Didn't My Skin Used to Fit?

by Martha Bolton

  Go, Vols!

  Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.

  —2 Corinthians 4:16, NIV

  10

  InfomercialParadise

  Some say the older you get the less sleep you need. At fifty, you might be getting by on only six or seven hours of sleep. By the time you reach sixty, four or five hours may be all you need. Get to seventy, and not only are you staying awake at night watching every infomercial on television, you’re probably squeezing in a 3:00 A.M. trip to the twenty-four-hour Wal-Mart, too.

  One reason we require less sleep as we grow older could be all the naps we take throughout the day. I’m not talking about those after-lunch comas that hit people of all ages. I’m talking about that uncontrollable dozing off that seems to hit middle-aged people without warning. It’s that overwhelming urge to get in a few winks, whether you’re having a root canal, talking on the telephone, or running for a bus.

  My husband takes a lot of naps. He can sleep virtually anywhere, but his lounging areas of choice are the sofa, the easy chair, the car, the floor, the pew, airline seats, the desk at business meetings, and once in a while, the bed. He can get by on a twenty-minute nap here, a thirty-minute nap there, and only four or five hours of sleep at night.

  Another reason we sleep less as we grow older is because we know the party’s almost over and we don’t want to miss out on a single thing. It’s the same reason football fans stay at the game until the very end, even when their team’s losing 49–0. It’s why people don’t sleep through the last fifteen minutes of a good movie. They’re afraid they’ll miss the best part.

  Do the math. If we’re in our forties now and are lucky enough to have the genes to make it to our eighties, our lives are already half spent. We should be savoring these days, hours, minutes, even seconds, not sleeping through them. Who wants to oversleep and wake up just in time to hear, ‘‘Your life will be closing in ten minutes. Please take all your purchases to the nearest counter and exit through the main doors on your left’’?

  Life’s too important to snooze our way through it. There’s too much to do, too much to see, too much to be a part of. If the food processor they’re featuring on that 3:00 A.M. infomercial really does dice, slice, chop, mince, puree, and provide therapeutic counseling for my vegetables, I want to know about it. If there’s a store open twenty-four hours within a ten-mile radius of my house, I’m going to be out there in the wee hours of the morning supporting it. After all, the people working in the twenty-four-hour Wal-Marts and Kmarts, all-night restaurants, and gas stations are no doubt just like us. They’re trying to stretch every moment they’ve got left, too. I think ‘‘Attention Kmart shoppers’’ has a subliminal message. It’s a code for ‘‘Life’s too short. Stop and smell the roses . . . in our Garden Center at the rear of the store, for $12.98 a dozen.’’

  Time is going to steadily tick by—ticktock, ticktock—and there’s nothing we can do to stop it or slow it down. If we’re going to live this life to its fullest, and if we’re going to do the work that God has for us to do, we need to do it now, not later—today, not tomorrow. After all, we don’t want to get to the pearly gates and have to stand before God and say, ‘‘Sorry, Lord, I was sleeping. Can you tell me what it was I missed?’’

  The tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but that we wait so long to begin it.

  —Anonymous

  11

  Making Memories, Not Regrets

  My mother dreamed her whole life of going to Washington, D.C. Almost every summer my family traveled from our home in California to Arkansas, where my grandparents lived. One of those summers we probably could have driven up to Washington, D.C., and fulfilled her lifelong dream, but we never did. For whatever reason (no doubt financial), she denied herself that pleasure.

  When my father passed away, the one regret I had was that I had not taken him on more trips. So after his death, I made a vow to myself that my mother would see Washington, D.C. Fulfilling that dream didn’t come easy. I had to save the money, make adjustments to my work schedule, book all the necessary flights and hotels, and—hardest of all—get Mother to agree to the vacation. She thought she couldn’t take that much time off work. I tried to convince her that she could, but when that didn’t work, I called her boss and arranged for her to have the time off, then basically ‘‘kidnapped’’ her.

  We had a wonderful time visiting the White House, the Capitol, the FBI headquarters, Arlington Cemetery, the Smithsonian, and just about everything else there is to see there. And although the trip took some extra effort and planning, it was well worth it. The pictures and memories I have of our time together are irreplaceable.

  After that trip, I planned as many weekend jaunts with my mom to as many different places as I could. These trips quickly became a highlight of both our lives.

  A few years ago I decided to fulfill one of my own lifelong dreams. I had always wanted to see the Indian dwellings at Mesa Verde, Colorado. Using the same strategy I had used with my mother, I decided I was going to make it happen. I would create my own memories instead of waiting for them to come to me. I saved the money, made the arrangements, and soon my family and I were standing among Indian ruins. Seeing those dwellings gave me a sense of completeness. Once again I had made a memory instead of a regret.

  Life is unpredictable. My mother’s life came to an end before any of us expected. She was seventy-two and, except for the lymphoma, which had only appeared eight months before, she had hardly been sick a day in her life. I miss her terribly, but every time I run across my pictures of our trips together, they remind me of a few of her dreams that I didn’t allow to die with her.

  Where is it that you’ve always wanted to go? What is it you’ve always wanted to do? Is there some place you’ve longed to take a loved one? Quit making excuses. Make plans, make the sacrifices, and do it!

  Life is made up of ever so many partings welded together.

  —Charles Dickens

  12

  Gravy Is Not a Food Group

  It doesn’t matter how many deep-fried onion rings we’ve consumed over the years, how many pecan pies we’ve inhaled, or how much gravy we’ve allowed to dam up our arteries, when we pass forty, all of a sudden we become obsessed with eating healthy foods. We don’t necessarily change our diet, but we become obsessed with the idea of changing it.

  It’s all those public service announcements that start getting to us:

  Ben thought he was going to live forever. He believed he was invincible. He was convinced his fatty, cholesterol-filled, salt-laden diet wasn’t hurting him. Ben was wrong. At forty-three, he now has to work at home. His desk at his job wasn’t equipped to handle the life-support apparatus. Don’t be like Ben. Don’t wait until it’s too late to make those lifestyle changes you’ve been wanting to make. Unless, of course, you’ve got a bigger desk than Ben.

  We hear Ben gasp for breath in the background as he reaches for that last bag of potato chips. Gasp, crunch, gasp, crunch. It’s enough to drive anyone to the treadmill.

  Health food stores play on our fears, too. They convince us to buy extracts of vegetables we didn’t even know existed and make us believe that if pureed and blended together, they’re somehow going to taste better. They don’t. I’m sorry, but a rutabaga-leek-broccoli-cauliflower swirl is still going to taste pretty much like rutabagas, leeks, broccoli, and cauliflower. A blender and crushed ice isn’t going to make them taste like a hot fudge sundae.

  But we also know that our bodies need those vitamins, minerals, and, of course, the roughage. The older we get, the more maintenance our bodies require. After forty-plus years, we’ve had one too many medical tests that show exactly where all that fat we’ve been consuming over the years has deposited itself. We’ve seen the ultrasounds, the echocardiograms, the Post-it Notes on our medical reports. We know the blood in our arteries and veins isn’t flowing like it did in our youth. We’
re not fools. Nor are we suicidal. We know if we’re going to make it to a ripe old age, we’ve got to make some changes in our eating habits. We’ve got to start thinking of that cheesecake as the enemy instead of our reward for doing those three push-ups. We need to start reaching for that bowl of stewed prunes instead of that leaning tower of brownies. And instead of ordering the fried mozzarella sticks, we need to take a second look at those alfalfa sprouts and tofu squares. (Maybe we don’t have to go so far as to eat them, but we should at least give them a second look.)

  We have to make a commitment to be kinder, gentler to our bodies. We don’t want to overwork our hearts or place any unnecessary strain on the rest of our vital organs. One way is to limit our intake of red meat. Cutting out red meat is no problem for me. Most of the meat I serve is black anyway, not red. Including more fish in our diet is a good way to become healthier, too. We should be filling our freezers with rainbow trout, mahimahi, orange roughy, and salmon. They sit nicely on top of the Ben and Jerry’s.

  You see, there are plenty of ways to improve our eating habits and insure a long, healthy life. But a rutabaga-leek-broccoli-cauliflower swirl? I don’t think so. Unless they add a scoop of Rocky Road.

  And in the end it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.

  —Abraham Lincoln

  13

  I’ve Only Got Eyelids for You

  My good friends Linda Aleahmad, a licensed marriage and family therapist, and Mary Scott, a poet and administrative assistant to a Southern California newspaper editor, and I celebrate our birthdays together each year. We usually go out to a nice restaurant and talk about things like life, work, children, and of course, growing older. No matter how much we don’t want to be reminded of it, the subject of aging almost always comes up, and we spend the rest of the evening comparing our latest physical changes and laughing about them as much as possible.

  Tonight the physical change du jour was droopy eyelids. Each of us noted that our once perky eyelids had recently un- perked themselves, and as Joshua might have said at the wall of Jericho, ‘‘They’ve come a tumbling down!’’ Not that we’re tripping over them or anything, but they’ve drooped enough to give us that half-open, half-closed look that so many of us had through high school and college.

  It seemed to happen to each of us overnight. Eyelids are sneaky that way. You go to bed with all your body parts exactly where they’re supposed to be: Chin in place? Check. Lips in place? Check. Eyelids where they’re supposed to be? Check. But when you wake up in the morning and look in the mirror, you notice that the rest of your body is exactly where it was eight hours ago, but your eyelids are now drooping like Deputy Dawg’s, and you’re just about as excited as he is about it.

  I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised. Our eyelids can’t be expected to stay at attention forever. Forty or fifty years is long enough. They’re pooped. They’re ready for a break. They’ve faithfully served at their post and now they deserve a rest.

  Unfortunately, though, their early retirement begins to place undo pressure on the eyelashes. They are the only things between the avalanche of flesh and our cheekbones.

  A business associate of mine had her eyelids pulled back surgically. That’s one solution, I suppose. And yes, it worked, but now she has that wide-awake look, like someone just said, ‘‘Boo!’’

  My friends and I spent the evening together weighing the pros and cons of getting our eyelids done but decided against it. We opted to keep the skin we’re in and let nature take its course. We would be thankful for our health, our families, and all our blessings. It seemed like the right thing to do—especially when we remembered that Thanksgiving was just around the corner.

  I think there was something about my neck that reminded them.

  There’s more to life than increasing its speed.

  —Gandhi

  14

  Death Doesn’t Become Us

  Since my friend Mary had recently attended a family funeral, the subject moved from fallen eyelids to funerals, wills, and last wishes. Linda was the first to share what she wanted done with her remains.

  ‘‘I want to be cremated,’’ she said, ‘‘and my ashes placed inside a firecracker and shot into the air in one spectacular send-off.’’

  We figured it must be the cheesecake gone to her head.

  Mary said she wanted to be cremated, too, but she also wanted a memorial service in which people said nice things about her. She also wanted a good picture on display, and she’d like her ashes scattered in the barranca in Ventura, California.

  I opted for a more traditional funeral. I want nice things said about me at my funeral, too (I’ll write them up ahead of time), but I also want the service to be full of funny remembrances. I’ve embraced laughter my entire life. I wouldn’t want it to be missing from my funeral. I want tears, too, of course (who doesn’t want to be missed?), but I would hope there’d be lots of laughter to balance things out.

  I also asked them to help my husband with the telephone calls. I know him too well. He’ll have every intention of calling all my friends listed in our telephone book, but he won’t make it past the Cs. It’ll be wearying to keep relating the same story over and over again, reliving all the details of how I left this world—especially if I go in some bizarre way like ‘‘The manager at the skating rink said it was the first time they’d ever lost anyone during the Hokey Pokey, but they’re still going to award her the free CD posthumously for all her efforts.’’ Or ‘‘We told her not to use the computer while in the bathtub, but she just mumbled something about a deadline, plugged it in, and deleted herself. We tried to save her as a text file, but we got there too late.’’

  However it happens, my husband will get tired of telling the same tale again and again and again, so he’ll just quit— right after the Cs. My friends whose last names begin with the letters D through Z won’t find out about my demise until I’m missing from the family-photo Christmas card. I can hear the phone calls now.

  ‘‘Where’s Martha? I didn’t see her by the tree.’’

  ‘‘Oh, didn’t you know?’’ my husband will say. ‘‘She passed on six months ago.’’

  ‘‘Why didn’t anyone tell me?’’

  ‘‘I would have, but you weren’t in the front of the phone book.’’

  Linda and Mary understood my dilemma (most women can) and agreed to help my husband with the phone calls.

  The three of us then moved on to discuss where we wanted our remains to be buried. Living in both Los Angeles and Nashville, I wasn’t sure where I’d want my services, so I left the options open. I even entertained the idea of having a service in both places. I didn’t see a problem with that, especially since Linda, being shot off in a firecracker, would be having multiple resting places, too. Linda and Mary both opted for California since that’s where they live.

  Mary wanted the songs ‘‘In My Life’’ by the Beatles and Van Morrison’s ‘‘Have I Told You Lately That I Love You?’’ played at her service, and she wanted someone to read several poems, which she has selected. Linda mentioned she wanted ‘‘Muskrat Love’’ sung at hers, but I think she was kidding. I’m still deciding on the songs I want played, but ‘‘No One Ever Cared for Me Like Jesus’’ is definitely one of them.

  Next we talked about our choice of flowers. Mary wants irises or tulips. Linda’s favorites are daisies and pansies. Mine are magnolias.

  We also talked about whether or not we wanted to be organ donors and what parts of our bodies we would be willing to give to science. Not liking the prospect of science returning some of these parts (as defective), we decided not to worry about making these plans right now.

  In fact, we decided to change the subject altogether. It was getting way too maudlin. We each felt we had plenty of life left to live, and most of our plans still needed tweaking anyway. Especially Linda’s. She wants her funeral in Los Angeles, where fireworks are illegal. That would mean Mary and I would either have to get sp
ecial clearance or get into a lot of trouble fulfilling her last wishes.

  And to tell you the truth, we’re not about to get arrested for shooting off a firecracker illegally, even if our best friend is in it.

  Despite the high cost of living, it remains a popular item.

  —Anonymous

  15

  Are We Having Fun Yet?

  My husband and I spent last Fourth of July doing laundry at the local all-night Laundromat. What can I say? We’re still party animals after all these years.

  Actually it was my husband’s idea. I was ready to celebrate our nation’s birthday like it should be celebrated—an old-fashioned barbecue, picnic games, fireworks, a nap. But no, we had laundry to do.

  My husband didn’t see any problem with doing our laundry on the Fourth of July. He’s of the impression that the older he gets the less holiday excitement he can handle. He prefers nice quiet evenings with the History Channel or curling up with a good book (the Best Buy catalog counts). If my husband had his way, New Year’s Eve would be spent getting the transmission fluid checked on our car, Valentine’s Day reseeding the lawn, and Christmas morning the perfect time to shampoo the carpets.

  His main problem with holidays is he doesn’t like crowds. According to him, two’s company and three’s an unlawful assembly. So since the Fourth of July meant crowds, we did laundry.

  Unbeknownst to us, though, the parking lot of the Laundromat happened to be the ideal location for local residents to watch the city’s fireworks display. While we were busy fluffing and folding, cars began filing into the parking lot one by one, staking claim on the spaces with the best views. Not that all those people were in for any more excitement than we were going to experience inside the Laundromat. Until you’ve watched a Maytag hit the spin cycle and start shaking in time to ‘‘God Bless America’’ being played over the Laundromat TV, you haven’t celebrated the Fourth of July. And if one of the dryers happens to develop an electrical short and the sparks start to fly, well, even Bob Hope would have a hard time beating a finale like that.