We are so many things to so many people, arent we? I’ve been thinking about that lately. And yet, despite all those faces - all those “masks” if you will, what/who are we at the core of it all? Who knows us as we really are? Who knows what we struggle with, hope for, wonder about - who knows what we really think? Do we? How much are we hiding from ourselves? How much are we hiding from others, and what is it that we hide from some, and show others about ourselves?

These blogs are really an opportunity to let it all hang out - whatever “it” is - “it” doesn’t always have to be the deepest, most philosophical of thoughts, because let’s face it: sometimes it’s alright to be shallow, eh? Alright to kvetch and rant and bemoan the stumbling blocks that arise in our lives, alright to be a little self-centered, even, because after all, our blogs ARE about us!

I find it a little strange that I STILL feel so unfinished and incomplete in my life. I mean, here I am, older n’ dirt, my youngest baby is 26 years old, 6′7″ tall, and weighs in at somewhere @ 240 pounds. (my SON, in the event that anyone reading this gasped and thought, “Whoa…her daughter sure is a big girl!) ANYWAY, there’s still so much that I haven’t done, and since I’m in relatively good health and just about 18 pounds away from my goal weight (which is a VERY healthy weight for me, and usually has me in about a size 8-10) it seems like there’s STILL some things I ought to be doing - some contribution that I ought to be making.

I had a really nice lunch yesterday with two current colleagues and a fellow we all used to work with. One of my (current) colleagues - a slim, svelte and very active, attractive single gal in her early forties, never married, but widely travelled (I think she’s been all over the world) has just given her notice where she’s worked for the past ten years, and is joining the Peace Corps with the expectation that her first post will be in Darfur. I was surprised to learn from her that the Peace Corps is actively recruiting people over 50. Hmmmm. Now THAT would certainly be one way to make a significant contribution before I sink, kicking, screaming and gasping for breath into old age, wouldn’t it? Could I DO it? After living my entire life - with only a few brief exceptions - with essentially all of the creature comforts, could I manage in the the very primitive conditions of these Peace Corps assignments? I’d like to discuss it with DH; we’d have to determine how to handle our finances, what to do about the house - and the khats - etc., etc., AND I have to also determine whether or not I can be away from my family - the kids and grandkids - that long. (27 months: 3 months for training and learning language skills for your assignment and two years on your actual posting). Would DH do it with me? I think he might, so I don’t want to talk about it with him until I know for sure that I can do it, and that I want to do it. My kids, I know, would be in shock and probably against it. They were upset with me when I took a month’s sabbatical and went out to Ground Zero in NY to do grief counseling right after 911. It was one of the best experiences of my life, and my little granddaughter has saved my respirator mask-thingie that we had to wear - or were supposed to wear - all the time because of the horrible junk floating around in the air. I don’t know how you’re supposed to counsel - or talk to - people with one of those things on. You can’t and that’s all there is to it. Very few of us wore them. Which is yet another reason why I really HAD to quit smoking this past January. The smoking and the “black lung” or “gray lung” or whatever the heck you want to call it - was doing me in. I feel SO much better now after 8 months of no smoking and having lost 26 pounds. Not a spring chicken anymore, by any means, but feeling pretty decent for an old fart all the same. And my granddaughter has a pretty decent bit of memorabilia (the mask-thingie) that she can talk about with HER grandkids someday, eh? Better, methinks, than saying “My Ooh-mama made the best COOKIES in town” (although that’s a nice memory for grandkids to have of you, too.) She calls me “Ooh-mama”: I may have mentioned that in an earlier blog entry. I don’t know. I’m entitled to not remember, right? Being old and all, I mean.

Well, this could be something, or it could be nothing. We shall see. But it may, eventually, be another piece of who I am - the woman behind the mask - or not. What’s pretty neat from my perspective is that we can be whoever we choose within a certain predetermined set of conditions in this life. I mean, I can’t play professional basketball, but there ARE some options out there - some doors that are STILL open to me if I make the choice to walk through them.

I ate 37 points worth of food yesterday. It was my SUPER-HIGH DAY on the “WW Wendi Plan”. I feel like a bloated pig. Oink!

Tah!

E!