Considering the Alternatives

If you think aging is bad, consider the alternative. - Every older volunteer with whom I ever worked

I turned forty-seven in October.

I'm still in that phase where I have to stop and think before I can say my age with confidence.

What surprises me is that I can say my age with confidence. Forty-seven. Forty-seven. Four decades plus seven years. Staring down fifty and not freaking out. I'm looking at the future as an opportunity, not a slow-fade.

When I was offered the opportunity to write this post in conjunction with Olay's 60th anniversary, they asked "Are you daring enough to shout your age to the world?"

Not one to exactly shout, unless I'm trying to get my children's attention, I'm more inclined to stage whisper "How did we reach the age of forty-seven already?" to my husband. He, by the way, is as fit as he's been in most of our years together and I like to think we're both aging gracefully - him because of all the running he's doing, me because I'm smart enough to use Olay as part of my skin care routine.

The point is we've spent the last twenty-five years busy with the busyness of life - working, raising kids, getting by.

Now we can look ahead. I'm sure our best years lie ahead of us.

Our bucket list keeps growing. We've got traveling to do. Races to run. Books to write and art to make. I look ahead and see less time with the vacuum cleaner and more time with a book in my hand. Less time worrying, more time to challenge what's possible.

Based on heredity, I've reached my mid-point. The last forty-seven years are a mixture of pleasure and sorrow, pride and regret, frustration and wonder. The things I've achieved weren't necessarily planned and the things I didn't achieve haunt me in the wee small hours when I can't sleep. Okay, that's a lie. I'm always asleep in the wee hours. The haunting happens when I'm behind the wheel of the car, but that doesn't sound nearly as romantic or safe, does it?

I mean, they don't make those little signs you can suction to your car window that read "Caution: Ruminating driver on board."

I look ahead and think I have two choices: I can continue to bump along on the currents and let life happen or I can set some goals and go after them like I didn't when I was busy doing the opposite of what I'd planned to do with my life.

In my planning, I sometimes skip ahead to the part where I'm in my seventies, my eighties. Contrary to what they may think, my daughters and I will dress in velour tracksuits of complimentary colors. Our hands manicured, our jewelry understated so that it doesn't clash with our reading glasses we wear on chains around our necks. We'll go places together and they'll roll their eyes at me as I try to decide whether to have the Matzo ball soup or the martini.

And after I've ordered both, we'll laugh, the lines around our eyes creasing with the sheer pleasure of being alive and together.

Olay is encouraging and rewarding women for checking items off their bucket list. What's on yours?

How do you celebrate your age? Let me know in a comment below for a chance to win a $100 Visa gift card courtesy of Olay.

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This giveaway is open to US Residents age 18 or older. Winners will be selected via random draw, and will be notified by e-mail. You have 72 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected.

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Am I too much for you to tame?

That was then...
In honor of the exchanging of the Speaker of the House gavel (insert gavel size joke here) that took place yesterday, I thought this would be a perfect time to introduce you to DCup.  DCup was my alter ego for a couple of years in the blogosphere.  Sometimes I really miss her.  When you blog under a pseudonym, there's a certain fearlessness based on some illusion of anonymity.  She was necessary.  I wouldn't have developed as a writer without her as a crutch.

I spent some time thinking about DCup as a result of this post at amyg's.  Amy blogs and is a columnist for a regional newspaper somewhere near where I grew up. This fascinates me.  Could I have ever been so brave to write with Amy's honesty were I still living in Rising Sun? Ooooh...I doubt it.  Everything would pass through the filter of what kind of face my mother would make as she read my columns.  So not pretty.  So I look at Amy with awe and respect.

When Amy wrote yesterday about her reaction to negative comments to her columns, I was reminded of how DCup got a boost by some negative attention in 2006.  You might say the negative attention played a large role in DCup getting readers.  You can read the progression here.  DCup has her own page now. Note: there is a photo that isn't 100% work or kid friendly.

Over time and after some funny conversations with my therapist, I decided to lay DCup to rest in late 2008, but there are moments when I wish I could be her again if only so that I could look that good in a lacy black bra.

This is now...
DCup's blog PoliTits is gone, but I still have access to the posts in my google reader.  I trolled through them yesterday to see if I could find my response to the post written about DCup in 2006.  (I found it.) In the process of scrolling through old posts, I was struck by how little has actually changed politically since 2006.  Some of the names are different, but the problems have actually grown worse.  It's so disheartening.

Looking ahead, I decided to back up this blog at Wordpress and then took the additional step of buying my own domain name.  I'll eventually move operations there, but I'll continue to blog here for a couple more weeks.  lisahgolden.com is live, but still a work in progress.  You're free to check it out and offer feedback.  I'll let you know here when I'll write new posts there in case you want to change rss feeds or bookmarks.

If you're still wondering how this relates to the exchange of the Speaker gavel, here's the answer. PoliTits, aside from the charming, subtle name, had its largest number of concentrated hits from people who searched the internet for photos of now former Speaker Pelosi's breasts.  Yes.  A woman achieves a historical milestone and people all over the globe turn to Google with some hope of finding photos of her breasts.

How do you feel about blogging anonymity? How much do you self-censor? Can you believe the size of Speaker Boehner's gavel?  Should we google pictures of his "gavel?"