Gigi, I was talking about you the other day. I haven't seen you in years and yet I still think about your stories and the wild ride of a life you led. You were my secret coach, more than any other woman in my life, your story and adventures fired my imagination and paved the way for a massive transformation in mine. It's true through the years I have met other extraordinary woman who have left little tid bits and wisdom like passing comets whos trails I was able to view after the initial planet disappeared. Yet in my mind I'm having the conversation with you, somehow you are still a presence and influence my emotional muse. Of course I take literary liberties with my lessons learned but they are all true all of these are from yours truly hard taught and fought for...
Lesson #1 dress and groom for yourself look in your own mirror, decide who you are and live it. I am cute and sexy with a drop of comfort in mind.
Lesson #2 if he isn't wild for you and treats you like his one and only with all the attending worship something is rotten in Denmark.
Lesson#3 moisturizer everywhere, scent and smooth limbs always a must. Not sure who said it but a girl who spends her last dime on perfume is a real woman.
Lesson #4 Learn to say no and reward with the occasional yes ( that's a tough one for a person pleaser)
Lesson#5 dirty dancing in the living room follows to the bedroom. Which is very different from the advise that my Grandfather gave me his was make every kiss a stolen kiss.
Lesson #6 take care of your man but remember you are not his mother
Lesson #7 The way to a mans heart may be through his stomach but there is an awful lot of listening commiserating and putting up with to keep it
Lesson #8 men and women can not be friends, if he brings his new friend home to meet you grab your pitchfork girls, and that include the quant new practice of texting
Lesson #9 everyday in everyway think cute and sexy even when your wringing the laundry in the slop sink after the machine refuses to spin
Lesson #10 give yourself a good stare in the mirror, congratulate, pet, smile and reward its likely the only time you will have such a bulstering moment in the day, a pinch on the cheek doesn't hurt either
Lesson #11 do and eat one thing that you want once a day even if it's just a shnibble, and ten minutes of screaming down the toilet bowl (highly recommend if you have 3 kids under the age of five) ( or the equivalent of one former bachelor husband who is obsessive)
Lesson#12 if it hurts fix it or high thee to the bleeder cause you shouldn't suffer in silence! Seriously
Lesson#13 hair grows in very weird places after 50 the eye brow razors and threading girls are your best friend, when in doubt just pluck and keep on a plucking
Lesson#14 if it's perky it will sag, flop, droop and end up somewhere frightful forget a retirement fund nobody can afford to retire start a droopy day fund and and in case of divorce looking great is the best revenge fund. Wish I had thought of this 30 years ago, gotta find out if they'll do a layaway Botox Restilin at the near by clinic
Lesson #15 you'd better have a lot more than mad money stashed away for ICE
Lesson#16 just do it cause you're going to be a year older next year and you'll have lost that time fretting over being too old, bull shit never too old!
Lesson#17 pick a guys who isn't afraid to fart, cause I promise you even if you've never farted in your life after 50 you will everywhere at anytime so if he's already turning purple trying to pretend he isn't he'll be over the moon when you start to so he can just let himself go
Lesson #18 being polite never gets old it just puts you in a good place no matter how gnarly the other person is you can just smile politely and pat yourself on the back
Lesson#19 learn to say your sorry or I don't know, It really doesn't hurt
Lesson#20 when the screaming or the freezing is over tell the person you love them it's vital
Lesson#21 seriously never go to bed angry part b to this is don't hold a grudge and hang it out to dry at every big argument air it out and be done with it
Lesson#22 make time for a special grooming day, even if you do it all for yourself set one day a month aside and wash wax and lube your chassis
Lesson#23 make a girls night out and keep it. I haven't done this and now when I do the fella gets all pouty and whiny even though he pretends to man up about it. He still makes me feel guilty on the occasion
Lesson#24 pick your battles, and let him know that you are conceding when it is less important to you and that by gum he WILL conceed when YOU feel just as strongly. It's not about who's turn it is it's when you really need to hold firm, remember that in the heat of the struggle if there is one, that whatever you say hangs there above your head in italics. Once you say it you can never take it back. Tact my dears is under rated
More lessons later I think
When we first met I was a mother of three in a difficult marriage with someone who was not available to me emotionally or more often than not physically. It was a lifeless relationship that I kept alive in my mind by crazy deceptions and lies. You as many other of my friends saw this. With your chiding and gentle bullying you began my slow transformation. Pushing me to transform my physical self while trying to see me open the world around me. The day you told me "you look like a housewife, do you want to look like a housewife? Do you want to look cute and sexy? With that thick. French purr of an accent and your red lips pursed at me in disapproval your eyebrow raised (I envy that emocon). You were beating the ball of your foot on the floor in a very French expression of pique as you tapped a brush over your palm, while I had the flibbety gibbets over the discussion of turning me blonde. Not a little highlight here or there blonde fing blonde. No dipping the toes in you turned me platinum BLONDE. No I wanted to be cute and sexy but I hadn't ever really had the power of feeling cute let alone sexy. A big busted shy girl with a tiny head and big eyes thin hair I just never got it all together in my head. I never felt that girl power, I should have looking back now I see that i was pretty and not the fat girl I saw in the mirror. The fat girl my mother talked about the clutsy gawky big chested funny looking kid. I look at old pictures and see that there was unrealized potential clay to be molded if i'd met the right person(s). Well I'll tell you it's never too late not ever. I'm a slow learner but I got there!
So it's 1999, I'm three days from selling the house and moving to Spring Hill Fl. With two cats and a few belongings as I've sold the new home owners almost all of my furniture, and given away others. I was on my way to pick up cat food for the trip and decided on a whim to drive by your home I hadn't seen you in 3-4 years. You didn't know about the divorce, my taking in students to make ends meet. Adam and Margo away at school Craig graduating and getting ready to go himself to PA. I didn't just have empty nest I had everything vanished hocus locus and I was trying to put this Humpty together again. I had crawled into a shell for those few years of separation and subsequent divorce so it hadn't occurred to me to seek you out. I knew for sure afterwards that that had been a mistake and lost opportunity for both of us.
There you were going to your mail box still the figure of elegance and perfumed cute blonde older French lady with her shit together. When I stopped you squealed and we hugged. The fastest catch up session ever, with you commiserating and reviling my now X. We were both moving on to FL. You'd sold your house and were leaving the next day, with your wonderful husband, the love of your life. I was traveling the unknown on my own but was truly happy and ready. I had lost a lot of weight through the years and you marveled about how cute and sexy I looked and that I should take chances and not give in to convention but throw it to the wind. And that my dear is just what happened only in a more conventional way, habits like mine die hard. I hadn't dated during the long haul of separation and divorce and I wasn't looking forward to the process when my feet finally hit the sand and red ants of Florida so the universe plopped Barry right in front of me. I'd been propositioned picked up and followed around and Id had no problem resisting all of these delights, and then there was Barry. Young cute never married obsessive with work dancing sports music, did I mention young? Gigi you wanted me to have an affair and find someone who would pay attention to me who would dance and drink and listen to me. Who would make love to me like I deserved and blow my nose when I needed the help. Stage right Barry. So it wasn't a true affair with the attendant skulking and crazy French underthings, intrigues and high adrenaline from all the drama. We were both unattached but there was a hell of a lot of all the rest of it. I'd finally reached my Parisian moment. I was dressing the way I wanted (cute and sexy) learning to dance, going out at night, seeing shows having a life a real life, and there was a guy who was listening to me caring about me and we were growing together slowly but surely. Yeah bumps in the road and more trauma then I ever want again, lost fortunes but in the end, okay, it was okay.
Now thirteen almost fourteen years down the line it's good. Margo married to a wonderful guy and made me a bubbie, Adam also married to a fantastic woman, Craig happy with a terrific gal and Barry and I are an old married couple. When we first met you were 57, I think maybe I was close to forty or so. It wasn't the age difference though it was the life experiences that separated us. I'm 60 now and all though I'll never be able to match some of your life experiences I'd say for me I've come a long way baby.
We were all in Santa Fe and looking at old pictures I was a hot mess, heavy, sad, unkempt un loved. Two decades. Time well spent. So what did I learn? To love myself to put myself first and learn to say no, that frees me to be there truly for everyone without sacrificing myself. Not to put what I want so far into the future, I spend more time in the here and now not looking over my shoulder. I don't allow negativity in my life but surround myself with loving supportive people, I speak my mind frankly
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