Tag Archives: aging

Regrets? I Have A Few

19 Apr

They say that a life without regrets is a life well lived. I’m not so sure about that. Looking back on my seventy-four years, there are a few things I wish I had done differently.

A graduate degree at 42.

When I was getting my Master’s degree at the University of Texas in 1996, my professor suggested that I continue for a PhD. She liked my research and thought I could parlay it into a dissertation. Without question I said no. I was too scared. It was a bigger vision than I could imagine for myself. I was raised in a time when women were given very low expectations.

Another time I was offered the position of manager for the clinic where I worked. Again, I turned it down. I had never been a “manager” (only of a home, and three kids, all while attending graduate school full-time.) I wish someone had offered me help, training and a boost to my self confidence.

As a woman of a certain era, I fought hard for every opportunity. I was the only girl of five children, and the only one to graduate from college, bought and paid for by myself.

It was impossible not to let the fear rule me. Fear was built into every story I was told, every underestimation, every time I was reminded that my place was in the home.

So yes I have a few regrets.

Living in paradise.

Today I am content with the way things turned out. I have an amazing partner, a beautiful home and a peaceful existence. If I had done any of the things I now regret, it might have turned out quite differently.

Portland 2025

So truthfully I have no regrets. At least that’s what I tell myself.

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1CiLn7YdNg/

DOS TORTAS

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But Don’t You Want To Look Younger?

12 Apr

“Reduce swelling, eliminate wrinkles, lift sagging lids, here let me show you.”

A sample size age reversal.

I was winding my way through Cancún airport when this gorgeous woman came on strong (it’s been years since I’ve been able to say that!)

Before I could bat a puffy lid, she was dabbing something under one eye and pushing a mirror at me to demonstrate the “miraculous” difference.

Of course I couldn’t see a thing and not because it didn’t work, although I have my doubts but because I’m blind without my glasses.

Looking myself in the eye.

With flawless skin and perfect English she thrust a sample in my hand and continued her siren’s song, inviting me to her counter to experience an age defying miracle. My response,

“I don’t care!”

She looked confused. “But don’t you want to…look younger?”

When I looked younger.

“Nope. I’m good.”

She sputtered as I walked away. Actually I wheeled away, as my walking days are currently on hiatus.

I think I retired with the money I have NOT spent on beauty supplies. For giggles I looked up her products. They started at $400 and added a one on the front for moisture and glow.

This was the cheap stuff.

For me, making peace with aging starts in the mirror. The sagging skin and thickening middle defy all effort to change. And believe me I’ve tried. At this point it’s appearance zero, health everything. So I’ll keep my wrinkles and my money, thank you very much! “I DON’T CARE.

Watch this video.

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1BPcaHjSwJ/

DOS TORTAS

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Continuing The Celebration Of Old Women

5 Apr

Long before grandmothers ran marathons, Nan would show up at our house in New Jersey, unannounced. We knew she arrived when her car pulled into our long country drive. “Nan’s here!” We were excited. It was a time before internet and cell phones. As the matriarch I guess she never felt the need to let us know she was coming. Sometimes she stayed for months.

My grandmother in her youth.

Nan drove well into her eighties and would tell us often that the worse day of her life was when my uncle took her car keys. She was a traveling fool, visiting here and there while waving to the truck drivers. She carried all her worldly possessions in her trunk (boot for you Brits).

One day Nan arrived and announced her intention to drive from New Jersey to Florida to visit family. She whisked me away to keep her company on the long drive to Miami. I was a lanky twelve year old. My parents never thought to tell her no.

Underwater extravaganza.

I was mesmerized at Weeki Wachee State Park where to this day mermaids breathe underwater through skinny tubes and perform somersaults with long hair floating behind them.

We also took a boat ride along the Florida coast to stare agog at enormous seaside mansions that defied reality. Our reality for sure.

Nan bought me sunglasses!

My grandmother was born in 1896. She was labeled rebellious when to everyone’s horror she divorced my grandfather. My mother told stories of packing up her three siblings and moving in the middle of the night when they couldn’t pay the rent. Nan later lived with a man for ten years whom she never married. I remember him. She was an independent woman who unapologetically forged her own way.

The many faces of my grandmother 1896-1990

Her name was Alicia Wade Marder. It is important that we tell womens’ stories. She was my grandmother and she shaped my life in ways I’m still discovering. This is for my grandchildren, so they know their history. Love you Nan.

DOS TORTAS

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Three Old Women And Two Old Dogs

29 Mar

Nobody wants to read about old women doing amazing things but you should, if you’re lucky it could be to you.

Happy birthday Alice 82

My conservative, republican mother-in-law moved to Mexico to live with her ex-military lesbian daughter and her older wife. It’s been one hellava ride.

Alice’s 80 birthday

Alice is now eighty-two and living large in her own tiny jungle home.

https://theadventuresofdostortas.com/2016/03/13/a-tiny-house-in-mexico/

Alice with her best friend.

Her house is a museum. She’s never seen a knickknack, or doll, or pair of shoes, or jewelry…that she doesn’t love. When her clothes washer recently died, her main concern for a new one was that it had to be pretty. She now owns a red washing machine.

A tour of Alice’s artistic bathroom.
Who loves to have her picture taken?

Alice survived Covid and RSV (a respiratory virus) both of which put her in the hospital. She has more lives than a cat. She sets an amazing example of resiliency and living life on your own terms and we’re so lucky to have her with us.

DOS TORTAS

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I Didn’t Used To Be So Scared

22 Feb

There was a time when I was fearless, hitchhiking across Mexico in my 20’s, climbing pyramids, swimming underwater into a cave, or staying out all night dancing.

Danskin Triathalon, Austin TX

Maybe it’s because I am now old (this week marks 74 years) and disabled (walking with a cane) that I find myself anxious about the unknown. Whether the world has become a scarier place or I am having trouble with my limitations, I don’t know. Either way, I am ashamed and embarrassed of my fear.

Big Bend on the TX/MX border.

We have tickets on Tuesday to see the one and only Shakira. It’s my birthday and what a way to celebrate, right? We have someone staying with my mother-in-law and a sweet hotel reservation in Merida. And yet I am ready to cancel it all over an unfamiliar concert venue, fear of not finding a taxi, long bathroom lines and staying out most of the night.

Cave exploration, Belize

I have read that writing is cathartic so here I am baring my soul. I know you won’t try to fix me. You might think I’m a little bonkers, but heck I think I’m a LOT bonkers.

Tikal, Guatemala

Thanks for listening, or reading, or whatever it is we do here. I appreciate your support. Writing it down beats lying in bed with tears in my ears (as my dad used to say) any day.

DOS TORTAS

Released in 1952, the year I was born.

I’ve Got Tears in My Ears https://share.google/hMd6hIh5FY4NDWR9M

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The Unexpected We Should Expect

26 Oct

If we do not see someone or talk to them in thirty years can we  still consider them a good friend? Are comments and posts on Facebook enough? Somehow I imagined running into him in a coffee shop and picking up the conversation where we left off. Memories, shared history and familiarity would bring us up to date. Where did the time go?

This week I lost that opportunity. Gareth found out two months ago that he had gallbladder cancer. It’s one of those nasty cancers that by the time you find out, it’s too late. It hit me like a punch in the stomach. I can’t imagine what it did to his wife and son.

I went to Gareth and Wendy’s wedding in 1983. My son was days old when I wrapped us both in a blanket and ventured out. It was April and one of those Texas spring days with the sun out and a blustery wind. It was a beautiful outdoor wedding in the Texas Hill Country

I called a mutual friend this week to make sure she knew of his passing. She reminisced of a road trip they took, camping along the way. “I had such a crush on him.” I think we all did.

Another friend wrote on his FB page, “If I was told that as of yesterday there were no more mountains on earth, I think it would feel the way I feel hearing there is no more Gareth. It’s simply impossible. I love that guy. ❤️.” What a lovely sentiment.

His page is filling up with stories, sadness, and shock. He was such a dear person.

My “old” friend Gareth.

One more reason to be grateful for another day on this spinning rock. Farewell and adiós Gareth. To have been so loved is a life well lived. And we did not expect it.

DOS TORTAS

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Sharing The Story Within Us

12 Oct

“Aging is not for the weak. One day you wake up and realize that your youth is gone, but along with it, so go insecurity, haste, and the need to please… You learn to walk more slowly, but with greater certainty. You say goodbye without fear, and you cherish those who stay. Aging means letting go, it means accepting, it means discovering that beauty was never in our skin… but in the story we carry inside us.” Meryl Streep.

Beauty in the hood.

Almost thirteen years ago, I began this blog to shine a light for others who might like to follow and to let my family and friends know what we were up to on this adventure of living in Mexico. Little did I know how things would change.

YouTube, Instagram, Ticktock and god knows what else are overflowing with stories of people who have self deported. Much like we did, they sold everything, scooped up their families and relocated to an unfamiliar culture, language and environment.

More beauty.

Many are trying to romanticize it all. While I love Mexico, the struggle is real. At least we left by choice.

Our blog has evolved from the Adventures of Dos Tortas to the Aging of Dos Tortas. We are in as unfamiliar a territory as the deportees.

Some days I wonder why I continue to write. I guess I do it for me. My parents and grandparents certainly didn’t prepare me for my seventies. Our experiences are all different but maybe we can be there for each other just a little, and share the story we carry inside us.

DOS TORTAS

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Love At First Sight?

21 Sep

It was thirty-one years ago that she walked around the bar and into my life. Our friends nodded and smiled and knew it would never last. She was rough around the edges, not long out of the military. She smoked and drank and I did neither. I was twelve years older with three children. We both were still living with our exes. Not exactly a match made in heaven.

Our first Christmas 1994

And yet here we are, happier than ever, living our dream together. I’m not saying it hasn’t been work. We’ve learned to accept each other as we are, not tolerance but appreciation. There’s also the art of listening without feeling criticized and taking personal responsibility.

First Valentines Day 1995
Wedding photos 1999
Legal 2014

We have supported each other through major health crises, spending nights together in the hospital, even in one case, sleeping on the floor.

Back Surgery

All in all, it’s been a ride. Thirty-one years is worth celebrating. We certainly didn’t have a crystal ball that night in the bar when we laughed and flirted. If you’d have asked me if love at first sight existed I’d probably have scoffed. But ask me today, and I’d say yes, but it also takes a lot of damn work.

DOS TORTAS

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I Guess We Still Got It Going On

10 Aug

Whenever we travel, my caffeine addicted wife has to find out where she can get her morning fix. Many hotels have those cute little coffee makers in the room but our basic digs in Portland did not.

Our coffee haunt in Portlandia.

So every morning she got up early to tootle across the street only to return with two fist fulls of large coffees for our morning pick-me-up. On our last morning, my lovely announced upon her return, “I think the barista was hitting on me,” That got my attention and of course I wanted all the deets.

The use of a tried and true pickup line gave it away. “Are you here alone?” We had a good laugh, noting that the wedding ring and two cups of coffee was not a deterrent. I have seen both men and women flirt and/or hit on her over the years. Mostly she is pretty oblivious to how hot she is, having been happily coupled for thirty years.

When we first moved onto our property.
She hasn’t aged a bit.

In Austin a few days later we were meeting our niece for dinner. Lisa dropped me off in front of the restaurant and went to park the car. I sat at a tiny table next to two young men, MUCH younger than me. One of them struck up a conversation telling me that he liked my “look”. I didn’t realize that I had a look, but my orange, tiger patterned cane must be the newest fashion statement.

If you are an Instagramer you would know that the latest trend on social media is age disparate couples both homo and hetero. Some have 20-30 years between them. Lisa and I have twelve. Now I don’t really think the guy was hitting on me, but who knows. Maybe I also still have somethin going 😂 on.

DOS TORTAS

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Maybe We Should Be Smugglers

16 Feb

In 2018, Clint Eastwood made a movie THE MULE, based on the true story of an eighty something man who became a drug mule to pay off debt and ingratiate himself back into his estranged family. Of course no one suspected for a long time that a grizzled, elderly was moving cocaine.

At the same time Mr Eastwood was making his movie, Lisa and I were driving up Baja California on our way to help out with our new born twin granddaughters. We were stopped continuously while large German shepherds climbed through our truck. Apparently probable cause does not exist in Mexico. Quite the experience.

As time has gone on, twelve years to be exact, our hair has gotten grayer, and the number of random searches in our area have definitely increased. They’re probably due to our proximity to the border with Belize and the general insanity in the world.

Many foreigners get nervous at being pulled over by the military wearing ski masks and toting machine guns. We’ve seen it so often that we hardly pay any attention.

It must be our old white women privilege. We always slow down and wave as they flag us through. Even this week we passed through a new pop-up check point and inquiring eyes peered into the car and waved us on. I always crack jokes that “the drugs are in the back,” to which my wife hisses, “don’t jinx us.”

Apparently we don’t fall into whatever profile they’re looking for. IDK, I think we could make good smugglers. What do you think?

DOS TORTAS

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