Do you ever have a week or a month where your personal life gets so busy that you don’t have time to do your job? Reader, I am having that sort of month.
One of the pucks got married last month, and then two weeks later (a mere seven days before this column’s deadline) I celebrated my 60th birthday. Both these events required a lot of preparations, and then de-preparations as I got my life back to normal.
Throw in a couple of national holidays, the Hamptons at its most crowded, mundane chores like food shopping and laundry (I was rationing my socks), and a member-guest golf tournament, for which I had to learn how to be better at golf — let’s just say I’m too swamped to give the thought and care I usually put into my essays.
Reader, I’m not proud of it, but this month I’m phoning it in.
For instance, I’m pretty sure the last sentence in the second paragraph above is a run-on. And the title of this piece is a bit melodramatic for a column about me being on a short deadline. But there’s no time to change things. I’ve got to get 900 words to my editor immediately.
I’m so time-strapped that the only thing I can think to do is cut-and-paste the speech I gave at my birthday party. I’m sure it’s perfectly okay to plagiarize myself.
So, reader, here it is: My Birthday Speech.
Thank you, everyone, for coming and helping me celebrate this significant birthday. I am so grateful to have you all here.
I have a confession to make: I have a column due next week but haven’t had time to write it. Then I realized that this speech could be my next column. Like every other woman, I can kill two birds.
A lot of my writing friends are here — and I usually workshop my column with them. Wouldn’t it be fun if we all workshop it together? Then the rest of you get to see how the bird sausage is made.
When we workshop an essay, we save all our comments for the end of the reading, and we like to start with a compliment before mentioning our constructive criticisms. There’s no need to be nervous — we’re all friends here. Of course, please feel free to laugh at any point.
The name of the column is: What It’s Like To Be 60.
I’ve been 60 for two days, and I want to tell you what it’s like.
Being 60 is hard.
Sleeping has become difficult. I sleep okay, but not for long. Aches wake me up. My bladder wakes me up. I’ve started snoring so loudly, I wake myself up. I’ll be dreaming, perhaps of Harrison Ford or Ryan Gosling, and then I make a head-rattling snort, and bam! I’m awake!
What can this be like for Mr. Hockey? For the first 33 years of our marriage, I was a sleeping beauty, lying so delicately on the mattress, I barely made an imprint. My gentle breaths were like a light wind whispering through tall grass.
Now I’m a sinus-impaired, mouth-breathing ogre.
Even worse, I have to wake up to roll over. Isn’t that ridiculous? Three-month-old babies can roll over in their sleep, but I, a 60-year-old woman, must be fully awake to switch to my left side.
Soon I won’t be able to feed myself. The hockey pucks will have to bottle feed me my margaritas. I’m Benjamin Buttoning basic developmental milestones.
I thought I’d be wiser now that I’m 60. I thought Dalai Lama-like pearls of wisdom would spill from my mouth. People do look to me for advice, but it’s to ask for directions. And that’s only because I have a nonthreatening face and it seems like I know where I’m going.
I don’t know where I’m going.
I don’t know why I’ve walked into a room.
Lately, I’ve been thinking the clothes at Chico’s are cute. Younger me took a blood oath to never wear Chico’s because of its elderly vibe. Yet, sexagenarian Tracy is scrolling through tunics online. I keep visualizing myself in Capri pants and opened-toed slip-on sandals. With a long vest over my tunic. And a statement necklace. Am I a Chico’s woman now?
Since I’ve been 60, I’ve realized that everyone is either stupid or a jerk, present company excepted. (I used a different word for “jerk” in my speech, but this is a family paper.)
I’m just kidding. I’ve always thought everyone is either stupid or a jerk. Present company excepted.
Reader, at this point the birthday speech went awry. My printer didn’t print the third page. I was too busy party-prepping to notice. I ad-libbed the next part — about how grateful I was to have such terrific friends, and how much I loved my wonderful hockey pucks and Mr. Hockey … blah, blah, blah, yada, yada, yada.
The speech was met with polite applause, then everyone sang “Happy Birthday.” Overall, my guests liked how heartfelt I was. One critique was that I should’ve printed the third page.
So, there you have it, reader. The first column of my seventh decade. Yikes!
It’s a column inside a speech inside a column — otherwise known as a self-plagiarized turducken.
The good news is that my life has calmed down. Instead of overwhelmed, I’m just whelmed.
The next column will be perfect.
Maybe.
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