Fifty-seven going on Seventy-five

So tonight is opening night of the Prairie Players’ production of The Sound of Music on the stage of the William Glesby Centre. When I auditioned for one of the nuns way back last winter, I questioned my sanity. The argument in my head went something like this:

Killjoy Me: Are you nuts? You KNOW how tired you are.

Dreamer Me: Yeah, but it’s The Sound of Music! At 57, when will I ever get another chance to do this?

Killjoy Me: You KNOW if you’re not in bed by 10 pm you turn into a zombie! How are you going to stay at the theatre until 10:30 or later every night?

Dreamer Me: I’ll take vacation time from work so I can sleep in the next morning.

Killjoy Me:  You KNOW you need to sleep every afternoon or you can’t get through an evening.

Dreamer Me: But it’s just a little part!

Killjoy Me: There are no small parts, dummy, only small—

Dreamer Me: —Shut up! I’m going for it.

And so I did. And I won a nonspeaking role as one of the nuns. Perfect. 

I soon realized I was the weak link in the alto section and would not be missed if I got hit by a truck on opening night. But that only served to emphasize the privilege of participating in this classic production.

So I’ve done everything I can think of to conserve energy. Took a week's vacation from work and from writing—except for this post. Skipped church. Been sleeping late every morning and napping every afternoon. And I’m still exhausted. I console myself by the fact that I am the oldest of the nuns and nearly the oldest in the cast.

Then I find out some of my co-actors—with much bigger roles to play—are putting in full days at work or school plus evening rehearsals. Seriously? How is that humanly possible? And suddenly I feel like I must be a hundred and three. In the five years I’ve been fighting with lung issues and their associated energy drain, I forget this much fatigue is not necessarily normal. I’ve grown used to managing my schedule around the need to sleep, much like a parent of a toddler must do. How humiliating. Ridiculous. Discouraging. Frustrating. I decide this will have to be my last production.

And then I see this meme that says “Old is when you give up. Until then, you are spectacular.”

And then I hear this line from Psalm 121 that the Reverend Mother quotes in one of the play’s scenes. A modern translation puts it this way:

I look up to the mountains; does my strength come from mountains?
No, my strength comes from God, who made heaven, and earth, and mountains.

He won’t let you stumble, your Guardian God won’t fall asleep.
Not on your life! Israel’s Guardian will never doze or sleep.

Feeling old and exhausted today? Look to your true Source of strength. Sleep if you must. And then go out and be spectacular.

Gitcher Own Gitch!

So I was all snuggled down in bed with my late night mug of tea, reading Deborah Raney’s Another Way Home (Book 3 in her Chicory Inn series), when I quite literally laughed out loud. The scenario between the middle-aged characters, Audrey and Grant, could have been a page out of my life and I had a funny suspicion something close to it may have played out in the Raney household as well.

Grant has just returned home with bags of household supplies from Walmart, requested by Audrey.

He returned a minute later with another load of department store bags. “I saved you the trouble of buying me new skivvies.”

“That was thoughtful of you.”

The scene gets funnier, but I won’t spoil it for you. The part that triggered my memory was Grant’s doing his wife a favor by purchasing his own underwear, and her response, which—although not stated—could only be interpreted by my wifely mind as dripping with delicious sarcasm. 

Having married at the ripe age of 18 and 19, Hubby and I never lived on our own. So when we took up housekeeping and life together, we each automatically assumed the role our same gender parent had played and depended on the other to do the same. I guess his mom had always bought his gitch and it took me only thirty years to start questioning why I was doing this for him as well.

One day when he announced his underwear was full of holes and needed replacing, I declared my freedom.

“You’re a big boy. You can buy your own underwear from now on,” I said. Or something to that effect. I may have included a rant about how I worked full time like he did and wasn’t it enough that I washed, dried, and put his gitch away?

Well, technically, we have a machine to wash and dry them. But still.

He didn’t argue.

But as the weeks went by, I kept noticing the same old ratty gitch showing up in the wash and no new ones making their appearance. I didn’t mention it, but I refused to give in. I don’t know how many weeks went by. Maybe it was months. Neither of us mentioned the underwear situation.

Then one day I was in Walmart for some other things. I must have been in a particularly benevolent mood that day, because as I passed by the men’s section, it occurred to me that it would take ten seconds to grab a package of the underwear Hubby liked and toss it into my cart. Was this really a hill worth dying on? Surely I could be the bigger man and swallow my pride this once.

I did it, proud of myself for conquering my own stubborn spirit.

When I got home late that day and walked into our bedroom, Walmart bag in hand, I thought I was losing my mind. On top of Hubby’s dresser sat a brand new package of underwear—the exact duplicate of the package I’d bought. 

Without a word, we had both surrendered on the same day.

Hubby was good for underwear for a long time after that. And I can’t help thinking God had a good chuckle.

Author Richelle E. Goodrich said, “If you think the most courageous and difficult thing you can do is stubbornly stand your ground, try graciously giving in.”

 

 For a hilarious three minutes of comedy that only a Canadian can truly appreciate, listen to this Gitch/Gotch sketch from CBC Radio.

Where I May Have Acquired My Hope Genes

Mom with her original five.

So this week we celebrated Mom’s 85^th birthday at a local restaurant with my siblings and Mom’s little brother who always seemed like more of a brother to us. It was a good time, with my brother making my sister laugh so hard she could barely breathe at one point.

As we celebrated Mom, we played a trivia game with questions based on the autobiography she published ten years ago. Even she didn’t get all the answers correct, but she did win the prize in the end.

One of my favorite stories from Mom’s life and book happened in 1950. Shortly after she and Dad moved into their first “real” home (a converted granary they had fixed up!), they were so proud to be able to order from the Simpsons catalog a complete living room suite—sofa, chair, coffee table, and two end tables. It even came with two lamps.

The trivia question surrounding this story was: What made this purchase so ironic?

The answer:  Their home didn’t have electricity!

Mom proudly placed the lamps on the end tables where they served as decorative ornaments for a year until the power company rolled through their district, stringing the wires that would make everyone’s world a little brighter. At the party, we teased Mom about whether she put bulbs in them and if so, did they burn out during the year? I suppose the house must have been wired for electricity when they built it, anticipating the day.

The reason I love this story so much is because it speaks of two things: contentment and hope.

The Bible says “We are saved by trusting. And trusting means looking forward to getting something we don’t yet have—for a man who already has something doesn’t need to hope and trust that he will get it.

 
But if we must keep trusting God for something that hasn’t happened yet, it teaches us to wait patiently and confidently.” (Romans 8:24 TLB)

Faith is about buying electric lamps before you can connect them to power, confident it will come. Faith is about waiting patiently for the fulfillment of our dreams here on earth, trusting that God is working out the details in his timing. 

Most of all, faith is knowing there is a “fully-charged” home awaiting us when our time here is done. So we can live out our 85 or 95 or 105-year allotment here, in the midst of life’s loneliness and disappointments, with peace and joy and patience and love. I’m grateful to have a mother who’s still here with us, exemplifying that very kind of faith every day.

Yay! A coloring book!