Forty

My husband and I have an unfinished basement. We never plan on finishing our basement because we both recognize that basements are holding grounds for memories and rarely-needed high-chairs for babies who visit us and, well, unnecessary stuff.

We moved into this house 7 years ago. Last month I think we finally unpacked the last boxes. We formed a huge purge circle in the basement. A "purge circle" is like a crop circle in that it involves methodically crunching down material. Like cardboard boxes. Old artwork. Business cards. That sort of thing. We had three piles: Sell (Craigslist), Give (Goodwill) and Trash Without Any Remorse. We went bonkers on that basement. We were ruthless.

The next week we came home with a trunk full of memories because Dan's parents are moving from their home of 30 plus years. Naturally the stuff went in our newly purged basement. Nature abhors a vacuum.

When the children go to school, the house will creak less because I will probably attack their closets and remove the following:
Annoying toys
Broken toys
Maybe all their toys
Scraps of paper which they swear are important
Balls of lint which they might swear are important
Anything which smells funny, looks funny or acts funny in a way which does NOT make me laugh

And here's the kicker: They won't even notice.

Nope. For all these years I have allowed them to keep their rooms how they want and now I am going in with HAZMAT suits, a Dyson vacuum and grenades filled with–I don't know–Lysol or something.

They won't notice. But I will.

I'm not sure what is up with this recent rash of purging in my house. It's just so freeing. And most of my Mom friends who have elementary aged children are doing it, too. I see the wide eyes they give me as they describe the things they have found in their house, unawares.

Purging house isn't enough for me.
I'm purging my mind, too. Getting rid of ways of thinking which I have outgrown.

I'm starting to outgrow complaining... I want redemptive endings to stories. I want people to end their sad stories with "And THAT'S when I started to learn (contentment) or (how much my children love me) or (how to fish)." Add some faith and hope between the lines.

Perhaps it's un-feeling of me, but I'm bewildered when people complain that no one is friendly or that people don't invite them to parties. I just want to say, "Have you tried smiling and introducing yourself?" Or..."Have you heard of evite.com? Host your own party, sister! Don't look at their calendars. Just do it." If you're new to a company or school or crowd, don't WAIT for people to introduce themselves. You have a hand. Extend it. Say hello. Shake hands. Fist bump. Whatever. Heaven help me if my children don't learn this life lesson: If you want to have friends, you must be friendly.

In a fair week I  am turning forty. I'm not sure if culture told me to start pumping extra estrogen or if my body did it on its own, but I am becoming bolder and learning to say "yes" by saying "no."

I'm saying "yes" to books and I'm saying "no" to constant negativity.
I'm saying "yes" to true friendships and I'm saying "no" to people-pleasing.
Yes to truth. No to sensationalism.

Thumbs up on:
creativity, baking, gardening, laughing with children, everyday wine, calling friends on the phone, investing in your home team, taking walks, making friends with people even if they're super rich (you read that correctly), praying for justice, crying when life hurts, seeking redemption every instant of every day and always having art supplies on hand.

Thumbs down to:
not trying again, making life complicated, being fancy on the outside and hollow on the inside, dry cake, refusing to communicate, Facebook-only friends, bad theology and stinky refrigerators.

I told my mother about some of these changes in me and she asked, knowing the answer already, "How old will you be turning this year?" And I answered, "Forty." "That's when it happens," she said, "That's when you start standing up for yourself and speaking your mind. That's when you feel more comfortable saying 'no.'"

Sweet mercy.

Here's my hope: That when the sweet surges of estrogen wash over me, I will be transformed gently, like a butterfly emerging from its cocoon, stretching its wings, drying out, shaking off the old, limiting ways of thinking and rising with new colors, new vision and maybe some super cute Merrell sneakers. The only thing constant is change.

Grammy

When I was in my early teens, I was a lanky, non-confident girl who was always being swayed by the opinions of others. I liked art and home life and seemed to attract best friends who pushed me to be more silly or fashionable or guy-crazy than I actually was. I was in that odd place like most young girls are where their bodies are beginning to show signs of womanhood, but their emotions and life experiences suggest that the pendulum still rests strongly on the "girl" side.
"Like, hey. Like, wow. Like, whatevva."

In short, it was hard to be myself because I didn't know who my "self" was. Those teen years are really the equivalent of researching a grad school paper. My life thesis in 8th grade was how high I could tease my hair and STILL maintain a banana clip in it, all with the help of a little Aqua Net hairspray. Speaking of hairspray: I took up babysitting so that I could maintain my hairspray budget of $17.47 a week. I was highly flammable.

Other junior high foibles include the time I dated a boy for one hour because a friend begged me to do it. By second hour of that day, my SAME friend helped me craft a break-up letter. (Lame.)

Perhaps the pinnacle of my 8th grade wisdom was when a very popular girl came up to me and asked me if I thought Tiffany was a "butt." Except she didn't say "butt," she said a word which rhymed with "butt" and implied that Tiffany might make friends too easily with boys. Being unaware of this word, I ASSUMED that the "butt" word meant "jerk" (not because I asked but because I used context clues from popular girl's argument) so I answered the popular girl confidently, "Yes. Tiffany is totally that word." She smiled and said, "Sign this petition." And so I signed a petition stating that Tiffany made friends with boys far too easily. I'm sure I dotted the lowercase "i" in my name with a bubble heart because that's what we did in the 1980s.

It gets worse: That day I came home and used my new word on my mother.
Hiroshima was nothing compared to the explosion that came from her face.
Related: I learned that the "butt" word did NOT, in fact, mean "jerk."
Also: Context clues cannot always be trusted.

Why am I offering these stories? Because this:
Even though I was hormonally imbalanced and teetered precariously between the worlds of girl and woman and sometimes acting like a full-fledge ogre, I knew that I could visit my grandmother in Pennsylvania and be just me.
I didn't have to dress up or impress her or *gasp* CHANGE who I was.
I could just be me.
The girl who didn't know how to do her hair.
The girl who spent $30 on a surf shirt so that people would like her.
The girl who wouldn't even know what to do with a boy if she liked him.
The girl who loved art.

My grandmother didn't do a whole lot with me. We didn't go on vacations together or go shopping. She bought Cracker Jacks which we ate at night while we watched Wheel of Fortune. All her cereal in her pantry was labeled with a date on top. For a little variety we would mix the cereals in our bowls... a little Raisin Bran and Corn Flakes and Waffle-Os.

We picked broccoli from the garden. It was my job to take a small paring knife and kill the green broccoli worms. They burst when I sliced them. I thought it was fun.

When I turned 18 and graduated from school, my Grammy found a recipe for-- get this-- OWL SHAPED cookies. It involved two different colored cookies doughs which you would wrap one over the other in a large tube shape and slice so that it was a circle with an outline of another color, and then use a pistachio for the beak. She came from an era where happiness was homemade.

She was so excited to make these cookies that she couldn't wait for Granddad to get home; she took the great big Lincoln Towncar and went with me to the grocery store. Upon backing up the car, she caught the bumper on the side of the garage and peeled it from its original placement, causing it to stick out a full foot, if not more.

In order for Granddad to not be so angry about the bumper, she decided to fix it. I thought she was going to try to push it back into place. Instead, she ran inside and got the Windex. She made the bumper shinier than before. What a riot!

In the end, we made the cookies. While most 18-year olds prefer foods with more of a "cool" factor, I was quite happy with the owl cookies. Seriously (shaking head) OWL cookies? With the car repairs and ingredients for the cookies, they must have cost $500.

I haven't spent gobs of time with my grandmother, just enough here and there. But what I can say is that she kept a Spirograph on hand, she gave us fun food, she let us work beside her, she didn't try to impress us, she always, always sends us birthday cards and Christmas cards as well, she loves Jesus and--in the end-- I feel safe with her. I feel like she's on my team.

She's soft and comfy and unassuming. She wears those ankle socks with the pom poms on the back so that they don't slip into your tennis shoe.

I'm trying very hard to not speak in the past tense, but at the same time I am wrestling with the fact that my grandmother has just suffered a stroke which will make her different. She may not call me "Emmy" anymore in that high octave she uses for my name. She probably won't bake cookies anymore; I don't know. And she may not sew, either.

In essence, our family is left with snippets of her previous self. I've heard people talk about losing loved ones before and debate about --forgive the term-- the virtues of losing someone abruptly verses sluggishly and I have to say that plucking bits of a loved one's personhood one memory at a time seems horrible, like using an eraser on an evil pencil very, very slowly.

My reaction, then, needs to be this:
To unabashedly sustain her beauty and goodness and fullness.
To continue to bake cookies, particularly ones in the shape of an owl.
To use Windex to shine up life's errors.
To be myself and realize that living simply beside someone is far more powerful than trying to entertain them.
To realize that Cracker Jack's are special because someone told me they were special.
And to realize that people are special, too, for the same reason.