2001-05-22
Dear Diary:

����Lately the words Carpe Diem are reverberating through my head, which either means seize the day or carp are dying. You can't imagine how annoying this is, not knowing if you're obsessed with the passage of time or the passage of fish.

����I KNEW I should have taken Latin in high school, eh.

This is me at neonate stage, looking suitably concerned about the goofy clothes I was forced to wear.����Maybe my obsession comes because today my personal odometer clicked over and I turned 50. Anyone who makes jokes about adult diapers or memory loss is going to �.

(Marn rummages through notes, can't find the threats she meant to make and gets distracted by the latest Lee Valley gardening catalogue which is in the pile of "things I need to go through".)

���.

���.

���.

����Oh, you still here?

����Um, where was I? Oh yeah, The Birthday.

����Will, the trainer down at my gym, turned 27 on Friday. He's still in the "I'm invincible" part of his life, the part where you can't conceive that you're not going to live forever, that you're not going to be able to make your body do exactly what you want it to do whenever you want, that you have endless time to chase down all your dreams. That part.

����I was watching him and his friend working out yesterday morning at my gym as I worked my way through my own routine and I couldn't help but get a twinge about the sheer strength and raw optimism of him.

����It's no accident that this year I'm marking my birthday year with hours spent trying to push my body back to levels of strength I had when I was much younger. It's no accident that I'm marking my birthday year with a trip to the other side of the world this coming fall.

����Marn, the princess of procrastination, is coming to grips with the novel idea that time is finite. I am trying to change the tense in my life, to go from "someday" to "now".

����It's odd, hitting this milestone birthday. I mean, for sure the packaging has been around for half a century. The woman who looks back at me in the mirror is no Cher--all the years are etched there on my forehead, around my eyes, and in my hair which has been white for a few years now.

����Even you know what?

����Inside I'm mostly the same, which is kind of scary, when you think about it. Yep, I may look grown up, look as if I have a clue or two accumulated after all this living, but the sad truth is that I haven't. Except for finally stumbling on the idea that I won't live forever, I'm pretty much as I was in my late teens.

����Except now I'm a white-haired, somewhat wrinkly teenager.

����Ewwwwww.

����This past weekend I had supper with our long time friends Ron and Sue and we reminisced a bit about my 30th birthday party. A gang of us dressed up in Roaring Twenties type clothing (since I was leaving my 20's) and headed off to Zack's on the Rocks for a long night of tomfoolery.

����For me, that was the tough birthday; I don't know why, it just was. But you know, back in '81 it was something of a novelty to see someone such as Zack queening about in his floor length sequined caftan, especially in a small Vermont town. For a woman having a hard time making the passage from her 20's into her 30's, it was the kind of "be yourself" smack upside my head I needed.

����I have a friend in his 80's, a very funny man who once said to me that if you don't grow up by the time you're 50 you don't have to grow up at all.

����Well, as of 8:15 a.m. today it's official.

����I don't ever have to grow up at all, eh.

--Marn
P.S.--Here's what I felt about turning 49.

Old Drivel - New Drivel


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Want to delve into my sordid past?
She's mellllllllllllllting - Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2012 - Back off, Buble - Monday, Dec. 19, 2011 - Dispersed - Monday, Nov. 28, 2011 - Nothing comes for free - Monday, Nov. 21, 2011 - None of her business - Friday, Nov. 04, 2011 -


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�2000, 2001, 2002 Marn. This is me, dagnabbit. You be you.