This is my first blog. I'm nervous, anxious and technically challenged. I'd rather write in Word. It's probably no different than writing a blog, but it feels different. I'm expressing my deeepest sense of self into virtual reality. It feels impersonal. I would prefer talking about living in my 60's face to face with a real person. But I'm forging on, taking a personal risk and dancing as if no one was watching.
I just finished writing a book called, So You're 60, Get Over It: Confessions of a Beatnik/Boomer. I had no intention of writing another book. My fantasy was to do stand up comedy. Soon after turning 64, well sometime before that probably, I began to think of my 60's as a pretty strange and funny time when all the rules of living I once abided by were totally gone. I wasn't really a parent anymore in the traditional sense; I was a cheerleader for my kids. I became a grandparent, but it was really somebody else's child, and I had no say as to how to raise my progeny. My children were adults and living their own life without my approval and caring less about my disapproval, which I could not voice. My sons had turned the child-parent paradigm upside down by parenting me instead a long time before this. I was now the one doing everything wrong. And since I am single and sometimes dating, I have to keep my social life separate from my family life. And if I didn't, the question was: why did I date losers? More important the dynamics of sex has changed and not for the good. Sex is part of a relationship negotiation at 60. Men and women are not having sex on a level playing field. Men are losing testosterone but women can replace estrogen levels and have a pretty good sex life. It is definitely time to try younger men.
Everything about my life us crazy except my work. I'm a yoga and meditation teacher fine tuning the spiritual mind/body connection living my Tao while practicing daily losing.
But sex preoccupies me. Not only do I like sex, but I also thint that sex in my 60's is particularly funny and strange and sweet and generally kind of an out of body experience. One Saturday night as I was attending my regular milonga, the place where I go to dance Argentine tango (more later on that other passions of mine), I told a female friend, a film director, that I my fantasy was to do stand up about sex in my 60's and all the various, idiosyncratic and funny situations I and other women my age have encountered. My friend replied to me: "That's more than stand up. You should write a book." And I did and it was blissful and cathartic and full of wonderment at discovering my transformation as a woman in my 60's.
So I put myself out there at 60, expose my innermost thoughts and desires and fears, looking for a way to be joyful and grateful every day for all my gifts of family and friends and yoga and tango and music. I'm inspired and hopeful.
Times are difficult for us all. It's not easy to find the humor in living with half my retirement gone, gone, gone and still working at 65 and looking at 66, 67, and 68 and on to 70 as working years. But I decided that the economic downturn gives me another gift: the ability to create, see clearer, be more inspired, and more loving to my family. Now if I could not stop obsessing about the DOW, I might be able to clear out most of my cobwebs and be more conscious.
I didn't mean to get serious in my first blog. But since I finished my book, the times got more serious for us Boomers. Bad economic news is a definite drag and causes depression. So can tax season. We'll all get past this moment because what goes down must come up. I'm an eternal optimist.
But right now, I've got to be a grandmother because the my grandsons, Jordan, 4, and Luc, 2, are getting up from their naps. Everyone is sick. Even Greyson, my youngest grandson (10 months) whom I babysat for yesterday. My entire family, including my ex-husband, are all in Las Vegas, both my sons and daughters in law, my 97 year old mother, my brother and his wife, and my best friend. I'm on my once a month weekend warrior visit. I don't go to Vegas for fun; I go to connect with my family. And sometimes it can be fun. Jordan just came into my room to ask me for a drink so I'm off to spend the rest of the weekend celebrating my oldest son's birthday (Jonathan, 37) and to hope that the rift between my sons (Aaron, 33) will begin to heal. I feel like I'm a bottle of glue with arms and legs stretching out to bring my family some peace and hope.
This is not what I expected from being in my 60's. Where is my script? My cheat sheet? My advanced curriculum for Living 101? I'm winging it like everyone other Boomer.
More later.
Namaste
The divine in me recognizes the divine in you.
Joan
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