1. I have a small tendency toward vertigo with my thick neck as it is.

2. Driving would be a bitch. (Did you see that car? ALL FIFTY OF THEM? No, wait, that’s just one car, wait, where did it go? OH THERE THEY ARE.)

3. People would want to put me on their dashboards with their other fugly hello-kitty bobbleheads and I HATE HELLO KITTY.

4. “Does this neck make my head look fat?”

5. Sarah Palin is a BobbleHead. That’s just fucked-up yo. THE END.

I tell people I’m going through a small mid-life crisis. They look at me, judging. “HmmMMmm,” they start, “I bet you’re not nearly mid-life. What are you? Thirty? You really expect to only live until sixty?”

To these people I put a pox on their eyebrows and ear hair.

Funny thing: Mid-Life can mean any time in which you wake up and look in the mirror and immediately proclaim “HOLYSHIT! WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED WHILE I WAS SLEEPING.”

This is exactly how I feel right now.

Last Thursday I travelled to Utah on SouthWest Airlines. This means I was part of the cattle call to find my own seat on a plane with a bunch of other livestock. I sat in row seven on the isle next to two people who, by the end of a two hour flight, would be my partners in crisis.

Mid-Life.

We shared stories of being mid-thirty. Each of us, thirty-four (me), thirty-five, thirty-six. We book-end the mid-line of thirty perfect. And we all understood each other in ways no twenty-something could possibly understand. It’s surreal, a bit. It’s cliche. It’s.. utterly pathetic.

For as long as I can remember, I have had a strong “flight” extinct. I’ve been the wistful, ridiculously naive girl who wants nothing more than to travel. I’ve suppressed her, I’ve told her how ridiculously impractical that is. I’ve chastised her for being so selfish.

That suppressed inner girl is getting really pissed off about it.

I’m able to travel more now for work. I’ve had amazing opportunities and I’ve experienced places I could never justify before. With each trip I realize I’m as truly “me” when traveling as I’ll ever be. There’s something raw about going to a new place and giving yourself permission to explore both your inner self and the new landscape around you. I dare say it’s even addicting.

As I mature, reality sets in. A new reality, or an age-old one, I am not sure. Somehow it is my job at mid-thirty to bring my wistful naive twenty-two year old traveling hippie self in to the woman who understand the world with a more cynical eye, has experienced some of life’s failures and is responsible for whole, entire human beings now. I have no idea how to achieve this.

So I hunker down with my peers, my tribe, and we bond over wine and children’s screams. There’s comfort in knowing I am not alone in this middle space. I’m not alone when I look back and suddenly remember I was going to do that Thing, that which is listed on a piece of paper I wrote 13 years ago after college. I was going to continue rowing, I was going to see the Northern Lights, I was going to spend a summer in England in a tiny rented flat alone. I remember my list of “fifty things to do before I die” and know I’ve crossed off about half. Lately, it seems, the other half of that list is coming to mind more and more and I’m unsure of the root cause or if I’ll ever finish what I started before I was who I am today.

** update: On my fabulous weekend in Utah, which is a whole other post to come, I exclaimed, at my BFF who is only just now THIRTY:

Bitch.

I have a bone to pick, Kelly. I happen to get those amazing “be more” Electrolux Washer/Dryers you speak so highly of. No, I wasn’t actually trying to be just like you, GOD no, why would I want to do that? I know small dogs less annoying than you are. BUT, I did find an amazing deal on a pretty amazing washer/dryer set and after drooling and researching, decided to plunge in to debt for the sake of Laundry.

And oh, how it was worth it.

Except one thing:

My clothes don’t fly in to the closet or hang themselves like yours do.

WHAT IS UP WITH THAT KELLY RIPPA?

Next you’re going to tell me that advertising isn’t real. Whatever. I believe everything I see and *I* want my clothes to fly in to their places, Kelly. I deserve nothing less.

Although… I do have to say, I felt a bit justified after I took my flying trapeze class and saw your video show up next to mine on youtube. I watched your whole little show, Mrs. Rippa and I do have to say, Wow. I’m less than impressed.

I mean, even tall, slightly-heavier-than-should-be old ME can do better than that, Kelly.

Validation comes in strange forms, eh?

*This post brought to you buy sarcasm. If you don’t know sarcasm, or are Canadian, you might think I’m going to actually take on Kelly Rippa.

**Which would be stupid because I could SO TOTALLY kick her tiny little ass.

**Duh.

My children, they do not respect the sticker. Remember getting the coveted sticker and agonizing over where to place it? You didn’t just put it on a piece of paper that might get accidentally tossed in the garbage. NO! You sat and pondered for HOURS where you were going to place this single, solitary sticker.

My kids can go through a sticker book in ten minutes flat.

Nowadays stickers are like Band-Aids: Cheap, easy to mail, and sticky; the latter being the most obvious. Band-Aids used to be special and only handed out when death was imminent. Now? Band-Aids for scrapes come in Sponge Bob Square Pants and decorate my kids’ knees like a trendy purse.

God I hate Sponge Bob and his annoying side-kick and his ability to make my children scream with enthusiasm until they get one of his teeny, tiny, fucking Band-Aids.

Stickers (and Band-Aids while I’m ranting) are like Manna from Oma. The children come home on various days to find a package in the mail with one of those “THREE HUNDRED MILLION BILLION STICKERS FOR YOU!” books. You know the ones that occupy the kids ALMOST long enough to get the dishes done but not long enough to make dinner? Those. And they tear through them like animals with raw meat. “BALERINA! I WILL PUT HER ON THE TABLE! I WILL PUT ONE ON THE SOFA! I WILL PUT ONE ON MOM’S COMPUTER SCREEN!” and on and on and on until we find stickers coming out of our asses, or theirs, three days later.

I can tell I’m getting older as I look at my children and have a back-log of stories. “I remember when….” They don’t appreciate, or even comprehend, the value of The Sticker. They can’t. The Sticker appears en mass and will continue to do so as long as there are sales at Borders when Oma goes shopping. And I suppose I’m ok with that. For now. Because sometimes you have to pick your battles and right now I’m winning, “Eat what I make for you or starve to death.”

Which reminds me, thank you, Oma, for the sticker book. I was able to poop in private for the first time since 2004, so the gift is really mine.

“How to feel completely inadequate at one of your best friend’s baby showers that you threw with people much more capable than you are” Parts I & II.

“Why throwing up in a famous web designer’s toilet is better than Schick Shadel for finding ultimate sobriety.”

“Birth Control Via Child Meltdown” - Unabridged

And Finally,

“The Ultimate Diet: Candida Taking Over Your Body. Lose weight without even eating!”

More to come once publication is approved.

What did you write this weekend?

Forgive me for letting Dawn Landes speak for me but I could not have come up with better lyrics. After a week of escape, of enjoying people and places from far away, it’s difficult to look at the Things To Do list and not fantasies of a plane and a hot, steamy week in Paris, or Rome, or London. I told Mr. Flinger I wanted to have a wild hot affair in a far off land and he’s welcome to join me.

Sometimes songs do more justice than the muddled ramblings of a mom with young children. And a new job. And a new house. And it’s not that I don’t love all these things, I just… well…

Remember when we were young?

Straight Lines
By Dawn Landes

Remember when we were young
How you asked everyone to marry you
All of those songs we sung
Changing all the words you used to make the heroine die
Why?

Remember when we were right
God threw his darts at stars in the night
I had a kite
You had a trampoline and a BMX bike
You didn’t even like

I don’t want to say it’s breaking my heart
And I don’t know where to start
Old friends are falling apart
Time like the name of a man
Covered and we both can whine
I miss the straight, straight lines

The old times

Remember when we got caught
Dirty hands and make-believe drugs
We never got
Give me all your money
Bank robbers and cowboy cops
Make-believe rocks

Remember when we held hands
Red rover and marching band
You had a tan
Staying outside that long’s gonna make you man
Never going back, never going back again

I don’t want to say it’s breaking my heart
And I don’t know where to start
Old friends are falling apart
Time like the name of a man
Covered and we both can whine
I miss the straight, straight lines

The old times
The old times
Remember when we were young
Remember when we were young