I have been attending at least one annual national library conference or another each year since I entered the profession. In the late 90's, there was enough travel money that we were often able to get funding for more conferences, but as the economy slowed, I learned to look for funding opportunities such as grants and travel awards. I have always looked forward to these trips, as I live to travel, love visiting large conference cities, enjoy the professional development and networking opportunities, and manage to squeeze in sightseeing when I can. I especially looked forward to conference time after the kiddo came along, as it was often the only time each year I could have quiet time where I wasn't wrangling a kid. In the years before she was born, I always roomed with other librarians and enjoyed it, but have grown to treasure quiet time in my room, as I am rarely by myself. I don't want to waste my organization's money, so I have become a master at finding alternative lodging opportunities. I have stayed in guest houses, hostels, college dorms, nearby budget hotels, and am staying in an Airstream in a campground this year. In Chicago, I rented someone's fully furnished studio apartment and rode the El into the conference every day. Essentially, I keep my lodging costs to the same amount others who share their rooms pay.
Now that my child is getting older and a bit more independent, I am beginning to lose my need to be ALONE, and will probably resume taking roommates again after this year. I am fairly new in my position here, and don't really want to get a reputation as someone who is standoffish. I was close enough to my co-workers at my last job for them to understand that I was not anti-social, and I was happy to hang out during the day, but they were empathetic to my need to have a little alone time once a year. I am still getting to know people here, so I feel I should be sociable and look for a roommate next year. I honestly do enjoy the company of colleagues, but I also relish, for a few days each year, the silence of an empty hotel room, the ability to traipse around my room wrapped in a towel and watch cable TV, which we do not have at home, and being able to hog the bathroom. These are luxuries on par to staying in an expensive spa. After a few days of having quiet evenings and mornings in my room, I start to feel like a hermit, and am grateful to come home and experience the beautiful cacophony of my child.
This is the first year that I am actually experiencing a sense of sadness about leaving. I have been growing closer to my kid and spending a lot of time taking her on little weekend adventures. As my husband struggles with his back injury, I have stepped in to take her places so she won't spend her entire weekend playing Minecraft, and so he can rest his back. Though I hate for my husband that he is in so much pain, the experience we're all going through has brought us all closer. I will be gone 5 1/2 days, and I am already missing my family. I hate to be one of those mothers who cannot bear to be away from my daughter, but I do feel maternal pangs when I am away.
Though my husband always has a conference the same week as I, I am hoping to take my mother and daughter with me to San Francisco next year, and perhaps head over to Yosemite for a couple of days afterwards. Mom has offered to watch the kiddo while I attend programming, and I want so much to take my daughter to all the places I was able to visit when I was a kid. If that doesn't work out, I will reach out to my co-workers and learn to do the roommate thing again. What I'll give up in privacy, I'll gain in fellowship.
Monday, June 23, 2014
Thursday, June 19, 2014
on aging...
Lately, I have been thinking about the fact that I am now "middle-aged" and am, like everyone else, starting the aging process. I tried this morning, during my commute, to tease out what aging means to me, how I feel about being middle-aged, and what kind of older person I'd like to be.
The common wisdom is that women tend to take aging hard. They desperately try to hang on to their youth, they invest a fortune in "anti-aging" skin products, they fret about the effects of gravity, and those who are well off rush off to have "work" done. Frankly, I see my peers aging gracefully and not dwelling on their age, and I, personally, have not felt any pulls of desperation. In fact, I don't feel particularly perturbed at all that I am 46 years old. I don't know what 46 is supposed to feel like, but I physically feel better than I did in my early 30s. I can hike to the top of a mountain now, while, 10 years ago, I was struggling to climb a few flights of stairs. I have more patience than I did 10 years ago, and I actually like the changes I have made to the way in which I present myself. I no longer dress for "shock" value or follow trends for the sake of doing so; I choose clothing that I feel flatters me and that can be worn in a variety of settings. I think my youthful attitude comes from having had a child at an "advanced maternal age". I am dealing with 8 year old problems, and only had my first real professional, career-track position at the age of 30, so my maturity and growth was delayed by a number of years. That means that my life pace is more on par with the average 30 something year old than it is with most people my own age. I guess that also means that I had a lot more "immature" years.
There are both advantages and disadvantages to starting careers and having children later in life. I had no idea what I wanted in life at 22; and had I started having children or started a career back then, I don't think I would have excelled at either. Woe be to to the child that would have had 22 year old me as a mother. And, had I settled on a career right out of college, I would have missed out on the incredible experiences I had in my 20s, as I explored different options and kicked around as a cliched Gen-X slacker, choosing jobs and settings based on the incredible places in which I chose to live. The 37 year old I was when my daughter was born was more mature, certainly more economically viable, and more patient. HOWEVER... My friends who are now becoming empty nesters have a level of freedom that I don't have. They have paid their dues, and are now traveling and seeing the world as a more affluent person than I was when I had my freedom. My adventures were extremely low budget, and there were times that I found myself in perilous economic situations. Also, my child is incredibly energetic, and I am often tired, when 22 year old me would have had no problem keeping up with my kid. Some of my friends who started raising children early were probably a bit envious at times of the freedom I had in my twenties; now I am occasionally envious of their newly found freedom. I also worry about that fact that my only child will be younger when her parents are aging, and she definitely will lose her grandparents earlier than many of her peers. I don't want my daughter to feel responsible for nursing her aging parents when she is at the age where she should be focusing on a career, or on raising a family, or both. I feel sometimes that I have given her a raw deal by bringing her into this world with a mother who was almost 38. But, every situation has pros and cons, and I cannot hyperfocus on the wisdom of the choices I made. I simply was not ready for parenthood until my mid to late 30s, and that's just the way it is.
In terms of worrying about my attractiveness as I age, I really don't. I don't feel jealous of beautiful young women with their entire lives ahead of them. I already had my turn as a young woman, had all those advantages, and it's time now to pass the torch. Age is the great equalizer. I also don't believe that beauty is limited to the young. Beauty exists at every age, and the older we become, the more inner beauty becomes more relevant. I feel more confident in my own skin than I did when I was young, and sometimes, confidence only comes with age and wisdom. Yes, there are men who dump their aging wives for younger, more pliable, more attractive women, but, trust me, if you have one of those, you're better off without them. There are plenty of men who aren't seeking to replace the old with the new, and my husband, thankfully, doesn't appear to be looking for a trophy wife.
A lot of older women report that, as they age, they feel increasingly invisible. People often don't listen to them as they speak, and look right through them. This is probably the most troublesome, and actually, infuriating worry of mine. I loathe sexism, ageism, any "ism", really, and this is a particularly difficult problem to fight, as it is mostly a subconscious response. So many cultures revere the elderly and respect their wisdom. Here, we mostly want them to become invisible. They remind us of death, and western cultures do NOT like being reminded of death. And I probably think about death more than average. Blame my past as a goth; we're somewhat morbid.
In any case, I am not really fretting the fact that I am getting older. Each stage brings with it new triumphs and new challenges, and I am enjoying the person I am becoming. There's no getting around aging, unless you die young, so one might as well accept it with dignity and grace.
The common wisdom is that women tend to take aging hard. They desperately try to hang on to their youth, they invest a fortune in "anti-aging" skin products, they fret about the effects of gravity, and those who are well off rush off to have "work" done. Frankly, I see my peers aging gracefully and not dwelling on their age, and I, personally, have not felt any pulls of desperation. In fact, I don't feel particularly perturbed at all that I am 46 years old. I don't know what 46 is supposed to feel like, but I physically feel better than I did in my early 30s. I can hike to the top of a mountain now, while, 10 years ago, I was struggling to climb a few flights of stairs. I have more patience than I did 10 years ago, and I actually like the changes I have made to the way in which I present myself. I no longer dress for "shock" value or follow trends for the sake of doing so; I choose clothing that I feel flatters me and that can be worn in a variety of settings. I think my youthful attitude comes from having had a child at an "advanced maternal age". I am dealing with 8 year old problems, and only had my first real professional, career-track position at the age of 30, so my maturity and growth was delayed by a number of years. That means that my life pace is more on par with the average 30 something year old than it is with most people my own age. I guess that also means that I had a lot more "immature" years.
There are both advantages and disadvantages to starting careers and having children later in life. I had no idea what I wanted in life at 22; and had I started having children or started a career back then, I don't think I would have excelled at either. Woe be to to the child that would have had 22 year old me as a mother. And, had I settled on a career right out of college, I would have missed out on the incredible experiences I had in my 20s, as I explored different options and kicked around as a cliched Gen-X slacker, choosing jobs and settings based on the incredible places in which I chose to live. The 37 year old I was when my daughter was born was more mature, certainly more economically viable, and more patient. HOWEVER... My friends who are now becoming empty nesters have a level of freedom that I don't have. They have paid their dues, and are now traveling and seeing the world as a more affluent person than I was when I had my freedom. My adventures were extremely low budget, and there were times that I found myself in perilous economic situations. Also, my child is incredibly energetic, and I am often tired, when 22 year old me would have had no problem keeping up with my kid. Some of my friends who started raising children early were probably a bit envious at times of the freedom I had in my twenties; now I am occasionally envious of their newly found freedom. I also worry about that fact that my only child will be younger when her parents are aging, and she definitely will lose her grandparents earlier than many of her peers. I don't want my daughter to feel responsible for nursing her aging parents when she is at the age where she should be focusing on a career, or on raising a family, or both. I feel sometimes that I have given her a raw deal by bringing her into this world with a mother who was almost 38. But, every situation has pros and cons, and I cannot hyperfocus on the wisdom of the choices I made. I simply was not ready for parenthood until my mid to late 30s, and that's just the way it is.
In terms of worrying about my attractiveness as I age, I really don't. I don't feel jealous of beautiful young women with their entire lives ahead of them. I already had my turn as a young woman, had all those advantages, and it's time now to pass the torch. Age is the great equalizer. I also don't believe that beauty is limited to the young. Beauty exists at every age, and the older we become, the more inner beauty becomes more relevant. I feel more confident in my own skin than I did when I was young, and sometimes, confidence only comes with age and wisdom. Yes, there are men who dump their aging wives for younger, more pliable, more attractive women, but, trust me, if you have one of those, you're better off without them. There are plenty of men who aren't seeking to replace the old with the new, and my husband, thankfully, doesn't appear to be looking for a trophy wife.
A lot of older women report that, as they age, they feel increasingly invisible. People often don't listen to them as they speak, and look right through them. This is probably the most troublesome, and actually, infuriating worry of mine. I loathe sexism, ageism, any "ism", really, and this is a particularly difficult problem to fight, as it is mostly a subconscious response. So many cultures revere the elderly and respect their wisdom. Here, we mostly want them to become invisible. They remind us of death, and western cultures do NOT like being reminded of death. And I probably think about death more than average. Blame my past as a goth; we're somewhat morbid.
In any case, I am not really fretting the fact that I am getting older. Each stage brings with it new triumphs and new challenges, and I am enjoying the person I am becoming. There's no getting around aging, unless you die young, so one might as well accept it with dignity and grace.
Monday, June 9, 2014
rambly fitness musings
This weekend, I had a fabulous trip on the VA Creeper Trail with about 18 other folks. The shuttle took us to the top of Whitetop Mountain, and we coasted downhill for about 17 miles to Damascus. The bike ride is great for people of all fitness levels, and I expected it to be a breeze, but we hit a couple of caches that required some climbing. One had me stumbling through thick groves of stinging nettles, ouch, and another was about an hour scrambling up and down steep slopes to haul myself up to a waterfall. Now, I know I have some extra weight on me, but I usually feel fairly fit for a woman my age. I hike and backpack, and I go up and down 11 1/2 flights of stairs at least twice a day at work, often adding a brisk walk on top of that. But I found myself frequently out of breath and about 5 minutes behind the two youngest people in our party; a 24 year old and a 12 year old. It became very, very evident that I have to step up the training if I expect to do the Grand Canyon in January. As I am going alone, it is very important for me to be in the best possible shape I can be.
To that end, I have to take off about 2 pounds a week until I reach no more than 150 pounds, and really step up the fitness level. I'm starting to get nervous about my ability to do this, and I would be foolish to show up at 8,000 feet at the Grand Canyon Rim out of shape.
Weight Watchers was really helpful to me, in terms of taking off the bulk of my extra weight, but it really requires a lot more counting and tracking than I have time to do, and I just can't afford the monthly fees. I tried low carb, and found myself 20 pounds heavier. So, I need a system that will be easy for a busy working Mom to keep up with, but isn't a complete free-for-all. Low carb, at least the version I followed, had very little structure, and I managed to cram in a lot of calories and fatty foods, and, despite what some people say, some of us are still sensitive to calories, period. This will require all of my willpower and motivation, and will also require, sigh, another investment of a new wardrobe when I am finished. I am wearing size 12 now, and I have a decent newish size 10 wardrobe packed away ready to activate, but below that, I have nothing. I'm also not sure I'm ready, psychologically, to not be overweight. On some level, the extra padding has provided some psychological comfort, and I may want to talk to a professional for a few sessions to troubleshoot how to handle being considered "not overweight", as bizarre as that sounds. But, this time, the motivation is here, because any misstep on that trail could be potentially life threatening.
I may be one of these people that has to string a regular series of intense physical challenges to keep me motivated to be fit. Obviously, having what some call a " bikini body" (and I saw a fabulous meme on FB that stated that we all have bikini bodies if we have a. a bikini, and b. a body) is not compelling enough to get me out of the Nutella jar. There is some stubborn, resistant part of my psyche that believes losing weight means I no longer accept Body Positivity, and am, therefore, less of a feminist. On the surface, this is a completely false dichotomy. Wanting to live longer and feel vital and able to tackle physical challenges does not negate my feminism. Why would I not want to have the ability to backpack and hike the Grand Canyon? How am I a better feminist if I am winded climbing a flight of stairs? Yet, despite the fact that I know this intellectually, I apparently have a metric ton of emotional baggage to unpack. I wish there was a magic button I could press that would keep me from overthinking everything and would allow me to act within my best self-interest on matters of health.
Today, during my lunch hour, I chugged up and down 11 1/2 flights of stairs in the library 4 times, and still had time to dash out this blog entry. For the younger people with whom I cached this weekend, this would have been effortless. It was not effortless for me, but I completed this mission without too much trouble. I'm 46. I will never be 12 or 24 or even 35 again. I have to measure my successes against the person I can be and not against some unachievable ideal. But if 70 year olds can hike the AT and do the Grand Canyon, there is hope for me yet...
To that end, I have to take off about 2 pounds a week until I reach no more than 150 pounds, and really step up the fitness level. I'm starting to get nervous about my ability to do this, and I would be foolish to show up at 8,000 feet at the Grand Canyon Rim out of shape.
Weight Watchers was really helpful to me, in terms of taking off the bulk of my extra weight, but it really requires a lot more counting and tracking than I have time to do, and I just can't afford the monthly fees. I tried low carb, and found myself 20 pounds heavier. So, I need a system that will be easy for a busy working Mom to keep up with, but isn't a complete free-for-all. Low carb, at least the version I followed, had very little structure, and I managed to cram in a lot of calories and fatty foods, and, despite what some people say, some of us are still sensitive to calories, period. This will require all of my willpower and motivation, and will also require, sigh, another investment of a new wardrobe when I am finished. I am wearing size 12 now, and I have a decent newish size 10 wardrobe packed away ready to activate, but below that, I have nothing. I'm also not sure I'm ready, psychologically, to not be overweight. On some level, the extra padding has provided some psychological comfort, and I may want to talk to a professional for a few sessions to troubleshoot how to handle being considered "not overweight", as bizarre as that sounds. But, this time, the motivation is here, because any misstep on that trail could be potentially life threatening.
I may be one of these people that has to string a regular series of intense physical challenges to keep me motivated to be fit. Obviously, having what some call a " bikini body" (and I saw a fabulous meme on FB that stated that we all have bikini bodies if we have a. a bikini, and b. a body) is not compelling enough to get me out of the Nutella jar. There is some stubborn, resistant part of my psyche that believes losing weight means I no longer accept Body Positivity, and am, therefore, less of a feminist. On the surface, this is a completely false dichotomy. Wanting to live longer and feel vital and able to tackle physical challenges does not negate my feminism. Why would I not want to have the ability to backpack and hike the Grand Canyon? How am I a better feminist if I am winded climbing a flight of stairs? Yet, despite the fact that I know this intellectually, I apparently have a metric ton of emotional baggage to unpack. I wish there was a magic button I could press that would keep me from overthinking everything and would allow me to act within my best self-interest on matters of health.
Today, during my lunch hour, I chugged up and down 11 1/2 flights of stairs in the library 4 times, and still had time to dash out this blog entry. For the younger people with whom I cached this weekend, this would have been effortless. It was not effortless for me, but I completed this mission without too much trouble. I'm 46. I will never be 12 or 24 or even 35 again. I have to measure my successes against the person I can be and not against some unachievable ideal. But if 70 year olds can hike the AT and do the Grand Canyon, there is hope for me yet...
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Consistency, people.
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