I Feel Bad About My Shoes

by Amy Ruhlin

I discovered Crocs when I was in my 30s.  I would wear them to walk the dog or to work in the yard and even to my children’s bus stop where other young mothers stood in more fashionable footwear.   And though I did understand that my shoes were not the epitome of high fashion, I also knew that what they lacked in sex appeal they made up for in comfort. And frankly, I just didn't give a damn. I had so much else going for me: 30-something bouncy, thick hair; a young mother’s plump complexion and nary a grey hair in sight.

As I moved into my 40s, I began to wear my Crocs more often. I discovered that I could walk an entire amusement park from sunup to sundown and I would still have happy feet. While my kids complained that they were tired and their feet hurt, I would brag that my feet were just fine and suggest that we stand in that long line for the roller coaster one more time. I learned that I could explore new cities by foot for days on end without a complaint of fatigue ever crossing my lips.   

When I entered my 50s, I began to notice that my hair did not look 30-something anymore and that my plump complexion was gaining some creases. In an attempt to ward off my panic, I began to read about how to be “50 and fabulous.” Unfortunately, fashionable shoes seemed to be part of the deal.

I did some research and discovered that my beloved plastic shoes now came in different styles. So, I ordered four pairs. I made sure to buy them all in black so that I could be a sophisticated 50-something.   I bought a few that had little straps, which made them look more like sandals and I even found some that had no holes!  When they arrived in the mail, I modeled them for my young-adult children who of course know all of the latest shoe trends.

“Look at my cool shoes!” I said. “They're black and clunky which makes them look hip and retro when I wear them with my jeans, don’t you think?”

“No, mom” they said.  “They are plastic and everyone makes fun of them. You really shouldn’t wear them.”

Then I began to read terrible things about my shoes:

“They’re bad for the environment!” “They can’t be recycled!” “They will cause your arches to collapse!” And worst of all, I began to see cruel Facebook posts about them. One particularly heartbreaking one went something like this: “Wow, that's a nice looking pair of Crocs. Said No One Ever.”  I began to feel bad about my shoes.

Recently, my husband and I explored a new city. I wore stylish black flats to walk in during the day but by evening, my feet were not happy. And neither was I.  But still, hoping to be “50 and fabulous” I wore suede boots out to dinner, but on the walk back to the hotel I slipped and fell in the middle of the street and I broke my foot.

“This never would have happened if I’d been wearing my Crocs!” I screamed.

My husband helped me out of the street and the next day the doctor gave me an air cast to wear on my left foot for at least six weeks. He told me to wear a supportive shoe on my right foot to balance the weight, but I didn’t think that would look very fabulous.

This was not good timing. I had a beach trip to go on with my girlfriends from high school.  It was bad enough that I had to go in an air cast so I was determined to wear a nice looking shoe on my good foot.  I did look pretty cute hobbling around in one great shoe, but it gave my foot no support so by the end of the trip both of my ankles were blown up like balloons from walking around with uneven weight. I know without a doubt that this would not have happened if I had worn my Crocs.

I’ve decided that holey, plastic shoes were sent to Earth from the shoe Gods and that I would be kicking a gift horse in the mouth if I did not graciously accept. So, as I move into the remainder of my 50s and into my next decades, I will proudly and gratefully wear them and I will feel good about my shoes. My feet and I will be happy, and that will make most everything fabulous.

I Still Love a Road Trip

by Amy Ruhlin

James Taylor released a song in 1976 called, "Nothing Like A Hundred Miles." Whenever I'd hear it, I longed for the road and for the sight of that yellow line disappearing behind me in my rear-view mirror. I loved the refrain: "There's nothing like a hundred miles between me and trouble in my mind. There's nothing like a hundred miles somebody show me the yellow line."

The lyrics have stayed with me all of these years, rumbling around in my head as I envision black tires moving along faded asphalt. When I get restless, which is often, those words roll into the back of my throat and up to the tip of my tongue, and then I know that it's time for a road trip.

I'm not sure when my love affair with the road began. Maybe it was the summer my mother and I loaded up my tiny Honda Civic 1200, which had no air conditioner, and drove from our small North Carolina town all the way to Portland, Oregon. My mother was 54-years-old and she didn't think twice about the driving conditions or how she'd fare on such a long trip. She had boundless energy and in fact, years later, when she turned 70, she traveled through Europe for the first time.

I was 17 when we drove to Portland. Each time we crossed a state line, I entered a new world where a surprise seemed to be waiting just for me.

In Kansas, we made a pit stop at a gas station. As I opened the door to the ladies room, I heard familiar voices and then I saw two faces I knew, girlfriends from my hometown who were on an adventure of their own with a teen camping tour of the West. We screamed and giggled because honestly, what were the chances? We were on a dusty road in the middle of the prairie, 900 miles from home. Kansas opened me up to the possibilities of finding magic anywhere, even in a run-down gas station surrounded by empty fields.

In New Mexico, my mother and I drove along two-lane roads weaving my car through towering pink canyons. One late afternoon I saw a blue flashing light behind us, so I pulled over to the shoulder of the road and stopped the car. I rolled down my window and a police officer wearing a cowboy hat appeared over my left shoulder. I'd never seen a cop wearing a cowboy hat. He glanced at our license plate and asked us what we were doing so far from home and if we realized that we were speeding. We told him that we had no idea. He looked up at the sky for a few moments and then he told us that $55.00 should cover the fine, so we handed over our cash. Later, after he was gone, my mother said that she hoped he bought himself something nice with our money.

When we drove back home and crossed the North Carolina state line along the edge of the Appalachian Mountains, I told my mother that I hadn't seen anything prettier than these ancient, green hills that I had grown up in. It's amazing what you learn out on the road.

My husband had a different travel experience during his formative years. He lived overseas so he grew up with transatlantic flights and Eurail passes. After we married, I had to convince him of the glories of the road.

One summer when we were in our mid-20s and living in the Midwest, I said "Let's drive to California!" And he said, "Are you crazy?" But once I got him on the road he leaned his head back, shut his eyes and said, "This is great."

By the time we made it to the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, he was smitten with stark beauty and vast space. But then our air conditioner broke and I began to worry that he wouldn't think all of this driving was fun anymore. As we neared Nevada, a casino appeared on the horizon and when we reached it we went inside to cool off. It was the first time we'd seen a slot machine and after we'd used up our roll of coins we got back in the car and drove to Oakland, California in the cool evening air.

A few weeks ago, I began to hear the rumblings of the old James Taylor song rolling around in my head. Our son was going on a high school spring trip soon so my husband and I would have some days to ourselves.

"We have a whole week," I told him. "Let’s go somewhere!"

"How about Santa Fe?" he suggested. "You've always wanted to go there."

He knew what was coming next because we've been having the same conversation for thirty years. He suggests a flight and I offer an alternative.

"Well," I said, "We could always drive somewhere."

He said that would be fine. He's a good sport, my husband. Although I do sometimes acquiesce, and travel his way.

I flew to Italy with him a few years ago and I must say, those nine hours of my white knuckles and constant fear that the plane was going down any minute and we'd never see our children again were worth it once I stepped onto the streets of Rome. I was thrilled to be in the Eternal City but I sure was glad when our plane landed safely back home so I could start planning our next road trip.

I got out my map to see where we could go while our son was away. We began to make plans, but then we began to have doubts. Maybe the driving would be too hard on my husband's fragile back. Maybe we were getting too old for long road trips. Maybe I needed to load up on Xanax and fly away to some far-off land.  Instead, we drove to Nashville, Tennessee.

Music City was great and on the drive there we discovered a winery that makes a delicious Cabernet, a beautiful University in the Cumberland Plateau and the factory where our favorite cast iron pots are made.  There were so many surprises waiting for us out there along the Tennessee roads.

We hope to travel a lot in the years to come. And I will fly when I must. But all I really want is for somebody to just show me the yellow line.

I'm Glad My Husband Kept His Albums

by Amy Ruhlin

I met my husband in the early 1980s while we were in college. He was a DJ at the campus radio station and sometimes I would visit him during his shows. I can remember just how he looked sitting at the microphone flanked by two turntables and surrounded by four walls of albums. He had a contented smile and long sideburns and there was always a cold can of coke on the desk and a smoldering Marlboro Light in the ashtray. He'd queue up songs and speak to his listeners with knowledge and passion about the music and the musicians. He was a boy of twenty and he was clearly in his element.

Sometimes he would play songs just for me. I'd sit in my dorm room dressed in my flowing skirts and leather boots and wait for them, and when they played, I'd swoon. We were living in southern Louisiana where the culture was thick, the nights were steamy and music was everywhere. It was a gritty, dreamy place to fall in love and to consider the possibilities of a life together.

He had his own personal collection of albums. There were 800 of them, each album placed inside the album cover and then protected with a plastic sleeve. He liked to organize them by the name of the band or by the type of music and he'd dust them with a vinyl cleaner called a discwasher. I was the great love of his life but those albums were a close second.

We got married and began our journey together and the albums came with us. In our first apartment, we stored them in wooden crates on the living room floor between large wood grain speakers. But then we moved to a different state and the albums got moved to the basement. We were busy and happy with our careers and our lives and though we still loved music, it didn't take center stage as it once had.

In the years that followed, we had two children and we moved three more times. And during each move, the 800 albums were carefully loaded onto the moving truck. But then they'd get tucked away into the back of a closet while we mostly listened to lullabies and children's television theme songs and storybooks.

As the kids grew, we watched CD's and Mp3's burst onto the scene. And then my husband's albums didn't seem to matter much anymore. I didn't think much about them until I was cleaning out a closet one day.

"Why do you still have all these albums?" I asked him. "Don't you think it's time we get rid of them? They take up too much room in the closet."

"I'll build shelves for them," he said. "There's nothing like the sound of an album. They'll make a comeback one day."

He built sturdy shelves in the closet, making sure they would hold all of that weight. "They look great," I told him. But secretly, I rolled my eyes and thought he was being silly and juvenile and wondered why he couldn't just move on and get rid of the damn things.

The albums have been on the shelves and out of the way for several years. I had almost forgotten about them until I walked into our office last week and saw my husband converting them to CD's. I sat down on the sofa in my yoga pants and fuzzy socks and I watched him as he tenderly slid an album out of its sleeve and placed it on the turntable. I watched him pick up the same discwasher that he had 30 years ago and run it across the smooth vinyl.

And then I watched the worries and concern of a 51-year-old man melt away and in their place was a twenty-year-old boy in his element. My yoga pants felt like a long skirt and my fuzzy socks turned into kick-ass leather boots. I felt full of grit and dreams as I considered the possibilities of the second half of our life together.

"This album sounds great," I heard myself say. The sound has so much...depth. It's so much better than a CD or Mp3."

My husband gave me a contented smile and I swear I smelled a Marlboro Light burning somewhere.

My husband is right. There's nothing like the sound of an album.

My Daughter:The Same And Different As Me

by Amy Ruhlin

My daughter is home from college for the weekend. I see her walking towards me from across the room and for a moment, I am looking at myself when I was a girl of 20. The sight of her as a young me is so startling that I catch my breath. Since the day that she was born, I have watched in amazement, and often with relief, how different she is from me.

She has her father's eyes and the shape of his face. She has her own upturned nose and perfectly square jaw. She is well-proportioned and I am long-limbed. Her features are subtle and soft while mine are sharp and angular.

She dresses in colorful, flowery prints while I wear dark solids. She paints her nails: light green on her fingers and royal blue on her toes, colors my own hands and feet have never seen. She is sweet-natured and she is a good listener; she gives you her full attention with genuine concern. I am easily rattled and I talk too much, intent on making my point, sometimes failing to hear hers. She is patient and I am not.

She comes closer to me and I wonder if maybe it's the hair that makes her look like me: She wears it long and parted down the middle, as mine was at her age. But her hair is sleek and smooth; mine was coarse and wavy. She smiles at me and I realize that her smile is the same as mine: wide with straight teeth, a subtle similarity that seems to be asking me to take a closer look.

It's been so easy for me to see how my daughter is not like me. Our differences have created healthy boundaries and stark contrasts. They've allowed me to see that she is her own person and not an extension of me. I've seen in her traits that I only wish I had. I've seen in her, a quiet strength that made me question my own strength.

But today, I've seen myself in her and it made me smile. It made me think of ways in which we are alike.

We both move through challenges with fierce determination in the face of persistent self-doubts. We are both conscientious workers but we prefer lazy days. We both enjoy company but crave solitude.

We both love words and we both write and we read books together. We both like yoga and we can strike a pose of downward dog or half moon together. We share an interest in politics and we laugh and cry together during romantic comedies. We both feel a little afraid when the plane takes off and breathe out together when it lands.

She will be 21 soon. And I now see that the old cliché, "a daughter is a little girl who grows up to be a friend," is actually true. And like most friends, my daughter and I are very different, and yet, at the same time, so very much the same.



I Thought We Were In This Together

by Amy Ruhlin

My husband has grown a beard. I've known him for 30 years and he has not once, not ever, tried to grow any type of facial hair at all.

Our 20-year-old daughter became concerned when she saw it. She said that surely he would shave soon; it is so unlike him to grow a beard.

And then she asked me if this could be his midlife crisis.

"Why, yes," I told her, trying to contain my excitement, "actually, I think it is."

"Well," she said, "if this is the extent of it, then that is good news."

I know that she said this with great relief, even though she said it by text, because she witnessed my own midlife adjustment. She was often in the room as the hormones shifted, the tears spilled and the mood changed.

I agreed with my daughter that her Dad's beard was benign midlife angst. But I was also secretly thrilled. For years, I had been hoping that he would exhibit some mild hysteria so that I didn't look so bad.

My husband is a rock. He is calm and patient and kind and level-headed. And although I love and appreciate these qualities, they made him seem like a saint as he sailed through midlife while I turned into Medusa.

He and I have been together for the majority of our adult lives.

We carved out our careers and moved into full adulthood together in our twenties.

We created a family and built a home together in our thirties.

We entered our forties together and after a few years, I fell apart. But he did not and it didn't seem fair. I thought we were in this together.

I began to toss and turn at night and wake up in sweat while he peacefully snored beside me.

I began to face the reality that I had to let go of my babies because somehow, they grew up.  It was not easy letting go and I struggled. And since my husband was just as involved in raising our children as I was, I assumed that he was struggling too.

"Aren't you sad that the kids aren't little anymore?" I would ask.

"Not all all," he would say. "Those were great times but now they are older and these are good times too."

I was sure he was in denial , so I found old photos of the kids when they were small and adorable and held them up close to his face.

"Look," I'd plead, "doesn't it just kill you that those days are gone?"  But he would only smile and say, "Nah, those were fun days but now we've just moved on to different days. You know, circle of life and all that stuff." He was taking it all in stride and it was maddening.

I began to count the number of grey hairs on my head and I noticed that my husband didn't have any. Not one. As I increased the number of highlights in my hair, he combed through the same thick, dark hair he's had since he was 21.

I didn't like this solo trip. But things are looking up now that we are in our fifties.

My husband has grown a beard.  A crazy, woolly, middle-aged , grey beard.

Thank you, honey. I'm so glad we are in this together.

Thank You, Jodie

by Amy Ruhlin

On the night of the Golden Globe Awards I watched the news as my husband cooked lemon garlic pork chops and mustard greens.  Our plan was a quiet dinner. We had no intention of watching the awards show; it’s really not our thing.  But during a commercial break from the news, I caught a glimpse of the red carpet interviews.
 
Over the hiss of sizzling pork I asked my husband if he wanted to watch the Golden Globes, just for fun.  He said sure, so I found our old bamboo TV dinner trays in the pantry and we parked ourselves in front of the television to take in all of the glamour and glitz.

I knew our college-aged daughter would be watching. I knew that this was something that we could really talk about; something that I could text and tweet to her that would get her attention.  Sometimes she ignores her old mom’s silly texts and tweets.  

I looked for her in my twitter stream. I tweeted about Anne Hathaway’s hair; my daughter adores her and we both think Anne’s short hairstyle is terrific. I sent her texts about Adele and Amy and Tina, three women whom I know she admires.

And then Jodie spoke. And I wondered if my daughter had seen any of her movies. My daughter is 20 after all, and Jodie is my age.  I wondered what she thought of Jodie’s speech so I sent her a text: “Did you see Jodie Foster’s speech?” I wasn’t expecting a reply but she surprised me and texted right back: “Yeah.  She’s so cool.”

Jodie made me glad that I ate my pork chops and mustard greens on a bamboo tray.  She made me proud to be fifty.  She bridged a 30 year age gap between my daughter and me with her simple yet powerful words of love and with her honesty in expressing the universal longing to be understood and to be seen.

Thank you Jodie. Thank you for being a model of vulnerability, authenticity and true strength. This fellow 50-year-old mom and her 20-year-old daughter both think that you are so very cool.

My Wish For An Ordinary Year

by Amy Ruhlin                   

It's New Year's Eve and my husband and I are at home. We are dressed for the evening in our favorite sweats, soft slippers and fuzzy socks. We sit in front of the fireplace as our dinner simmers on the stove. The food smells good and the fire is warm. We open a bottle of red wine and it tastes especially smooth. "It was on sale," my husband says, and we grin as we take our first sips, enjoying the pleasure of a good wine at a cheap price.

Our son walks into the room and shows us that he is dressed for the evening, too."Do I look OK?" he asks. He is wearing dress pants, a collared shirt and a striped bow tie. He is 17 and tall and handsome.

"You look terrific," we say. I can see the excitement in his face as he anticipates his evening: dinner out with a large group of friends and a bonfire at midnight.

Our daughter is away on a trip. She bought a new black dress for the occasion and tried it on for me before she left. She looked young and beautiful and for a moment, I wished I was 20 again and off to New York in a black dress to celebrate the New Year. The morning she left, I could feel her excitement.

When our son leaves the house, my husband and I turn on the television to watch a football game, but the power goes out and our home becomes dark and quiet. We light candles and talk about the past year and our memories seem especially sweet as we share them in a room illuminated from the light of three small flames.

From our window, we can see that the entire street is dark, so we step outside to take a look. There is no electricity for as far as we can see and the light from the moon shows off the bare limbs of the trees in winter. It is cold and the night looks especially beautiful .

Later, when the power is back on, my husband watches the football game while I read in another room. We both have our cell phones nearby in hopes of texts from our children. We don't hear from them, so my husband sends me texts, pictures of himself making silly faces and it makes me laugh. He has been making me laugh for 28 years, but tonight I think he is especially funny and tonight I laugh especially hard.

Sometimes, I miss the excitement of my youth, but tonight I do not. Tonight, I realize that I have exchanged it for something even better: I have exchanged it for the ability to see that our extraordinary times often happen in our most ordinary moments.

And I realize that as this year begins, I am no longer concerned that I have no list of resolutions. Instead, I am content knowing that my only wish is to have a most ordinary year.

The Comfort Of A Christmas Tree

by Amy Ruhlin


In the late afternoons and into the early evenings as the sun lowers and the sky darkens, my children move towards our lighted Christmas tree. They sit as close to it as they possibly can, with their laptops and their iPods and their earphones; they are, after all, 17 and 20. They are constantly plugged into the world with its breathtaking beauty and unspeakable horror. My daughter looks up from her laptop and says that it is time for gun control after the Newtown tragedy. Then she tells me that our tree is really pretty. My son takes his earphones off and asks me if I have heard the news. I say yes and then he tells me that he does not want to watch it on TV and he puts his earphones back on and listens to the soaring of his music. He knows what he cannot bear to see. They are, both of them, on the cusp of adulthood, swimming upstream, doing their best to understand that both light and dark inhabit our world.

Our tree is full of angels. I have collected them over the years. There is one made out of newly picked cotton, another forged out of metal, one that is hand carved from oak. There are angels everywhere, in different shapes and sizes, all of them made from different materials. The tree is fully alive. It drinks so much water that we have to refill the stand each morning.

I argued against putting up a live tree this year. We've had one for many years and I didn't feel like dragging the ornaments out of the attic. Here at midlife, I become weary and I crave change. "The kids are older," I said. "Let's just go with a nice poinsettia perched in the corner." But my kids knew better. They encouraged me to buy a live tree.

Our children, all children who are moving into adulthood, are brave. They take in horrific news, and like us, they try to cope with grief and to seek solutions. They are aware of the world that awaits them as adults and yet they keep moving towards light. Here at midlife, they bring me comfort and give me hope.

The Best Christmas Gifts I Have Received

by Amy Ruhlin                 

This will be my 51^st Christmas.  When I look back on all of the gifts that I have received over the years there are a few that are my all-time favorites:

A 2 day TV rental -   My  husband and I were living in a second floor apartment. We were in our early twenties. I was in graduate school and he had just started his first job out of college making very little money. We had managed to furnish our apartment with a used sofa, a kitchen table, a queen size mattress and a small black and white TV.  One evening near Christmas I told him how much I was looking forward to the holiday television specials; how I had loved them as a child and how I felt a little sad that we would be watching them in black and white. A few days later around 5:30 in the evening I heard him walking up the stairs coming home from work, just as I always did.  But his steps sounded different, they were slow and labored. I opened the front door to take a look and all I could see was a large TV moving towards me up the stairs. My husband had it perched on his shoulders and it looked like it would break his back. “What are you doing?” I asked. I knew we couldn’t afford to buy a new television. "I rented you a color TV. We have enough money to keep it for two days,” he said.   I opened my mouth to speak but could not find the words.

A Christmas ornament made of Popsicle sticks -   My  daughter  was five years old and spending the day at a friend’s house. She was there for a long time, longer than she usually stayed for a visit and so I began to worry.  A young mother’s worries: Was she okay?  Maybe she is missing me. What are they doing? Should I telephone the friend’s mother?  Finally, in the late afternoon she came home, safely bundled up  in her puffy blue coat. “Look mommy,” she said. "I worked hard on this all day.” She placed a Christmas ornament in my hand. My first handmade ornament from a child. She had spent the entire day cutting, gluing and aligning little sticks together to create a miniature wooden sled. She had used her best handwriting to print “To mom” in red and to sign her name in green. The beauty of that little sled stunned me. The time and care that she had taken to create it nearly broke my heart.
 

A recycled Sprite bottle -  When my son was in preschool he made me an ornament out of  a plastic 2 liter Sprite bottle. The teacher had sliced off the bottom portion and my son added the glitter.  Because of  it's shape and transparency the ornament looked like an exqusite sea creature. When he brought it home we placed it on the tree directly in front of a light. At the sight of this my son's face lit up and he said, “It glows!”  My face lit up too.

A little girl's selfless devotion given with popsicle sticks; a small boy's sense of wonder at the sight of light filtered through green plastic; a young man’s extraordinary kindness offered up as a cheap rental. On my 51^st Christmas, these are the gifts that I remember as the best presents I’ve ever received.