Is that Really Me?

Sitting in the kitchen the other day, having coffee with my best friend of some 20+ years, we were enjoying the break in our daily lives. Suddenly, Janet,my best friend said, "I've got a great idea for your next book!" She was right.

This is a co-ordinated effort between myself and Janet. We are both over 50 now and we have both looked into the mirror and wondered... "Is that really me?"

When we are about 13 years old, life is fun, full of expectations, dreams, thoughts of love, dating, what outfits to wear, what jeans are cool, etc. At about 15 or 16 we are anxious to start driving, it's that ultimate right of passage, into pre adulthood. Around 18, we still have our cute little figures, and are anticipating graduating from high school, possibly entering into a college, perhaps we may even be looking at marriage. Even so, we have the world by the tail. We look into the mirror and see a young, vivacious girl with perky breasts, a waist that can fashionably wear a belt if we want, tight fitting jeans or short shorts. Long, slender legs, smooth as silk and perfectly defined.

At 21 we are "legal"! Legal to drink if we want, we can enter into binding contracts, even legal to make major adult decisions. Whoopee!! We may have put on a couple of pounds from all that starchy college mess hall food and fast food that tends to start accumulating in the form of slight love handles, wider hips and fuller thighs. But we still have those perky breasts. We look pretty good. We feel pretty good.

Thoughts of bad cholesterol, high blood pressure, varicose veins, arthritis, grey hair, and a low sodium diet are no where in the sight of our thoughts,dreams or even in our reality. We are young, beautiful, perky, energetic, healthy and desired by men. We, ladies, have the world by the tail!

Fast forward...we are now 30. Probably married with a child or two, breasts aren't near as perky but still not in too bad of shape. The "baby fat" is lingering around the hips and waist and the energy level is about 1/8 to ¼ of what is was 10 years ago. We have schedules to keep, play dates to make, PTA meetings, soccer games, ballet classes, business meetings, jobs, careers, supper to prepare, skinned knees to kiss and make feel better, a mortgage to pay, bills to maintain, and by 10:00pm we literally fall into bed. "Make love? Tonight? Are you kidding? I'm exhausted!"

10 years into the future at 40, we schedule with our spouses a time and date to spend some quality, intimate time together; perhaps even twice a month, if he's lucky. The kids are wanting to learn to drive, still involved in sports, school events, their friends, etc. You are the Taxi! Your job/career is more demanding than ever, you don't eat right, McDonald's is your favorite restaurant and Rolaids your favorite dessert. Those cute little jeans that you've had since you were 22 that always made your husband swoon....well....you can't even zip them up if you lay down flat. You're finding it extremely difficult to even paint your toe nails (if and when you have the time)because that kangaroo pouch you have in your lower abdomen (left over from baby making days). You notice that you've been using more creams, moisturizers and foundation make-up to hide the dark circles under your eyes from lack of restful sleep and stress, and Lady Clairol is becoming your best friend.

You're 50! About 20-30+ pounds over weight, you've got a chicken neck and chicken wing upper arms, spider veins on your legs, breasts are saggy and soft, and suddenly the "laugh lines" at the corners of your eyes aren't so funny anymore.

The alarm goes off at 5 am., you roll out of bed, sleepily pour a cup of coffee, maybe even light up a cigarette, sit at the table and speculate on the day ahead of you. The bathroom is the beginning of your morning routine. That's when it happens...you step out of the shower and into the full length mirror. A loud shriek is heard throughout the neighborhood. There...staring back at you in the mirror is a pudgy, sagging, wrinkled woman looking you square in the face. You run out of the bathroom and down the hall yelling for your husband. He rushes out of the bedroom (expecting to see a bloody gory sight) to find you bare naked, out of breath and apparently frantic. You step back in front of the mirror and desperately ask him "Is that really me?"

Who Am I ?

When we are children growing up we are often asked what do we want to be when we grow up? The standard replies are usually a fireman, policeman, mommy,movie star, etc. But I don't ever recall anyone asking me Who I wanted to be when I grew up. I'm sure that I would have been taken aback somewhat with that question. But perhaps that's the one question we should be asking our children. Since no one asked us who we wanted to be, did we ever ask ourselves that question?

Men are raised to be men...real men. Men with honor, integrity, valor, level heads and business sense. Men are raised to be role models, strength for those they love and care for. They are to be leaders in any aspect of their lives. In their careers they are to be ones who lead others up the ladder of success, at home they are to be the head of the household, the main bread winner...yada yada yada.

As girls, we are raised to be honest, pure, trustworthy, reliable, caring, nurturing, and of course we are told that we can do anything a man can do, we just have to work harder to gain the same kind of recognition for it. We are encouraged to marry, have children and have a career.

Around the age of 40, men have what we have lovingly come to know as a "mid-life crisis". They cheat on their wives or leave them for a much younger woman, they buy sports cars, change the way they dress and basically just go totally stupid for a few months to couple of years. One day they wake up and wonder what were they thinking! They then try to put everything in reverse and go back to the way it was only to find that the wife (ex-wife) and the kids believed him to be mad and have moved on with their lives.

Women don't have mid-life crisis'. They have "Man Do I Need To Pause!" (menopause). We don't go off the deep end and leave our husbands for young studs or buy fancy sports cars. We may have plastic surgery but most of us do not. Instead, we get the feelings that because our biological clock is slowly running down and will soon stop, our whole reason for being placed on this earth will be done. We will no longer be able to reproduce. No more going forth and multiplying (as if at this age any of us would really want too!). It is at this point that many of us Pause and give way to the thought that we don't know who (not what) we really are. We have been so busy being Mom, wife, taxi driver,chef, Dr.,psychologist, cleaning lady, bookkeeper, dishwasher and the list goes on, that we have forgotten who we are.

Janet has spent her entire life being somebodies mom and yet she was never a mother. At a very young age, she had to become the "woman of the house" when her father and mother divorced. She cared for her younger twin sisters and a younger brother. Her father was a farmer and worked long hours working the farm and trying to earn a living for his family. Janet and her siblings spent many long hours out in the hay fields and barnyard helping their dad as much as small children can. Fortunately, she gained some relief when her grandmother moved in with them. At age16 she became Brady's "wife", and with that "instant Mom"! Brady was a widower with 2 young children. Now she is also Mike and Kim's "mom", onto foster "mom" to several other children, then adopting her own baby niece after the baby's mother died in a house fire. Mom again. She never had the opportunity to have any children of her own, but we will learn later that this is a blessing. Janet has been Sgt. Feltner's wife, Mike,Kim and Cindy's mom, foster mom, and mom to many others in one way or another because of her big heart. Her and her husband Brady have been married for over 37 years but it wasn't until the kids were all grown and she started her own home based business that she became "Janet" again. But who is Janet?

Janet is a very smart woman. She didn't finish high school but there are other ways to gain knowledge. She is an independent business woman. She is a budgeter, the best kind of friend anyone could ever wish for. She is funny, caring, honest, full of integrity, loving, is an animal lover. She is a Christian, she is Janet!!

Janet, like so many of us, stepped out of the shower one morning and ran screaming down the hall. She didn't like the "physical" Janet in the mirror but she knew that could be fixed. But what she didn't know was.... " who is that in the mirror?" Of course, Brady,being the loving and devoted husband that he has always been, tried to reassure her that when he looks at her he still sees the 16 yr old girl he fell in love with. (yea! What a line of garbage!) What he means is, that because their love is so deep and time tested, he loves "Janet" not the vessel that carries her around this earth. But she still didn't know "who Janet is". She decided to find out!

First things first, she knew that the "pudgies" and the "sagging" and "wrinkles" needed to go away. After some research, the answer was simple: diet and excercise . Not a "fad" diet or low-carb diet or the "Dr. of the Month diet"....simple nutrition and changing her eating habits. Exercise, that's almost a dirty word to most of us! But it's a necessary evil in changing our habits and improving our looks, our opinion of ourselves and our health. Excercise doesn't have to be those terrible set ups, push ups and pull ups; you can start (like Janet did) with walking. Her business gives her lots of opportunity to walk short trips from her car to a customer's door but she needed more. Janet decided to share her walks with her husband, grandson, dogs and sometimes her younger daughter. They walk at a rapid pace down the road in the evenings, after dinner. This keeps her from becoming a couch potato after eating dinner, gives the dogs Exercise and enjoy the outdoors too.

As much as diet and Exercise are extremely important in changing the way you see your outer self and bringing out the "You" that has been pushed to its furthest recesses of the mind and soul; care of your skin is vitally important as well. And thats when Janet began to blossom and come back to life. She found out who she was and began to share it with others. Well she found out who a part of her is. She is a very multifaceted woman. All Good! Janet is a well rounded, beautiful woman (inside and out) and I feel so blessed to be able to call her my best friend.

I know exactly how Janet felt, because I went through the same thing. I'm certain that almost every woman has gone through a similar experience. You may not have had the same earth shattering look into the mirror, but there comes a time in our lives when we are either made to take a look at our selves or we choose to look at ourselves. We have to decide whether we like what we see not only on the outside, but also who we are on the inside and do we like that person. Did we somewhere along the line take an extended vacation from who we are to become what or who others needed us to be? How do we come back from that trip and move forward?

Sometimes, if we begin by making physical changes, inner changes begin to occur without our even knowing it. We think that movie stars and celebrities have such perfect lives. If they don't like something about their bodies, they call their plastic surgeon. If they don't like the way they feel, they pop a pill. But there's one big problem with all of that. It's a false sense of security and not who they really are. Some of them are simply small town. By that I mean, they came from small town,USA, from meager beginnings, the beginnings that taught them values; values some have forgotten. When they look into the mirror and ask "Is That Really Me?" the answer has to come back....NO!

Often times we think if only I could have her body or her hair. If only I could make the kind of money she makes, or live in a house like they do; my life would be grand. But how many times do we hear of this star or that star over dosing on drugs, killed while drinking and driving, divorce after divorce, loosing custody of their children or even killing their estranged spouse. What is lacking in all of these lives is knowing who they really are for themselves. Fame, stardom, popularity, notoriety and wealth are not bad things....when we know who we are and have a purpose that also helps others. But mainly, we must know "who we are!"

Personally, I have lost myself several times in my lifetime. Fortunately, I have found myself again and realized that when I found myself I had gained valuable knowledge about myself from when I was lost. Confusing?

Let me explain! When I was a young girl, I was the baby of my siblings and of course my dad spoiled me. No! I didn't get everything I wanted, but I never needed for anything and most of my life until my Dad passed away, I was Daddy's Girl! However, after my dad died, I felt lost. Not because he was gone but because I didn't know who else to be besides daddy's girl. My mom wasn't much help because she was a basket case herself when he died and for about a year after. She had her own things to deal with.

I knew my dad had been a basketball player way back when they first began to form the professional basketball teams. He had loved sports, animals and died doing what he had always wanted to do...raising cattle. Knowing these things, I decided I would do and be what I thought he wanted for me to be. I tried out for the first girls basketball team our school had ever had and made the team. I wasn't a "great" player but overall I was pretty good. I was a member of the high school choir, drama club (had slight aspirations of fame), and I had a lot of friends. All of this worked for me (or so I thought) until I graduated high school.

The summer of my Senior year was boring. I lived in a small mid-west town with absolutely nothing for young people to do but cruise town or go to the river to party. Not very exciting, to say the least. Long story short, I met a young man and got married, 3 months later left him to go to college.

I loved college life. Got involved in the drama department and the music department. Made a lot of friends and fell in love. Seriously fell in love. I convinced myself I was ready to be the wife of a professional dairy farmer. Thank goodness, he broke off the engagement and I came to my senses.

About a year later, I felt that my biological clock was ticking and getting louder. So I married a wonderful man who also had a 3 yr. Old son he was raising on his own. That marriage lasted a few days shy of our 13^th anniversary. We had 3 children together that are absolutely wonderful! I wouldn't trade those years of my life for anything. However, it was 13 years of being Mom, wife, taxi, PTO president, Girl Scout den mother, cub scout leader, Dr.Mom, and advertising sales representative for the local newspaper. Holly was out of the building! She had gone on a 13 year hiatus.

Just as I was about to get back to being me, I had a major brain glitch and married again, for all the wrong reasons. Big mistake. Thank goodness I woke up and fixed my error. We all make mistakes, the secret, as we are all told, is to learn from our mistakes so we don't make them again. For some, it takes a little longer.

I lost everything I owned and had worked for. Furious, with him and myself for allowing this to happen, I began to find myself again. If I could find me, keep me, I knew I would be fine. But how does a person set out to find themselves you may ask.

Different things work for different people. Some begin to meditate. Not necessarily like a guru with your legs crossed, fingertips touching thumbs and humming, although for some that may work. But by getting your mind clear. Or like Janet likes to call it....going on a mini vacation in your mind. Others listen to soothing music and just let their minds drift away. There are also several meditation tapes, Cd's and books out there that can be quite helpful. Personally, I like the Holosync Cd's put out by Centerpointe. You can visit their website and receive a free demo cd. At www.holosync.com or by going to www.centerpointe.com .

It doesn't really matter how you clear yourself in order to find yourself so long as you begin the journey. Often times it doesn't take very long to remember who you really are the important thing is that you begin looking for you.

This is the first two chapters of a book that my best friend Janet K. Feltner and myself are writing. We wanted to share a small portion of it with you in hopes that you too will begin looking for you. You don't have to wait until your 50 something to realize that the person, that inner "real" you, is still there and trying desperately to come out.