Maturing with Age

So here's a thing; I was reading the comments on a post written by a bloggy mate (one of those who I count as a real friend, even though we never got it together to meet up in Real Life), and she and some other longstanding bloggers (who fall into the same category) were discussing whether or not to have a fortieth birthday party.

I remember that discussion, in our house.  It was getting on for 9 years ago, mind you, but feels as if it were yesterday.  Now, Husband and I love to entertain.  We have form in this area and have thrown some epic parties, if I do say so myself.  But this time, I wasn't sure; to party for my 40th, or not?

So I considered it.  I agonised over it.  Then I fretted some more and finally I decided; no, I was definitely not going to throw a party to celebrate my fortieth birthday.  I mean, forty is - well, FORTY, right?  Nothing to see here, look away from the forty year old woman.  Move along, please.  She's just going to retire into a corner, bemoan her loss of youth, and quietly sink a bottle of her favourite red and hope nobody notices...

But then, I met up with one my best friends.  She asked me about the forthcoming Big Birthday, and how I was going to mark it.  On hearing that I thought I might just let it pass, she said something that stuck with me.

"But you have so much to celebrate!"

Huh.

She was right, of course, and suddenly I could see that.  What the hell was I thinking?  Forty was - well, just forty.  Was I never going to celebrate my birthday again?  Because every number after that was going to have a 4 in front of it - until it had a 5, then a 6 and - oh, you get the picture.  Was I not allowed to go for it simply because I wasn't in my thirties any more?

Really?

Fuck that.

So I bounced home and informed Husband that my plans had changed and we ended up having a party which I have to say was one of our best ever.  (Until our next best ever, but that's a different blog post).

So what I would say to my blog buddies unsure about whether or not to mark their fortieth birthday with some kind of a celebration, be it tea and cake with your family, a drunken evening with your bezzies down the pub, or something grander, is this: screw any codswallop about getting older being something you should sweep under the carpet.

We should forget any of the restrictions we might feel are being imposed on us by Society simply because we aren't in our twenties or thirties any more; if we want to we should party, ladies, whilst we still can.  Mark this birthday, celebrate it - and then do the same with the next milestone.  And the one after that, and the one after that.  I'm certainly going to...

(This is where my Husband shakes his head sadly and starts worrying about my plans for my fiftieth sometime in the next couple of years.  Don't worry darling.  It will only be a little celebration.  Just like the last one...)

Goodbye, sweet poison...

Sometimes, I catch glimpses of you across a crowded room, always looking cool, sleek, and refreshing.  For over half of my life you were an integral part of my routine; I couldn't imagine twenty four hours passing without your featuring in it at some point.

Sure, there were days that I had to make do without you, but it was never by choice.  Sometimes, other people who didn't understand how important you were to me just didn't want you around, so I was forced to do without you.  I couldn't bring you everywhere with me; that would have been rude and crazy, so from time to time I was forced to replace you with others.  I knew though that they were just pale imitations; they never lived up to what we had together.  They never quite delivered the same hit that you did, that same rush.

I'm a clean-living girl.  I don't drink (much) (anymore) (only at weekends), never smoked, was never interested in drugs. I eat healthy food, and not to excess.  Sure, I could exercise more, but other than that I'm boringly 'good'.  So it always came as something of a surprise to others when I confessed that I couldn't do without you.  I used to laugh it off;  "I'm allowed to have some kind of pick-me-up, surely?" but the fact that you were such a habit used to bother me, I admit.  Not enough to do anything about it, not really, but the concern was still there at the back of my mind.

My relationship with you was toxic.  Just a little bit, mind.  But still toxic.

And then recently I caught the flu, and suddenly you didn't seem so appealing. In fact, I found even the thought of you uncomfortable.  The next time our paths crossed I stood looking at you, temptingly decked out in red and silver, and I realised; I didn't need you now.  Why not try life without you for a while? I didn't imagine I would manage it for long; in similar situations in the past the craving has always crept back in the end; a few days or a couple of weeks were the longest I could do without you.

But it's been 10 weeks since I last reached in your direction.

So whilst we had good times for over 20 years, now? I really think I might be over you.

Goodbye, Diet Coke.

Thought-provoking

The title of this post was prompted by @Britmum's question on twitter today: 'If you could sum up your morning in one word, what would it be?'

My answer was 'Thought-provoking'.  Which I know probably counts as 2 words - so sue me.

Foolishly, they asked for clarification.  (Those crazy mixed-up kids).

In brief, then:

Why are Russian politicians running so scared of the prospect of any external expression of non-hetero sexuality?

Why do some expats (and yes, I know, this is a failing not only limited to expats) find it so difficult to walk in another person's shoes?  You're living in a country not your own; at least make the the attempt to understand the different situations that those outside the comfortable bubble you inhabit come from.

Just because a woman wears a short skirt and high heels, does not make her a tart.  Neither does it mean she is on the prowl for your husband, or has no idea about Feminism and what it is.

Some food companies are shameless in their drive for sales.  Read this and you'll see what I mean. (Hat tip to Amanda Surbey on facebook for the link)

How can it be that repeated - polite - requests to Boy #2 to get dressed in the morning have no effect, but using one word,  'Clothes' (as suggested by The Mummy Whisperer, here), and pointing to the pile of them on the floor achieves the desired result in less than 2 minutes?  (I do not know the answer to this but will be using this tactic again...)

I've made it to 14 days without Diet Coke.  I deserve to celebrate.  But with what? How about a diet co... oh.

Are you an International Woman?

It's International Women's Day here today. This is a bank holiday in Russia, and is treated as a day for women generally (rather than mothers in particular) to be feted by the men in their lives, be they husbands, sons, boyfs, work colleagues, etc etc. If I were working outside the home (as @crankymonkeys pointed out this morning on Twitter) my desk would have been covered with flowers from male colleagues to thank me just for being a woman (along with all that entails).

But I ain't. Working outside the home, that is.

So, whilst I would love to regale you with stories of breakfast in bed, being taken out for lunch, being showered with goodies and generally treated like a queen, I can't - because I wasn't. It was just another ordinary day in the Potski household. Except of course that if it were a normal working day the children would have been at school, but as it was a bank holiday, I got to have them at home to look after myself. Which is of course nice but hardly the point, I would venture to say, on what is supposed to be a restful day for women...

Husband assures me that all this will change tomorrow, perhaps as a result of my putting him on notice that I. Am. Doing. Nothing. And on the plus side, we haven't actually got around to any of the household admin he had so enthusiastically planned for our 'free' day together. Which at least saves me from the 'How did you celebrate International Women's Day, Potski?' 'Why, I did my tax return...' conversation next week and the subsequent pitying looks from friends.

Finally, I will leave you with a snippet of conversation between myself and my younger son this morning, which should perhaps have warned me that any ideas I may have had about being 'queen for a day' should be firmly nipped in the bud...

Me: "It's International Women's Day today, Boy #2. That means you have to be nice to me."

Boy #2 (assuming an amazed expression): "What??? ALL DAY???"

How you know you've lost the edge...

How do you know you've lost that sartorial edge?

Obviously, this post is not about me. I am, of course, a mere whippersnapper of coughcoughmumblemumble, only buying my clothes from Top Shop, Miss Sixty and other places that cater to the stick thin and trend-led such as myself.

Pause whilst PM picks herself up from the floor, laughing hysterically, and pops upstairs to change her sensible M&S underwear. Pelvic floors ain't what they used to be...

So, how do you know when following fashion is no longer your top priority?

When you show your best girlfriends the new pair of highly desirable boots you picked up on the Kings Road, with patent leather and everything, and the aspect of them that everyone agrees is amazing?

"Look at that! That's fantastic! Do you know how difficult it is to find a pair of nice-looking boots with a decent tread on them?"

We are becoming our mothers.

Where did it all go so wrong?

Yesterday Husband and I decided to exercise our Culture muscles and expose ourselves and The Boys to a little more than Halloween candy and dvd's for a change, and headed off on a trip to The Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in downtown Moscow. We ignored the round the block queues for the Salvador Dali exhibition, and instead joined a much shorter one that gave us access to two exhibitions; Kandinsky and Annie Leibovitz. The former was interesting, although not very extensive, but the latter was amazing.

However, this post is not about the genius of Annie Leibovitz; I'm not an art critic, I wouldn't be able to do her photography justice. This post is about one particular photograph of hers that got my attention among a host of other attention-getting images. I'm not going to reproduce it here - I don't know the copyright laws well enough to feel comfortable that I wouldn't be breaking any of them - but I will describe it to you, and provide a link in the paragraph below.

This photograph was taken in 1993, I believe for Vanity Fair, and shows Cindy Crawford wearing only a boa constrictor. It's an arresting image in it's own right - she was then, and is now, a beautiful woman - but the thing that really stopped me in my tracks was her shape. She looks like a real woman. An amazing, incredible woman, who could charge $10K simply to get out of bed in the morning (allegedly), but still, a real woman. Unlike many of the size 0 models held up as having the shape we should aspire today, she had a shape that I recognise, that women I actually knew, friends of mine, were not so distant from.

Fast-forward to today, when girls as young as 12 and 13 will refuse dessert on the grounds that they are watching their weight, stick-thin models sashay down the catwalks on legs that look as if they would snap if their heel turned the wrong way, and magazines berate celebrities for not losing their baby weight fast enough or for showing a couple of inches of extra flab around their waists on the beach.

In these supposedly emancipated times, when women have more control over their own bodies and destinies than they have had throughout history to date, how did we let this happen? How did we get from Cindy and her ilk - incredible bodies, yes, but not so far removed from our own as to be unrecogniseable - to the size 0 culture of today, in less than 20 years?

Where did it all go so wrong?

Please note; no Boys were corrupted in the making of this post. Neither of them paid much attention to the naked women on view, much preferring to fight each other for space on the seats than to pay close attention to the photos being exhibited. Although Boy #2 did comment on a series of shots of a crying baby, still covered in vernix, that had just been born, saying that it looked very unhappy and as if 'it wasn't having much fun.' See this previous post for my sons' views on childbirth...