Diary Of A Redhead

[mylolita]

I have always loved flowers - always! 
 

I’ve been scrolling through old photo’s on my phone and realise, I have what could be a whole album of all the times I changed the flowers on our kitchen island throughout the seasons. It’s the consistent thing I do, I always do - weekly, is buy and arrange bunches of flowers all over the house. In our bedroom, in the kitchen, in the hall, on the fireplace mantles. I’m practically Elton John back here.

 

Anyway, a few at random, and you can simply feel the season just by the bunch! 
 

Anyway; this is my version of geeking out, and reminiscing of time past, and time had.

 

x

[mylolita]

Looking back at old wedding photo’s.

 

Oh l’amour! 
 

x
 

 

 

[mylolita]

D knows I love castles, and on our honeymoon, booked us two nights in a castle right on the edge of the coast, perched on cliffs. 
 

That night, we were the only person bar another couple in the whole restaurant. There was one line pianist on the grand piano. All the candles were lit on a vast spread of tables, all surrounded by stone walls and tapestries. There was a storm outside. A waiter, wearing white gloves, asked us where we wanted to sit, and I looked at D then said, “Where we can see the storm please!”

 

It was the strangest, most romantic, most freaky meal I’ve ever had. The whole place we learnt pretty soon was a hub for Scientologists. So bizarre. Anyway, the flash from the camera in my eyes only adds to the fact, if we had stayed another night, we were definitely either getting eaten, shaken down, or turned into vampires. HA!

 

x

 

 

[dias]

How old were you? You look like a teenage girl here. Nice photo 🙂 

[mylolita]

48 minutes ago, dias said:

How old were you? You look like a teenage girl here. Nice photo 🙂 

I was 24! I was 24 when I got married 🥲 25 when we bought the house.

 

Of course I haven’t changed LOL - and thank you! 
 

I look young for my age, this might not last, I’ll be 34 this month and I am DREADING IT! 
 

x

[mylolita]

The battle cry of “bankruptcy” was totally relatable hahahaha

 

x

[mylolita]

This is my last day being 33.

 

It was always a strange, awkward number anyway. Some spiritualists would say it was a significant number, my last chance to do something special for quite some time, until the number star woo woo’s align. Anyway… I realised I’d never be 33 again late, at seven pm, with my three children about me - my youngest daughter laughing till doubling up as she threw a bean bag teddy at me and I would catch it dramatically, with surprise, one handed. My son was writing a love letter to his sister - “I love you so much G, love B” delivering it to her tenderly folded up. (“To remember me by when I’m at school!”) 

 

My middle daughter was dancing and cuddling two plush puppies under each arm, and bringing them forward for me to pat. Little “I love you Mammies” would spill out from her, hiding under the table. Perfection. A symphony just for me! 
 

I have privately tossed and turned over the fact of my own mortality, and especially the ones I love even more than myself. I can’t quite get over it… the idea I can’t wriggle out of this one, this time. But, for some reason, and great timing, a peace has washed over me about the whole aging thing. What can I do? But enjoy every moment, big and small - especially the small, because it’s often so BIG. 
 

The morbidity deep and rushing inside me is entwined with the most unrelenting optimism. It really is a bizarre cocktail to down. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

 

I set out on this maiden voyage, a one way ticket. I already feel like I came home. It’s a peaceful, beautiful, special feeling. It’s warm. I’m so, so so lucky. That I can sit here, on my living room floor, with my children and my husband, in my beautiful house, with our health and happiness and honestly say, without a tinge of sarcasm or phoney flatness - that I have everything I ever set out to find. My bounty is PLENTY! 
 

I can’t find one bad thing about being 33. It wasn’t all bad. And 34 might be just as good as well. It is what you make it, to some extent. 

So let’s leave it there. Always an en core, there will always be time for one last drink, one last chat… to say, one last thing, for one last dance, when everyone has gone to bed, alone. I’m not done yet.

 

My subconscious brain must have a funny sense of contrarian humour. A few years ago, around this exact time, I woke up in the height of winters Christmas run up to the song ‘On The Beach’ by Chris Rea, clear as day in my head. Tonight, I couldn’t get another summery strange little wordless ditty out of my mind. I guess, summer is in my heart, even during the winter. That optimism again… on repeat. I don’t know why… maybe this little instrumental is the perfect summary, the perfect melody for the rolling credits to the end of my year? 

 

Heeeeeeeere we go! 
 

Thirty four. Whatever! Feeling good, LOOKING GOOD! Things ARE GOOD! 
 

See ya on the other side! The wind is in our sails. 
 

There she goes. 

 

x
 

 

 

 

 

[Batya33]

Happy birthday! My husband just turned 57!  I already am. Early 30s I was coming into my own professionally and serious on and off with a really great guy and going to many interesting social and professional events. Whirlwind. Hope you have a great birthday!

[Seraphim]

Happy Birthday!!!

[dias]

Happy Birthday Lolita 🙂 Sounds like you are having a great time!

[Jibralta]

Happy Birthday!

[mylolita]

 

I am a very stylish girl.

 

How do I look? 
 

😘 x

[mylolita]

Regency era British debutant ‘Marriage Season’ needs to make a come back!!!

 

LET’S MARRY WELL AND FIND OURSELVES A HUSBAND WOOOOOOO! Is that corset tight? And I mean TIGHT? Leeeet’s go!

 

x 

[mylolita]

You know I got a lot to say 
All these voices in the background of my brain 
Y me dicen todo lo que estás pensando 
Me imagino lo que ya estás maquinando

 

x

[mylolita]

“But you don’t have any experience! You’ve only been with one person and you were too young to know!”

 

But I got it right, didn’t I? Better than twenty mistakes and to call that “experience”.

 

People always say “they’re too young to know what they want!”, “young brains haven’t matured yet!”, “you need to get out and live life before settling down!”

 

Let’s put some respect back into being young, and stop dissing it with a, I can’t help but notice(!) bitter and envious seasoning. Being young is amazing. Being young has many advantages. Advantages you lose as you age. Being young is for being bold, being at your most creative, often your most beautiful, most healthy, and most talented. Most inhibited, most feeling, and most surprising. 
 

Only a few generations ago all the men who died for our freedom we enjoy now were under the age of 25. We owe our lives to them, and our democracy. Were they too young to know? Too young to die? Thank God for those brave, resilient, strong and healthy young men. 
 

It’s a myth, that you need more time. When it’s right, it’s right, and when you know, you know. Wisdom doesn’t always come with age, and being older with a slew of mistakes and bad decisions behind you doesn’t always make you more right.

 

Maybe the old could learn something from the young. It is not a given that everyone automatically expand themselves just because they have lived longer. 

 

x

[Batya33]

I am young. I am 57. Not this cliche garbage young at heart. When I was dating in my 20s I met many men in their 20s who might as well be cliche old farts. Stuck and set and narrow minded. I’ve met people of all ages who are spunky and adventurous and all ages. My former mentor who passed away 2 years ago late 60s started learning one new thing a year when she hit 60. Like. Belly dancing. Learned to drive. Took up acting and became a theater person.  
My friend’s daughter in her 20s is lovely and so smart and accomplished and afraid of her own shadow in a way. 

As my son says I’m a bad a— mom. I do intense to me workouts  daily, had a baby relocated for the first time in 43 years and got married all in one year.  Took in a new full time job of SAHM for 7 years in a city where I knew no one. No family help. 

I know women in their 20s who are doing such awesome work.  Corporate and government and politics and the arts. And early 30s. And teens too. I focus on women mostly because  I meet more young women than men. 
I see too many examples that defy your generalizations and try to ignore those who try to box people into neat categories. Do not like that at all. 

[mylolita]

No offence Batya but, 57 isn’t young! 
 

And when talking about billions of people and popular culture, you can’t take things down to an individual level. There are patterns. Not everyone defies stereotypes. Chill out! 
 

Yes, you were a mother late and relocated and work out - applause! 
 

I’m talking about balls here. My great Grandfather was 14, lied about his age and went to war; then did it again for WW2. We need to get over ourselves, and frankly, big woop.

 

As Shania Twain once said, that don’t impress me much.

I don’t care what you like or do not like. I find your comment typically condescending and what I would expect from a 57 year old “I did it all I’m accomplished” knitting circle. 
 

The career and the tread mill and the theatre kids don’t command any respect from me, unfortunately. I value different things.

 

And unless it’s against the law, I can generalise how I like! I’m sorry you’re offended! Maybe read something else at Christmas? 

 

x 

[itsallgrand]

People vary a lot. Experiences as a young person play a part too. I personally grew up in an area that had a lot of highly religious people. 9/10 of them went to Bible camp as a teen, and then married straight away. There wasn't much choice for them though as they faced being shunned from their community if they didn't. And there were a good chunk of my friends who grew up poor. I'm talking trailer in the boonies poor. A lot of them married young too but I don't consider that totally choice with options either. They were trying to get away from bad homes and didn't get taught skills to do some pretty basic things on their own. Both my sets of grandparents, it wasn't really choice for them either. It would have taken incredible grit to take any other path. 

Some people know. Some people it works out great. I was lucky in that I really had choice since I was young. I chose not to, but that's for the best, as I am definitely someone who needed time on my own before I could give what I want to give someone.

 

 

[mylolita]

I appreciate the input grand!

 

Not everyone who married young has done it because they were poor, religious or forced! It’s only a very recent thing, in the last few generations remember, where women and men as well, have been able to delay marriage. Our lifespans have had a decade or two added to them - our great grandparents had to do things quicker, and all our other ancestors before them. Were they stupid? Is more choice often better? I’d almost argue, we have too much choice now, that young people are stunned into in-action. They think the grass is always greener, and that they have forever and will automatically live till they are 100!

 

It’s like people who say well, I’m better at my job now because of my age, or, I’m a better parent because I’m older, or I’m a better wife or a better everything, just because of age. But the irony is, those people will never know what kind of parent they would have made at 21, because they never did it, and they’ll never know what kind of wife they would have made at 19 either - so they have no real or true comparison. I can’t say if I would have made a better mother older or younger, because I can’t go back and try it out, and I don’t want to be an older mother so I wouldn’t actively try for a baby into my 40s or early 50s on purpose. 
 

But youth seems to get sh*t on, to say the least - from my observation, anyway. 
 

How often have you read advice on here to wait, don’t marry young? Time and time again. So, when is the prime age of all these things then? Are 20 year olds really so stupid and inept? To me, a 23 year old is a young, perfectly able, fully formed woman! Why is she too young for marriage? For babies? For deciding anything? 
 

I personally don’t think people change much. I was pretty much the same girl with the same heart, thoughts, mind and feelings at 14 as I am now. Give or take. You bump into people from your school a decade or two ago and, they don’t change all that much. The joker is still the joker, the uptight one still seems to remain uptight. People are born with their personalities. Yes, you can alter and advance and do some work and learn some lessons but for the majority? Ask their mothers! “They were stubborn even as a baby!” or “She’s always been a morning person, up at the crack of dawn from being 5 years old!”

 

Even in my own children, all with their different personalities - looking back, they came out that way from the womb! Of course environments affect us but… at our cores? 
 

I don’t think getting older has the endless perks some people claim. I think we need more faith in our youth, and to let them take charge and grow up. My generation is a generation of people who have never grown up and we’re late taking responsibilities - myself included! It’s an observation, a cultural and social one that I’m in the thick of. People aren’t getting married, people my age aren’t having kids. Statistically I read, by 2035, 50% of women over 30 will be childless. And this isn’t just a UK thing - this is a western, cultural thing, and a lifestyle change. And it affects society - to have lots of older people, and less children; it’s quite bleak. 
 

The thing that stuck me in a nice way about our holidays to Menorca was, Spain has a very youth heavy population there, and it was refreshing and gorgeous and joyous to see so many children and young people about! 
 

Shoot me! 
 

I’m not religious, not one bit - but I think the nuclear family is the backbone of society, and a lovely, beautiful, stable thing. And I don’t like the idea of it not being around much - or being told it’s uncool and stupid to settle down young, or have children young, and that you’ll just regret it and get divorced.

 

There are also more single women in their 40s and 50s than ever before. So we, on western culture, have lots of single 20 and 30 somethings on dating apps, then lots of divorcee 40 and 50 year old women, finding themselves, on dating apps too. Does this sound like a good thing for society? 
 

I’m a traditionalist. That’s my stance. I don’t mind if anyone disagrees with it, as I realise what a bizarre stance it seems to be these days.

 

I’m also for women staying home with their young babies, another unpopular opinion. It’s unpopular, for me to say, a mother should want to love, care and nurse her one year old baby all the time and not give them up to a stranger for 6 hours. And I’m the offensive one, apparently. 
 

These are my opinions, this is my journal. If it’s against the law of ENA - happily, ban me! 
 

x
 

 

[Jaunty]

An advantage that old people have over young people is that every old person on Earth has had the full compliment of youth years.  The young have yet to have any middle age or old years.  So you get the full spectrum as you proceed through life.

The majority of young people feel superior to older people; however,  I'm not sure that we generally look back and think "wow I was so much better when I was young."   I sure wasn't, except in the looks and physical prowess departments.   

[itsallgrand]

Merry Christmas Lolita. 🎅🤶

Haha I'm not a ban em! kind of person. I feel most at home being able to have varying opinions. 

[Batya33]

Oh my number of years isn’t young. No offense taken. I don’t want to be young in years because I had to become the right person to find the right person and fulfil my dream of marriage and motherhood. I needed more years on earth to do so. Partly but only partly because I got in my own way. 
And I was only a teenager for my first 15 minutes of fame getting splashed all over the media to achieve a change in a policy affecting teenagers.
 

My boss was 21 but a number of people who guided me I believe were in their 30s and 40s and I needed their additional years and insight and wisdom to achieve what I did. It changed my life and it changed lives of many of my peers. Positively. My parents supported me in this endeavor and they were in their late 40s.  I needed older people to do what I did. That’s happened again and again in my life. 
Also keep in mind people who are gay and can’t marry are counted as single as are unmarried long term couples. 
I know many people who achieved their professional dreams later in life. My high school friend who published her first novel in middle age. My grad school classmates and those of my husbands who were in their 30s and beyond. My husband got his PhD in his 50s because that was the right time for him to attain that success. 

I don’t feel the opposite of you at all. I just feel your sort of focus on age is kinda narrow and I don’t agree with the generalizations. I don’t think number of years makes much of a difference at all in what you wrote as far as wisdom and success and attaining goals and dreams. I prefer a more individual approach and I also respect your opinion.  
I’ve felt this way as long as I can remember. Not in a biased way because of my age. I had to laugh when you suggested that somehow my not being “young” is offensive or a negative thing. I don’t relate to that sort of judgment. 
I feel particularly sorry for the women who start racing for the creams and Botox in their 30s to “look young”. I wouldn’t voice that opinion to those women. It’s just how I feel.  
 

[Batya33]

This article reminded me of the discussion. https://www.friendshiprules.com/p/the-perks-of-intergenerational-friendships?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1576852&post_id=139847121&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=7gt5g&utm_medium=email

[mylolita]

Everybody loves you, baby 
You should trademark your face 
Linin' down the block to be around you 
But, baby, I'm first in place

Face card, no cash, no credit 
Yes, God, don't speak, you said it 
Look at you 
Skip the application, interview 
Sweet like Marabou 
Look, look at you

Everybody wants you, baby (everybody) 
You should insure that waist (with the highest policy you can get) 
Bet nobody wants you bad as I do 
Baby, let me plead my case, yeah

Face card, no cash, no credit 
Yes, God, don't speak, you said it 
Look at you 
Pop the culture, iconography 
Is standin' right in front of me 
Look, look at you

x
 

[mylolita]

Whenever I give my husband a lapdance…

 

…he’s the only guy who’s ever made me nervous. 

 

x
 

Love all on me, spend it on me 
Babe, if you don't worship me (ha-ah), it just don't work for me 
Love all on me, everyone needs love 
Forget all the foolery (ha-ah), stay on me like jewelry 
On my body, don't let go of me 
I just want the fantasy (ha-ah), love it when you worship me 
Love all on me, spend it on me 
On me (on me, on me, on me) 
On me (on me, on me, on me)

Diamonds on my wrist, that's my love language 
And kisses down my back, starting from my neck 
Leaning side to side (to side), emptying my mind (my mind) 
Loyal as they come (they come), I've been down to ride

When you feel alone (yeah) 
I'll hold you down (yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah) 
I belong to you (to you) 
Know you're all mine too (mine too) 
Yes, we made mistakes (mistakes) 
Now, can we make this right?