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Fighting
Aging
A few
minutes into the New Year, I was ready to call it a night and go home, having
enjoyed myself plenty at a wonderful party with friends. Mark Kessler, former
Cincinnatian visiting from Vermont, had been warned that I wasn’t much of a
late-night party girl and that I surely was not going to go out at 1:00 am in
search of more fun. But he asked me anyway. And I politely declined. He then
posed the big question, the question that has been ringing in my head ever
since:
"What
are you going to do, go home and age?"
Whoa! So
I put on my flimsy wrap and went on a shivering, high-heeled search for my
youth with Mark and my girlfriend Sarah. I didn’t find it. Not at Spy Bar or
Lava or Main City Bar, but we sure had fun looking. Mainly we just drove around
and laughed. I felt like a teenager.
Just a
few weeks later, as I was planning my 42nd birthday festivities, I thought a
lot about maintaining my youth. And since I am just not interested in shooting
my head full of poison and getting a facial lobotomy, I decided to celebrate
for an entire week with age-defying activities.
I kicked
off StacyFest with a babysitting gig. I hung out with my three year-old niece,
Megan and marveled at the freedom we are born with: the freedom to do a moving,
interpretive dance number in a sparkling (albeit "itchy!") gown to "Here We Go
Round the Mulberry Bush"; to make a delicious serving of spaghetti out of
plastic French fries and pennies; to listen to a bedtime story and believe
everything is right with the world if you hear someone whisper, "good night,
moon."
Next
stop, karaoke! It was my yoga teacher Kevin’s birthday and he was doing his own
age-defying work by having us all join him at the Bier Haus for Friday night
karaoke.
His
serene friend Rajeev studied the song book like it was the Holy Grail before
making his selection. He finally took the mike and I-swear-to-god channeled
Marvin Gaye in ‘I Heard It Through the Grapevine." It was truly amazing. I was
too chicken to sing myself but next time I’m going to do it. I’ve already
picked my song. I can just hear myself: "Boots, start walkin!"
I
invited friends to join me for the StacyFest finale, sending out an invitation
for "Its My Party and I’ll Box If I Want To!" Only five brave souls joined me
for the boxing-optional part of the evening at Boxing for Fitness on Madison
Road. Only five of us punched and jabbed and upper cut our way through an hour
of Coach Rob’s terrific boxer’s workout. You get to wear gloves and everything!
After that, I was joined by more friends in the blue room at Beluga.
I don’t
know. Maybe it was the boxing. Maybe it was the sexy, soft lighting. But as I
looked at the beautiful women around me, the women my age and older, like Sarah
and Kim and Rosemary, I realized that our youth, the official one, had ended
long ago. But the second one, the one of our own making, was far more powerful.
So enjoy
growing older. It gives you the freedom to be young again.
And what
else are you going to do, go home and age?
xoxoxo
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