mic??? I’m about to bust out some major harmony…whose gonna tackle the melody for me??? ~paula