"One, Singular Sensation..."

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I'm feeling pretty good right now. I was at a simcha dance class tonight and was talking to our perky, young teacher after class. She is an adorable and lovely young adult who can take a bunch of women ranging from 30 - 50+ and make dancers out of them while encouraging them with her enthusiasm and positive comments.

Anyhow, after class we were talking about university. I told her I attended university from 1980 - 1983, and then asked her the "forbidden" question: "Were you even born then?" She smiled and said no, and when I further asked, she said she was born in 1985. I said, "Oh, I feel old." "Really?" she said. "I don't see you as old."
"I'll be 45 this year." "Really? If anything, I'd have thought you're maybe 35."

I love this girl. I asked if I could keep her with me in my back pocket to pull her out whenever I needed a compliment.

Last week someone told me that I didn't appear to be anywhere close to 45.

But... This past year, when I turned 44, and people at work wished me happy birthday, I asked one of them, a newer fellow employee, if she knew how old I was. She said she didn't and I told her to guess. She didn't want to and I insisted...simply because I'm used to people thinking I'm between 5 - 8 years younger. So I thought I'd perhaps hear her say "40?" Anyhow, what came out of her mouth? "Um...45?" DAMN ME for having asked. Here, instead of making me younger than I am, she even aged me by a year!

Yes, the gray hairs are in among the brunette ones, the fine lines are slowly starting to draw themselves on my hand and along my mouth (just 'cause I smile so much...of course!), but I'm not yet needing bifocals, thank the Lord!

I think I continue to view the world (and I know I've written posts similar to this one, thus I'm repeating myself) through the eyes of my twelve-year-old self. I converse with people my age or even older, and all along, I feel like I'm a little kid, and I often wonder if others besides my parents, siblings and sometimes husband perceive me the same way. One of my best friends' favorite expressions over the years to me has been, "Pearly, you're such a child." (said with an exaggerated real downhome, Southern accent) Now, I'm not immature in any noticeable way so that's not why she's said it, or why my husband sometimes says, "You're a little girl." I think it's that wondrous, in-awe-of-the-world expression that I show, still discovering new and wonderful things and seeing life in very simple terms, content and sometimes very happy to let others take the reins and lead my horse...on the merry-go-round of life.

YOUTH? Fleeting, for sure, but for some of us, it decides to linger just a little bit longer...and for that I'm most thankful.

An Observation

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For the past month or so, I've been turning to some of my favorite blogs and finding that the writers are announcing that they're suffering from "blogger's block" or "post lull syndrome". Several have given us a heads-up that they will not be as in-your-face with their posts, taking a back seat for a while.

Truth is that I've been laughing inwardly and thinking: "How could these people not have anything to write about? There's so much going on in the world, in personal lives, in fact there are not enough hours in the day to get the ideas down on screen."

My mind works very disjointedly -- the thoughts just tumble down one after the other, shoving each other to get out of my brain and onto the screen. "How could there possibly be not anything to write about?"

Suddenly, to my utter surprise, I understand what these bloggers are talking about. You can't be "on" all the time, collecting material for your next posts...or I've decided that I can't be. The idea drawer is pretty empty lately.

Perhaps I'm just having a really good time reading others' blogs and putting in time adding my often-creative comments to their posts. Perhaps there's not much left of me after that to call my own.

I realize that although I do get personal in my blog, I truly hold back a lot. Yes, if I gave it my all, posts would continue to be attempts at "funny" or "lightly amusing" but I think they also would be deeper, more honest, just a pure release of what I'm truly thinking or feeling, with no personal barriers erected.

But of course I can't do that...the whole world is watching, and listening. And so, I hold myself and my thoughts in check. Blogging takes up a huge chunk of my day and night; I show little self-discipline when it comes to this medium. Because of writing on my blog and reading other blogs, I've shirked many responsibilities and I've seen the impact.

A couple weeks ago, my daughter -- very justly, I might add -- accused me of being "married to the computer. You like it more than you like us. You love it..." When an eight-year-old tells you to your face something you know she shouldn't have to, it's saying a lot. When my ten-year-old son tells me that I should've been making school lunches at night instead of being on the computer, and that I have to rush in the morning, it says more than it should. And when the same child accuses me of being to blame because "Abba turned off the Internet 'cause of you" that says a lot too. And when your work-work suffers because you check out blogs instead of copy editing, that's saying too much.

So, I, too, will try to back off of writing so frequently, unless something wild and wonderful inspires me to post. There are enough fine blogs out there -- most of them funnier and more inspiring than mine. If you don't get a daily or weekly Pearlie of Wisdom, you're not missing too much. You'll still see me and sometimes my words visiting your blogs.

So until next time...