Mugs, Misses, and Getting It Right

It’s just one sentence, but it reminds me to accept aging (and my older self!) with grace

“You don’t look a day over fabulous.”

I nearly cried.

No one spoke those words to me, but I read them. In typewriter print. On an otherwise plain white mug. When I reached for it, I saw its beautiful teal interior and the words on the rim, “That’s all.”

Then I looked at the price tag, $14.99. For a mug I didn’t need. I replaced it on the shelf.

Trish and I wandered the new home décor store, Tide and Timber, enchanted but buying nothing. My sister and her friend planned to visit the next day for a grand opening with live music, food, and more, but when we heard it was open for business a day early, we stopped so I could see it. It was my last day in town.

After oohing and aahing through the aisles, we circled back to the display with the mug. Again, I considered the purchase.

“It would make the perfect birthday gift for Pamela,” I told my sister. My best friend used the word “fabulous” often, and she’d love the saying. Her birthday was in two weeks. But, like me, she had too many mugs and didn’t need another one.

Even one with the words you wanted to hear.

At 59, I felt many days older than fabulous. I’d already had surgery on one hand to replace a ridiculously arthritic thumb joint. I’d suffered from back pain for decades, and other body parts were joining the pain party daily, it seemed.

“How old are you?” the doctor had asked, incredulous, when he viewed my hand X-rays for the first time. I was a mere 55, far too young for such damage.  “Someone in your family must have had this, too.”

Indeed, my father had had such terrible thumb pain that he’d cupped his hands around a hot, lighted lamp bulb in the evening to relieve the discomfort. At least one of my aunts suffered from it – but she’s 40 years older than I am.

Just before I’d made the trip to visit my sister, I’d seen a dermatologist who had looked at my fingernails and asked if I had psoriasis.

“No, but my mother, brother, and sister did,” I said, surprised and wondering why she’d asked.

“Do you have joint pain?” the doctor asked.

“Oh, yes!” I pointed to the surgery scar. “I’ve had such pain in my thumb that I had to have the joint replaced. My back’s been hurting for years.”

“Is the pain worse in the morning or at night?”

“The morning. I get to the gym to move because it makes me feel better.”

(I often see this doctor in the locker room after a workout.) She asked other questions and then said:

“I think you may have psoriatic arthritis.”

She referred me to a rheumatologist, and I left feeling I had a death sentence. Or a living hell sentence – at least after I read more about what psoriatic arthritis could involve.

It is an autoimmune disorder that can cause severe joint pain anywhere in the body – usually in multiple joints simultaneously. Tendon and ligament pain. Symptoms in the nails, skin, and eyes – causing pain, irritation, and deformities. It also increases the risk for all sorts of ailments, such as diabetes, high blood pressure, and more.

Yay.

And even though I dreaded pain and disfigurement more, I also hated looking old on the outside.

I made the mistake of going through menopause during the pandemic. I felt I aged overnight. And since so few people returned to the office, I got out of the habit of applying makeup. I let Zoom provide all the touchups I needed.

We wore masks in person, which meant the only part of my face that showed was my eyes. Sans makeup. With new wrinkles. And bags to pack them in!

It wasn’t a good look.

I felt old and unattractive – and now I was facing a crippling disease. Maybe. It would take a while to get the verdict. (The rheumatologist insisted I see a dermatologist in his system – and that office couldn’t see me for nine months. And if their dermatologist thinks my dermatologist’s initial diagnosis has merit, I can get in line for the rheumatologist. So, for now, I can live in denial.)

Oh, I wanted to look “not a day over fabulous”!

(Without effort, of course.)

But I left without the mug. Trish and I got into her car to head to the grocery store, and I spent the drive scrolling through my phone, trying to find the same mug for a better price. I didn’t find one, but I found a line of “That’s All” funny and inspirational mugs. I read what they said as she drove:

• “It’s not me. It’s you.”
• “I wish retail therapy was covered by health insurance.”
• “Despite the look on my face, you’re still talking.”
• “Who needs the internet? My husband knows everything.”
• “This year, instead of gifts, I’m giving everyone my opinion.”

My sister and I laughed and laughed as I read them aloud. But I didn’t find the “fabulous” mug any cheaper.

The following day, I awakened early and returned to Gainesville while my sister and brother-in-law slept. That afternoon, Trish sent a text:

“I’m getting the mug for you.”

For me?

I’m not sure when I stopped looking at the mug as a gift for Pamela but rather as an encouragement for me. Had I?

But my sister had known, just as she’d landed on a great truth, when we were on the verge of losing my oldest sister, Cyndi, at age 60.

In 2016, it wasn’t the “Hospice is saying she doesn’t have long now” texts that ripped my heart as Cyndi lost her battle with alcohol addiction. No, it was the text with the picture of Trish holding our newest great nephew – Cyndi’s first grandchild. A newborn Cyndi held just once.

Trish had written these words to accompany the photo: “OK, I hate all my wrinkles, but I am now appreciative that I am here and earned them.”

She meant Cyndi wouldn’t be earning or lamenting wrinkles because she wouldn’t be here.

Our oldest sister missed the wrinkles and arthritis and the atrocities of old age. But she also missed her daughters getting married, the births of more grandchildren, and the glories of being a grandparent and getting old with her husband.

And with her sisters. Oh, how I miss her!

But I am blessed to have a big sister in my sister-in-law Belinda – more than a decade older than I am. She doesn’t look a day over fabulous (or 30) if you only see her in edited photos. And she edits all of them! We almost laugh when we see her youthful appearance on our phone screens.

Her edits are ridiculous. And unnecessary.

Belinda is gorgeous. She’s just an older version of the impeccable beauty she’s always been (inside and out). And I wish she could see herself as we see her.

Not a day over fabulous.

Just like me.

(My cup says so.)