I'm definitely an old soul.
When I'd finally wrangled my angst into check, I started to no longer loathe working with the old ladies at the office of Lexington-Dermatology where I summer-(jobb)-ed for six or seven years, and I realized there was a limitless amount of joy to be gleaned from the stories my colleagues would share with me day in and day out about their tumultuous courtships and wild single girl adventures of yore. Most of them were married by the time they were 22, but they'd still managed to pack some serious peaks and valleys into the narratives of their local lives. None of them were from farther than a few towns away, so they mostly regaled me with the tales of life as they'd known it while young & healthy in Newton, Waltham, and Watertown... Before taking trips for their 35th wedding anniversaries to Europe or buying their summer homes in Maine at 40something, the farthest their travels took them were down the Cape, up to Hampton Beach, if they were lucky to NYC to see a Broadway show and if they were luckier yet, all the way to California to meet a crazy aunt who'd flown the coop and been living the high life out there fake eyelashes, gogo boots and all.
One of my favorites from the office, Annette, passed away my senior year of high school and I lost a surrogate grandmother and gained a guardian angel I'm certain. I grew close to the golden girls there, and they may still have driven me nuts with their learning curves when we'd upgrade to newer scheduling software on the computers, but they're some of the neatest and nicest women I've ever worked with. And it doesn't strike me as strange at all to think of the friendships I'd formed with many of them 40 - 60 years my seniors.
Similarly, it no longer bothers me that my best workouts are always the ones I have rounding the circuit at Curves the Women's gym with the old ladies who spend 30 minutes huffing, puffing, and gossiping their way from machine to cardio pad to machine and so on each morning, afternoon, and night. There are mornings - like this one - when I'm more entertained by the hour it takes me to run there, do the circuit, properly stretch and supplementally lift some freeweights, and run back to Elsworth, than I am even by the hours I spend watching SMASH on the treadmill or arc trainer at NYSC. And that makes the dual memberships more than worth it.
Today as I was leaving, I saw the 5'6" husband of about a 5'1" woman who'd been on the circuit with me asking the other ladies whether they'd caught the games last night and giving her all on the handfull of machines she's able to do without hurting her back or knees - she was a looker but somewhat worse for the wear, a cancer survivor I gathered from conversation she made. This woman was probably in her late 70s, and her husband, in his Red Sox wind breaker, reading a newspaper, in the hallway just outside the door of the women-only fitness center, had to be up there as well. He walked in with her and asked "all clear?" of the dressing room before going in to grab the folding chair he was sitting on in the hall, and he exchanged pleasantries with the ladies coming and going in the time his wife spent working out. And she told one of the other ladies, she was trying to come every morning this week.
And as I left the little gym to set off on my run back to my parents' house (I'm in Newton to see the FINAL Naugler graduate from NNHS tonight at Conte Forum due to the same seemingly annual rain that sent the other 4 of us indoors for graduation ceremonies in '02, '04, '06, and '10) I'll be darned if I did't say a little prayer asking to someday have that sort of support. A little cheerleader of a husband, who'd sit outside reading the paper to pass the time but really to make sure I was alright still working out into my 80s.
Amazing. Adorable. A long way off.
In the meanwhile, I saw Snow White and the Huntsman with my mom and dad two nights ago (after sending the bambina sorella off to her prom with Prince Jake, her bf) and *spoiler alert* the last scene was BOSS (an expression I have picked up hanging out with my little sisters and their friends the past few days). Why? You ask. Because breaking the mold, this fairytale retelling did not wrap up with the princess & prince (or hunky huntsman Chris Hemsworth who's true love kiss woke her face up, or duke/best guy friend William who wouldn't lose her a second time) living happily ever after. It ended with Snow White (a less annoying Kristen Stewart than I was expecting) being like, simmah down people, I've got a kingdom to run. I'll get around to picking which of these dreamboats I want to spend the rest of my life running it with when I get my own ish together.
Sigh.
It's good to be back, blogosphere.
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