Once I was 7 years old...soon I'll be 60 years old

Not only are those are some lyrics of one of my favorite bands; Lukas Graham but it is how I have been feeling lately.  I feel like my life is flying by way too fast and there isn't anything I can do but watch the sands of time slip away.

Oh, so Lukas Graham is coming to Boston, of course it is at 8 p.m. on a Sunday night in November and no one wants to go with me.  UGH!!  I just love their music and the lead singer is so stinkin' cute.  He is such a great storyteller, he is the only one who truly captured the shit storm of feelings from losing a parent, what true love really feels like and the desire to make your life mean something.  The one caveat to my declaration of him being a great storyteller would be the 9th song on their self titled album.  Maybe ignore his song 'Strip no More".  Not about wanting someone to stop stripping and create a better life for themselves but he missed watching his favorite stripper once she quit.  So yeah.  Lukas and I were about 2 songs in to our set; Take the World by Storm is the one that really gets the crowd going, L.G. and I put on a pretty intense concert each morning while I drive to work, when my unassuming mini-van smoked a Maserati-completely left it in my dust.  A Lays potato chip truck may or may not have pulled in front of the Maserati and technically I may have only been doing about 67 but you know what?  My mom mobile didn't disappoint that day!

But I digress, back to the reality that every day I wake up to my body failing me a little more;

*My skin has started to betray me.  Insert sad emoji face here.  I had a tank top on recently and caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and sure as the day is long I have bat wings.  F-ing bat wings.  You know I then spent the next ten minutes staring in the mirror as I flapped them.  I may have T-Rex arms but those wings have an impressive wing span.

I wish the melting skin ended with my arms, which due to my wonky rotator cuff I can't really do too much about it.  Halloween is coming and I am thinking slap some black body paint on those bad boys, throw in a pair of plastic white fangs and I got myself a costume!  So like I said, the skin melting is working its way down my body.  Long time blog readers are familiar with my skin apron, the large flap of skin that hangs off  the front of me covering all the important stuff-kind of like an apron.  Chuck lovingly came up with that name.  I recently decided to get healthy, lost some weight and now the apron could cover an old Russian farm lady's body.  The good news is I can just pull it up over me like a blanket and tuck myself in to keep warm when the sweat from my awesome night sweats starts to cool off and make me chilly.  I interrupt this regularly scheduled blog post to discuss night sweats. Friggin night sweats suck ass.  I wake up drenched and my room smells like the God Damned HHS bus ride after a hockey game.  Now back to the the skin apron blog post already in progress.  If my family and I went to a sporting event together, which we would most likely never do, but in the event we do and my children are sitting on the bleacher in front of me I can lift it up and throw it over their shoulders to keep them warm during the crisp, fall nights we have in New England.  Who needs a plaid, wool blanket when you got momma's built in throw?  The melting continues down over my buttocks.  My ass has this weird little roll of skin under it now.  Kind of reminds me of a window shade.  Unfortunately it doesn't roll up into itself when you tug on it like a shade does.  I know because I have tried.  I am fascinated by this roll and whenever given the chance I pull on it.  I would never be called in for a Special K commercial because I can definitely pinch more than an inch.  One recent day my betrothed and I were riding in the car when I saw the oddest thing; there was flesh colored crepe paper on my leg just above my knee.  Now I don't know how it got there, I hadn't been on a spending spree in Party City but there is was- peach crepe paper on my leg.  It disappeared just as soon as I adjusted my legs and I haven't seen any since thank Christ.  I tried to recreate it many times and I can't but it is very disconcerting to know my legs have the capability within them to get all dolled up for a party and disguise themselves as crepe paper streamers.

I am also losing hair at an alarming rate.  So much so Chuck has to dig out the shower drain on a weekly basis with some long, barbed, flexible stick that looks like it belongs in Christian Grey's Red Room rather than my suburban en suite. 

*Moving on from my skin issues that would have Vincent Price in awe, we will now discuss my eyes.  My beautiful, sky blue eyes-- my physical feature I would say is my favorite if I had to choose.  I went for my regular eye exam.  My eye doc retired so I was seeing someone new.  He was a tiny wisp of a man, almost elfin.  He did the exam and we had some easy, breezy conversation.  He had such a soft, kind, mellow voice when he was describing I was 'glaucoma suspect'.  Knowing only that Tommy Chong of Cheech and Chong fame smokes pot due to glaucoma and not much else I asked the good doctor what glaucoma was exactly.  He had a steady, even-keeled voice telling me the optic nerve is involved and is slowly affected.  Out of the blue his voice aggressively speeds up, gets louder and with an almost evil tone says, "then it gets completely strangled, dies and you go blind".   His voice went back to center and he said I would need an ultrasound of my eyes to see the receptionist and she would schedule it.  Da fuck just happened?  I stuttered out, "is there anything to treat this?"  He calmly and rationally said, "there are eye drops that can slow the process down but there is no cure".  Okay then.

So I have an ultrasound of my eyes book, that sounds fun and super comfortable!  In the mean time I have spent a lot of time thinking about the fact I may be blind in about a decade.  While it is soul crushingly heartbreaking to think I might not see my girls on their wedding days or see my grand children, the day to day struggles are what have me losing sleep. 

I am not a super model by any means but I like me some eye make up.  I will have to trust either Chuck or my children to glam me up.  All I envision is Mimi from Drew Carey or Tammy Fay. People of a particular age will know who I am talking about.  For the record, neither would be a good look for me.

I have long suspected Chuck might be color blind and he is not a huge fan of going out of his way.  For the love of God I am scared to think about what he might dress me in.  I imagine he will just throw on whatever is next in line in the closet.  Just thinking out loud here-should I glue gun shapes on my clothing labels?  Like tops and pants that match would have different shapes and I would just need to feel the label and match tops to bottoms-glue gun circles match glue gun circles, squares go with squares, etc.  Though I have already nixed that idea because I will need to stay the exact same weight for my entire life and that is just way too much of a commitment. 

*I have another fun issue.  I go to the bathroom all the time, like all the time.  I pee constantly.  I swear I love my girls fiercely but man they ruined my body.  The girls and I joke about it at work but you know you have a problem when the facilities worker gives you grief for always being in the bathroom when he wants to clean it.   I do have a certain sense of guilt taking away from the bottom line of the business, pun intended, for all the toilet paper I use.  I feel like I should be bringing in my own toilet paper so as not to take away from the center's profits.  I have another ultrasound scheduled to see why I am always visiting the Governor as my Poppy used to say.  I am tempted to call our health insurance company to get a 2 for 1 deal.  I told my friend Lisa about my ailments and unlike most people that give me a supportive head nod or some words of compassion she said. "Jesus WTH, you're going to need Depends and a service dog to help you navigate around" with a laughing until you cry face emoji.  And that right there is why we are friends!!

*Last but definitely not least my heart has been acting like an asshole lately.  I have a congenital heart defect, Bi-Cuspid Aortic Valve.  This is separate from the heart surgery I had when I was a toddler.  There has always been the potential that I would need a valve replacement in the future.  I am hoping that it will be in the distant future.  I have been having a lot of palpitations lately, dizziness  and what really made me take notice was when I got winded from doing the Hokie Pokie with the kids at work.  That was an interesting call to the cardiologist.  Them: So what were you doing when you felt short of breath?  Me:  The Hokie Pokie.  Them: Excuse me?  Me:  No, you heard that right.  I was doing the Hokie Pokie and when I went to turn myself around that wasn't what it was all about.  Like, seriously, why couldn't it be something glamorous?  Like hiking a glacier, swimming with dolphins, climbing Everest.  The Hokie Pokie.  Come on, for F's sake.  That is an embarrassing way to go and if God forbid something does happen to me, you all better do the friggin Hokie Pokie at my graveside service with gusto or I will come back and haunt you all. The failed dance off between me and the toddlers at work bought me a 24 hour cardiac monitor-which I may want to get a replica one made to wear around the house.  My kids slightly listened to me that day and slightly listening is way more than their norm.  Before any of you get nervous and tell me to get to the hospital stat, I have some tests and appointments tomorrow with my cardiologist and I have a very low threshold as to what I will go to the ER for.  I may seem like I joke around and take things lightly but I am all business when it comes to my heart.  As per usual with me I can't have a normal medical team.  Nope I am followed by the Boston Adult Congenital Heart Clinic which is pretty impressive until you realize they are housed out of Boston Children's Hospital.  So I get to sit in the tiny chairs in the waiting room and when they call my name they ask if Erin is in the bathroom.  Nope, it's me.  I get to look at princesses and fishies on the wall while they man handle my boobs to try and get a clear echo of my heart.  If I do end up needing surgery you know I will be an ass and have the unit's Child Life Specialist come in to prep me for the procedure.  The surgery is a pretty intense one and the thing that scares me the most isn't being on a vent, it isn't a chest tube or being away from my children-it is when I come home with a fresh surgical scar and our asshat dog Ollie comes zooming through the house and jumps up on me.  My neighbors will understand why that is such a real fear. 

Chuck has wondered out loud on several occasions if he is married to an 86 year old instead of 46-but I keep reminding him, hey at least I only look 36.

I was at my primary care doc the other day.  She asked why I thought all of this was going on-what had changed.  I looked her dead in the eye and said, "I should have stayed fat.  I didn't have any of these symptoms when I was laying around on the couch and eating burrata cheese". 

I have been trying really hard to be present with my children, soak in as many memories as I can.  I no longer have time for one sided relationships, I have cut toxic people out of my life, I have even left the Facebook Mom's groups because someone was always getting butt hurt and I can't be bothered.  I am eating healthy, lost close to 30 pounds and I am trying really hard not to yell, I am longer swearing like a sailor or Adele but no one has noticed for fuck's sake.  The past year all of this has made me realize just how precious our time is and I am trying to make mine count.

My beloved Freddie sings who wants to live for ever?  I do Mr. Mercury.  I do.

Remember life and then your life becomes a better one~ Lukas Graham