Getting Juicy

I'm 25 today. And to my own credit, I'm elated. I've been telling people for the past 2 months that I was 25. It's an age that just seems to feel right. And aren't I just completely blessed to feel that way - happy with exactly where I'm at - considering this life is a runaway train that'll never turn around and go back. Do you think I'll feel the same way about being 26? Or am I just caught up in the novelty of my Golden Birthday and a number that's got a nice ring to it?

My favorite author, Anne Lamott, said this in an article she wrote for a literary journal whose name was inconveniently left off of the photocopy I obtained:

"I know many [women] who fear getting older, and I wish I could gather them together and give them my word of honor that every one of my friends loves being older, loves being in her 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s. My Aunt Gertrud is 85 and leaves us behind in the dust when we hike. Look, my feet hurt some mornings, and my body is less forgiving when I exercise more than I'm used to. But I love my life more, and me more. I'm so much jucier. And, like that old saying goes, it's not that I think less of myself, but that I think of myself less often. And that feels like heaven to me."

What choice do we have but to be content and satisfied with our lives if we trust in ourselves enough to know that at every moment, at every crossroad, we are being honest with ourselves and making decisions based on the entirety of who we have become?

Anne also encourages all women to be wives to themselves. Wives?
"...how kind to myself I have become, what a wonderful, tender wife I am to myself, what a loving companion. I get myself tubs of hot salty water at the end of the day in which to soak my tired feet. I run interference for myself when I am working, like the wife of a great artist would, 'No, I'm sorry, she can't come. She's working hard these days and needs a lot of downtime.' I live by the truth that No is a complete sentence. I rest as a spiritual act."

I hope that my 25th year will be full of naps (aka Natural Yoga), of new and old friends who provide me with clear reflections of myself, and of learning how to make this body even more my own.

I like being 25. It suits me well. There will be no looking back. Only looking forward...to becoming "jucier."

Martha Would Be Proud

So I have this plant in my office...wait, my cubicle...okay, my "work space." I'm not exactly sure what kind of plant it is, I think it's some kind of lilly. I have a tricky relationship with this plant - it involves the giving and taking of water, the sorrows of a drooping leaf, the joys of a solitary new flower, and the deep conversations that we have about things like formatting header/footers, bludgeoning the copy machine into submission, and the jerks who don't return my phone calls.

I've learned that if you're very patient and observant, a plant is much like a good pet. Plants let you know when they need attention, like when it's leaves start to die or go limp and sag to the table. Unlike their human counterparts, plants never argue with you or guilt you into doing things like taking them to the airport at 4:30 in the morning. And while they may lack a little bit in the sense-of-humor department, they sure know how to make you smile when they put up a new leaf or (if you're an attentive pet-owner) a new flower.

The "lilly" in my office has three flowers on it. That's more than the total number of flowers it's made in the year and a half I've owned it. I think it's producing these new flowers because I've really been investing a lot in our relationship lately (perhaps to the detriment of actually accomplishing real work while at the office but, shhhh, we wont talk about that). I attribute my plants recent attempts to provide me with flower-induced joy, to the long conversations that we have late into the evening, to the fact that I keep its leaves dust free, and that I don't wait until the leaves droop to give it water. This plant has taught me that, much like any furry pet, the more intimate you become with your herbivorous friend, the more satisfaction and joy will be bestowed upon you.