July 6th - Another Year Older

Well, today is my 52nd birthday. Our plan was to go to Little Italy yesterday to celebrate, but I have been afflicted with something that I believe is TMJ - and which is causing me a lot of pain. I was up at 3 this morning, reading emails and looking for blogs to read. The email part was fun, because this feature on facebook allows people to put my birthday on their calendar, and it is quite amusing to me to receive birthday greetings from old high school friends who I haven't spoken with in many, many years.

As for the blogs, well, it seems most people have taken a blog break, cause there wasn't much new out there!

Years ago, my son Joe declared there were 2 types of older females. A "lady" is a thin, beautiful female, with long hair. A "woman," on the other hand is an overweight female, usually with short hair. He did not hesitate to point out that I am a woman. Now whenever I hear the terms "woman" or "lady" I find myself thinking in terms of his definition. I wonder if I ever get thin in this lifetime and if I ever grow my hair out, if I can qualify as a lady. But being a woman is not all bad. I think of a woman as being more seasoned than a lady; someone who works harder; someone who's been around the block. So today I will define myself as a 52 year old woman.

I have had mixed feelings on the facebook concept for a long time now. At first it was fun, and then I thought ok, I've been there and done that, and there's nothing more to do. Then my friend Sharon convinced me to put my maiden name in there (I argued and said why bother) and I believe she was right in that - more people came out of the woodwork. I will say that most of the people I've "friended" (Sharon, who is in the know, corrected me when I said "befriended" and told me "friended" is the correct term) were not people I was good friends with in high school, but it is fun seeing what they are up to now. It seems most of my fellow Clevelanders have left Cleveland for places south and west.

A few weeks ago, I received a facebook message asking if I'd like to meet for lunch; one of the transplanted ladies (yeah, she's thin with long hair) was going to be in town and wanted to meet for lunch. I hesitated, cause I do work for a living, but then decided I could take the time off, and life is short, and I should do this. So I went. There were 7 of us who got together, and I have to say, it was surprisingly enjoyable. We had little conversations with whoever was next to us, and bigger conversations with the whole table, and I was surprised by how much in common I had with these people. As I looked around, I thought I really wasn't friends with any of them in high school, but it was very easy to talk to them, and it occurred to me that we had more in common than I thought. I think just growing up in the same period, in the same place, gave us that commonality. As an adult, I seldom meet people who I can just fall into an easy conversation with (other than the blogger friends I've made this past year, who are surprisingly open and friendly)!

So, as I wait for my dentist appt in mid-morning, I will hope to be pain free so that I can celebrate yet another year of being a woman.