Half Birthdays and Stardust Cycles

Almost twenty-two years ago I wrote my very first blog post here. Seth was six months old. Although it's not an actual anniversary this month, I feel like it is a significant milestone for me. Seth was a six-month-old baby, and I was juggling motherhood, being a wife, keeping a home, trying to be a devout Christian, and working full time. It was not an easy task. 

Miranda and Seth, ages 3 and 6 months

It's now 2026 and Seth is 22 years old. He graduated with his bachelor's degree in finance from Long Island University in Brooklyn in May. Miranda, also pictured here, is 25 and she's starting her second year of graduate school at UT School of Public Health. I've been a single mom for almost 15 years now and an odd combination of divorcée/widow for almost two years. The time has gone by faster than all the clichés added up together.

But if we're talking about anniversaries, tomorrow is a significant one. It's the 31st anniversary of my older sister Hilda's passing. Thirty-one years. Wow! When I think about that timeline, I see my entire life stretched out from that point on. I think about all the things that I wish I had known then and all the decisions that I would have made differently.

At this point, at the age of 56.5, there is no point in dwelling on butterfly effects, regrets, or lessons learned. I only hope that I'm ready for the last season, the last one third, and that I'm smart about what I do from this point forward. 

Tuesday is my half birthday. It's the exact 6-month marker to my 57th birthday. The next four birthdays are going to be the most exciting of my life, provided I make each one. I say "if," because my ex-husband Rey died the day after his 54th birthday. 

My 57th birthday will be the exact three-year countdown to my 60th birthday, when I hope to make a huge life change. That will be the official start of the last third of my life. 

These are my goals for the next 3.5 years.

1. Eat cleaner. Yes, it's hard to eat really clean, so I will just say to eat as clean and as smart as I can. This includes 30 grams of protein before noon and 60 grams in one day.

2. Really increase my weight training. Goal: Heavy!

3. Also, really increase my balance training, which includes walking a lot, so I can walk for miles when I'm older. 

4. Learn French and Portuguese.

If I can do all of these, I will be ready for my 60th birthday. I know three years is nothing when you consider the fact that my kids are three years apart, and I timed them perfectly and on purpose. Three years is nothing, when I think about my sister dying thirty-one years ago. Three years is insignificant, when I remember the first day that I sat down to write this blog almost twenty-two years ago.

Time will also fly between the age of 60 and when the time comes that I can't travel the United States and the world anymore. I don't know that deadline. All I can do is make sure that I'm adding life to those years as much as I can. 

How much time we actually have left on this earth is one of the greatest mysteries of life. If we knew the answer, we might not do as much as possible. We could just be sitting there waiting for the end. Sadly, some people do that anyway. I don't want to be one of those people.

So Happy Stardust Cycle to my sister Hilda and Happy Half Birthday to me. I hope that I can live a life that shows that I truly appreciate these 10, 20, or 30+ trips I have left to go around the sun.

My Body is Changing, I'm Getting Older

I'm officially past 47.5 now. I hit the halfway mark last month. It was at 47 that I started feeling my body change and looking in the mirror and seeing the changes in my face, in my skin. I'm getting older. I love a quote that says, "Do not regret growing older. It's a privilege denied to many."

Me at 34 and 47. 

In the top picture I had just had Seth. I sure bounced back pretty quickly at that age! I was still young enough to have kids and my face looks radiant, like someone who just created a life. In the bottom picture, taken a few months ago, most people would say I still look great. Believe me, I appreciate it. I know I look younger than some people my age. However, I also know the reality that I'm growing older.

I feel like we aren't always allowed to talk about aging. Either people are embarrassed to acknowledge it or we're told to shut up, age is just a number, be grateful for what you have, etc.  I get both those points of view. Sometimes aging is the elephant in the room that nobody wants to talk about. And I get being grateful. My older sister passed away at 42, my mom at 69, and I've had family, friends and acquaintances who have died young. I get that I should be grateful to be alive and I AM. I try to practice gratitude every day and I think about something that I'm grateful for.

None of this changes the fact that I am getting older and that yes, it is happening to me. I don't know why it's such a big deal to acknowledge that. It's a fact. It's happening to all of us and there's nothing we can do about it. I find it hilarious that even the word "perimenopause" is highlighted in red on this blog program as if the word doesn't even exist. Yes, it's real and all women with two ovaries and a uterus are going to go through it.

I miss my mom. I miss being able to ask her questions about menopause and when did she first see the signs. All I can do is try and remember events and conversations I overheard from my childhood and I do the math as to how old she was then. I guess she started heading towards menopause at 47 based on a very clear memory I have of her having an embarrassing incident out in public. I remember conversations I overheard about her going through "the change." I was around 8 years old and that would make her 47. I'm 47.

They say that often women start menopause around the same time as their mothers. Based on that math I'm pretty much on target and I can feel the signs. There's the irregular periods, the super long periods that don't make sense, and how hot my body feels sometimes. I've never been irregular since I started having kids at 31. That was something that used to happen to me in my teens and early 20s.

Of course all this has to happen right when my OBGYN of over 20 years retires. So I went to see my primary care physician right after a two week long period. She sent me for blood work to see if I was pre-menopausal but instead of focusing on that she was distracted by other things she wanted to check, like my blood sugar and my cholesterol. When she called me with my results she told me those and then promptly hung up. I had to call her back to ask her, "Hey, what about menopause?" She had forgotten that was the main reason I had gone in. (Once again I wished that Dr. Miro hadn't retired.) She told me that the blood work didn't show signs of pre-menopause. She had already said to me in the office that if that was the case she recommended that I find a new OBGYN. Exactly what I didn't want to have to do.

I know my body. I know what's happening. I'm so ready for it too! I'm ready to embrace this new phase of my life. I just wish it didn't come with the discomforts that come along with it. Like why do I have to feel warm all of a sudden? And why do I have to feel anxiety? Nobody told me that was a side effect until now. It's either one of those secrets or one of those things I ignored when it didn't pertain to me. Surprise! As I've gotten older I started feeling anxiety and I didn't know why. It probably started a couple of years ago, well now that I'm moving towards menopause I feel it even more. Apparently it's the hormones.

Then there's my face. I look at myself in the mirror when I'm washing my face or putting on my make up and I can see the elasticity of my skin changing. It's so weird! I see it in some pictures more than others. I see the skin under my eyes has changed too.  I think, "Here I am. I'm getting older." And it's amazing. Where did my youth go? It was over in the blink of an eye.

In the words of Colette all I can say is, "I love my past. I love my present. I'm not ashamed of what I've had, and I'm not sad because I have it no longer." I will just have to roll with it and ride this crazy wave.

Embracing 45 with Open Arms

I turned 45 last week and I embraced it like a champion. Turning 45 is not going to be something that I will be sad about. Some people don't get the privilege to grow older. So I made it all about gratitude and for 8 days I posted what I was grateful for. I called my week of celebrating my Big 4-5 VD, because my birthday falls right before Valentine's Day.

So here is a compilation of all of my gratitude posts for the week.

Day 1 of Gratitude: Grateful for this amazing beautiful day & for being alive to see it!

Gratitude Day 2 & Day 3: (I forgot yesterday) I am grateful for great friends/family who really surprised me on Saturday & really warmed my heart. Today I'm grateful for my long & interesting career in newspaper, for my small business, that I'm employed full time & for my new PadreCare column with LatinaLista.com.

 — feeling loved.

Day 4 of Gratitude on the Eve of my Big 4-5 VD: I am grateful for my name and my identity. Forty-five years ago my mother didn't know if she would have a boy or a girl but she had my name picked out. I'm so glad she chose such a unique name. She used to tell me that my sisters chose my middle name, Yvette, so I was named Loida Yvette Casares.

Day 5: Today I am grateful to have lived another year. Some people don't get that privilege. I think of my sister Hilda who only had 42 years on this earth and I am humbled and grateful that I got to wake up today. My children got into bed with me, hugged me & wished me a good day. I am blessed.

The celebration continues this week but so does my commitment to show gratitude. Day 6: Today I am grateful for the setbacks that have formed me and made me stronger. Setbacks teach you a very good lesson and remind you that you should never take things for granted when they are good. They make you see all the good things that you do have in your life and what is truly important. And they also show you what you are capable of accomplishing.

 — feeling grateful.

Day 7 of Gratitude. After having attended this luncheon I must say I am grateful for my health, so far, & the health of my children. I heard stories about experiences children have had with heart disease & damage from chemo. I promise not to take this health for granted any more for the years I have left on this earth.

Happy Valentine's Day to Me! Day 8 of Gratitude: I am grateful for ME! For my strength & my resilience that has seen me through so many things in life. 

Yes, I am humbled and grateful to have lived another year. Every year that I live past 42, the year my sister died, will be a celebration of life and I'll wear a strawberry pin in memory of her. 

ShoeMobile, I'm Getting Old & Other Awesome Observations in My Life

I saw this ShoeMobile on 290 today on my way to lunch and it reminded me of ShoeGirl Corner. How cool would a ShoeMobile be? Remember the BookMobile when we were in elementary school? Did anyone else have the BookMobile from the Houston Public Library come by to visit their school? Well imagine a ShoeMobile coming by your job with all kinds of shoes for sale? Wouldn't that be just wonderful?

I've decided to update my profile picture everywhere before someone starts blogging about that. When he told me that he was starting a blog that was one of the first things that I told him.

I said, "I hope you aren't going to blog about how my profile picture is six years old." 

He was quiet for a second and then he said, "Do you have a list of my topic ideas?"

So today I've decided to change out the picture. I don't LOVE the new picture, but it's an update and the big sunglasses hide the bags around my eyes. Looking at new pictures of me and my old profile picture made me realize how much I have aged in just six years. It's amazing how much my face has changed between 34 and 40. But I have to be honest and as much as I wish my face still looked as fresh as it does in my old picture, only eight weeks after giving birth to my son, I don't look that way anymore. Let's face it. I'm 40 and I'm older.

Another little note. I had my first mammogram today and yes it hurt. The first picture wasn't so bad because I placed my boob on a little platform. What hurt more was having to turn my head and having to press it against the machine, because of the crick in my neck. The second sideways photo is the one that hurt a lot. I have very big boobs so the poor little woman had to push and tug to put the whole thing in there at the right angle. Pain. When she was finished I went back to the dressing room and I was all red on my neck, my upper arms, my chest and my boobs. That second one hurt both my boobs and my neck because it's so stiff.

The mammogram was another brutal reminder that I'm getting older. Old face, old boobs. After my mammogram I remembered that my assistant was going to take another close up picture of my face because I've been using a new night cream for my face. We want to track how well the cream is working. Well so far the cream is not working that well. Looking at those close-up pictures of my face was depressing.

So there you go. Not much has changed in my life. I still lust after shoes, I'm getting older and my boobs are too. More soon!