Wonder Years

Well it’s been a while, between posts…. for a whole range of reasons, BUT I haven’t stopped “wondering”. Never a day goes by without something capturing my curiosity, and sparking a bit of “I wonder why…..?”

But today’s musing is more about something I have learned about “me” over my time in absentia….. I have been forced to live my life in dot points!!

Yes that’s right, I have been reduced to short sharp ‘headline’ grabs to get my point across ….and it’s killing me.

Before I go on, I must say that this blog is the one exception. You see blogging, like story telling is a one way dialogue. YOU the audience, read it if you are interested and if you’re not ….well…you won’t. It’s as simple as that (thanks for persevering 😉 ). But conversation or communication ‘exchange’ is a different ball game.

For those of you who know me, (I can’t imagine that anyone else is actually reading this ….but, if you are ….welcome) you will know that over the years I have developed a significant vocal challenge. I have Spasmodic Dysphonia …. a neurological voice disorder, meaning that  speaking is a real effort. Although my head is exploding with words, getting them out in an audible fashion can be a real ordeal (for me and for the listener), so as a result I have found myself ‘editing’ every comment to make it succinct and bearable all round.

Now that may seem an obvious and sensible solution, but for someone who is used to all the padding, the descriptors and the shades of grey in any one sentence … it is so bloody annoying.

There are also a  flip sides of this ‘edited’ communication …Like the questions that get asked in order to fill in the gaps and create the real picture….or the, “sorry I missed that can you please repeat it”? So in reality nothing has been saved, and I find myself collapsing with head spins or exhaustion having pumped out way too much air in the effort .

…Now don’t get me wrong, none of this STOPS me trying LOL (I would need to be 6 foot under for the talking to really stop) but it does cause enormous frustration and is so physically tiring.

At this point I will add that I am really really REALLY lucky to be living in the 21^st century where communication is so much more than face to face. In fact I would shrivel up without email and sms… .so on that score I am blessed.  BUT  again there is an expectation that messages come  in brief grabs, one dimensional, DOT POINTS!

For example, how many of you have noticed that if you send a regular email that contains 3 or more points or questions, only the first or last will actually get a response? If your recipient is really clued up you may be lucky and score 2/3…..but that’s pretty rare. Then the too-ing and fro-ing begins in order to get the other information you asked for in the first place, and you begin to feel like a stalker!!   Geeze Louise … how did it all get so tricky?

On a funny note though …. ordering my coffee has been a challenge right  throughout this ordeal. Picture this … a noisy coffee machine, cups clanging, music playing AND people chatting. So when my coffee order is a “book” in its own right (skinny, decaf, extra shot, extra hot, cappuccino) it’s no surprise that the barista  can’t hear or understand my request.

To be clever  I provide card with dot points … he then asks if I would like a tray to carry the 5 coffees !!!… gotta laugh,  I’m 50 something and vocally challenged…. but I’m not dead yet.

Today I am wondering where the time goes ???? I mean we all say it; but seriously do the days and weeks disappear more quickly than they used to, or are we living life at a faster rate ?

I can’t believe it is almost 3 weeks since I last wrote anything … but the truth is I am constantly wondering. Every day there is something bizarre that catches my attention and I think mmmm I must make a note of that, but before I do, it’s tomorrow!

But here I am and this one’s for Frankie…..

I don’t know about all of you but as I get a little older  it seems that there are more and more of life’s little co-incidences. Some funny, some odd and some downright spooky but all are a source of great amusement.   Now this is a topic that I could literally write a book about… but seriously “what ARE the chances”?

• Of bumping into an old work buddy that I had not seen for 15years…saying we must make the time to catch up then stepping into an elevator with him (and 11 other people) and getting stuck for 2 hours.
• Of meeting a new work colleague and having an overwhelming sense of  “I know you” only to discover she is the niece of a good friend from my early high school days, and who died suddenly at age 13…. (You guessed it this young woman had never even met her aunt ~ but she is the living image of her).
• Of living in street of 16 houses in a sleepy village, only to discover that the families in at least 4 of the homes (currently… because there WERE  6) came from my home suburb, had connections with my family one way or the other  and one actually lived in my street.
• Of being the most verbose  (well almost) person on this earth and being struck with a voice disorder (mmm, maybe there’s a message in that LOL) AND  being out for coffee with my ‘visually challenged’ buddy  only to bump into a mutual friend from way back who is …… you guessed it …. DEAF.
• Of meeting someone in cyberspace, on a U.S website who shares a similarly bizarre medical condition, and happens to be from Australia, then when we chat about maybe meeting up one day , we discover that we work within 3 kilometres of each other.
• Of getting detoured through the backstreets of Strathfield and thinking I MUST remember to call my friend tonight, then hitting a roadblock and being stuck on a street called by her surname.
• Of walking down the street of a sleepy holiday village…commenting that is “God’s waiting room” because of the age demographic… then that moment noticing an elderly gent sitting quietly behind the steering wheel of his parked car, but minus a heartbeat.

You get the picture …….. this is just the very tip of the iceberg and could become a book in its own right, but seriously what ARE the chances? I don’t have  a religious bone in my body, but I am certain there is something greater than me steering my ship.

Well today I am wondering what’s going on…I mean you hear people say “it’s a sign” but is it ?? or is it just damn freaky ?

You see here’s the thing … I am being haunted by birds! Two legged, feathered birds of all varieties…and it’s becoming weird.

I first noticed it on Australia day. We were wandering the back alleys of The Rocks in Sydney, soaking up the people and activities of the day … You know the stuff…really bad Karaoke, slightly less bad entertainment, crowds of people and generally great atmosphere.

Michael paused on a ‘bored husband’s chair’ outside a cafe, while Rose and I rummaged away in some of the jewellery and fashion stalls. When I turned, I saw him looking up, mouth wide and eyes even wider as he watched 2 beautiful rainbow lorikeets sharing a sugar sachet that they had pinched off the cafe table. YEP …. one of them flew down and grabbed the sachet (Bundaberg sugar of course)  and flew back to his mate on the branch where they proceeded to SHARE  the sweet granules.

We watched for a while as they swapped the job of holding and eating … it was amazing to watch the cooperation and the skill they showed in executing their plan (mind you I was worried about their risk of diabetes ).

Anyway, after a few pics to prove I was not making it up …we moved on, and since that day I have seen more birds than I have noticed in a lifetime.

Driving home from work 2 days after my lorikeet encounter, I spotted a large black crow that appeared out of the long grass with a golf ball in its beak. It placed the ball gently by the gutter and flew back to collect another ….and then another. ..

Next came the hawk/ eagle (I’m not good with bird identification) circling and swooping at a small nest in one of our backyard tress. We were floating in the pool when Michael noticed the massive shadow of this creature circling above. As we watched, he began swooping and eyeing off the small chicks in the nest, so we stood Marcel, our “scareman” out beside the tree in the hope of scaring him away … I’m happy to report that it worked (thanks Marcel ;-))

Then came the bower bird in the front garden, the dopey ducks on the driveway, the pigeon waddling down the middle of the cafe, the huge white cockatoo swooping the car as I drove on the M2 at the exact moment that I heard the news report of the emu that had been kidnapped from Featherdale Wildlife Park .

NOW tell me this is not all very weird …. It just leaves me wondering …..why???

Today’s wondering goes something like this….

Why is it that whenever a bunch of  ’50 somethings’ (or worse still 60 or 70 somethings) come together,  the topic of conversation always ends up being health.  Actually that’s wrong…NOT health but ILL health, ailments, broken bits and disease.

You know the stuff…the aching knees…, the sore back…, the indigestion…, the insomnia…,the haemorrhoids  bla bla bla.

Recently I was shopping in the local marketplace, and I witnessed 2 couples (high end ’50 somethings’) come together and greet each other enthusiastically.  Clearly they were four friends that had not seen each other over the previous year … (I know this because I was eavesdropping!)

After the initial pleasantries, it started.

Like a bidding war at an auction house, they traded stories of surgery and sickness hospitals and horror, like nothing else existed or even mattered. I stood within earshot pretending to read greeting cards, while I honed my senses and tuned in more closely to the frenzy of one-upmanship taking place just a few metres away.

After fifteen minutes of ever increasing volume, and the four of them all talking over each other, I had exhausted the card rack and I couldn’t take it anymore. I left this scene, swearing to never ever turn into those people.

Don’t get me wrong, OF COURSE we are all entitled to let it out… (after all who among us doesn’t have stories to tell)… and who better to share the horror stories with than your friends?…BUT surely there’s gotta be more to being ‘50 something’  than focussing on death, disease and despair like this beige bunch.  Rant over !

This middle age nonsense is such a mixed blessing  – just when you begin to feel comfortable in your skin and embrace the real woman within; society then throws you a curve ball to spoil your fun and ruin everything.

No longer are you asked for ID to prove your age to get into a club and go partying… Instead you start getting asked to show your Seniors Card, and being offered discounts on coffee and cake!!

What the ???

I have this gorgeous friend, a ‘58 vintage babe just the same as me. Fairly recently she struggled with the huge decision to cut her long locks to a ‘length more becoming of her age’ … (whatever that means).  Having taken that first plunge, she then decided to complete the transition by embracing the gradual grey take over … It’s a great look and suits her perfectly, but somehow this move back to mother nature has triggered a flood of offers for discount coffee.  How cruel people can be in their kindness.

mmm…I just wonder how many ’50 something’ men with smatterings of salt in their otherwise pepper hair, are targeted for a cheap cuppa?

So let’s not rush this “Seniors” thing …we may be ’50 something’ …but we’re not dead yet!!

Far from the series of the same name … (which was all about discovering yourself in adolescence), my WonderYears rambling starts more like “I wonder how I got to be 50 something?”. Last time I looked, I was cruising toward 40 and wondering “is this what it feels like to be grown up?”… well here I am and I am still wondering.

Don’t get me wrong … I’m not desperately clinging to my youth and refusing to accept the natural order of things, I just wonder how I woke up one day and found my life at least half spent ???

I’ve never been one to let the grass grow under, my feet … but I feel like this new revelation has hit me between the eyes. While some of my friends are talking about kicking back and taking it easy … I feel myself become terrified of winding down …and worse still becoming “beige”.

Recently while on holiday, we had lunch at a gorgeous little boathouse in a sleepy village on the north coast. After soaking up the sun and sipping on a champagne and watching the pelicans for a while …I suddenly became aware of our dining companions. Dotted around the deck of the boathouse were half dead couples, retirees who all looked like they had retired not only from work, but also from living, laughing and loving.  “aaarrrgh”… they were BEIGE… bland boring and beige!!

Growing up doesn’t mean being boring….I may be 50 something but I’m not dead yet!!