Time of the body

When I turned 40 I was stoked.  Buoyed by a strong sense of "new beginning" (of the second half of my life), I vibrated promise.  And I wanted to ride that tantalizing burst of bliss to lots more.

(My thirties ran me ragged.  A surge of life "events" strung together closely resulted in inadequate capacity for stress management.  Infertility~baby~baby has multiple food allergies~another baby~second baby contracts pneumonia at one month~leaving a job/work I loved~moving into father-in-law's in the boondocks~moving to Sacramento...it was during our second year in Sacramento that I turned 40.)

In searching for my bliss, I focused on myself.  One of my guiding principles was that being happier would make everyone else in my family happier.  Within a year of turning 40 we moved to New Jersey and, here, I set about looking for someone to work with, someone who would expand my capacity for understanding what makes me tick so I could travel the road of least resistance towards personal joy.

I had met Kelly at a homeschooling event at the library and we became fast friends.  She introduced me to Master Lu and Vinny.  The rest, in a way, has been history.  As most of you know, Vinny has mad skills and has helped me, a lot, over the years.  I am definitely happier now than I was when I turned 40.

And yet...as I begin staring down 50, I am realizing that a new phase is upon me.  It is the time of the body.  I have had a fairly complicated relationship with my body since childhood.  I have carried body baggage into adulthood and never fully dealt with it.  Hence, the Oprah-like pendulum-ing of my weight (according to my backseat psychiatrist couch-think).

I have been having a hard time with fatigue for nearly two years.  During this time I've dabbled in self-education around hormonal issues (thyroid and perimenopause) and Paleo eating (which did seem to help a lot with my ADDishness).  Throughout, I saw Vinny.  He worked on me and I took the herbs he prescribed.

But, little has changed with the fatigue.  (My sleep issues, which peaked during this time, responded positively and dramatically to reducing caffeine and sugar.)

I signed up for the Y, I signed up for dance classes, I created schedules in an effort to get out/move my body, I considered yoga.  Nada.  I've been too tired or overwhelmed to actually do any of it.

In the last three months it has creepingly become undeniable: not only am I tired every morning when I wake up (recently I've been getting solid sleep and I know I am not emotionally depressed), but I am often ache-y and I am way too heavy.

Dragon's Way started last night and we practiced movements 1-4.  In a stunning moment of "oh !@#%", my new reality smacked me.  Hard.  These movements, which have never been hard for me, kicked my ass.

Describing the Qigong movements is a whole other post.  Suffice to say, for now, that though you have to be fairly exact in your execution for maximum benefit, the movements themselves are simple, gentle and slow.  Now, imagine me, doing these simple, gentle, slow movements and parts of my body starting to feel like lead within a minute of starting...not so much painful (though it is sometimes) but resistance to the simple, gentle and slow movements manifesting itself in a way that feels huge and immovable.  Now add guttural moans.  And sweat dripping off of me.  It was not pretty.

It was clarifying.  I've hit my tipping point.  Watershed moment.  47 is a prime number and I thought this year would be special.  I've been jiggling the key, working it, and I've been a little frustrated at the stickiness of the lock (blocked energy, prolonged fatigue, the metaphor fits).  Last night, the lock finally started to give a little.  A resounding "click" may be in my future.

The Qigong last night was powerful (practicing in a group generates some really lovely energy) and healing.  I was not ache-y this morning.  I practiced today.  I have eaten much less.  I have been more directed in my activity.  I have had more compassion for the kids.

I feel much more grounded.

In the past, I have focused on the food part of Dragon's Way, but this time, the food will be tertiary after the movements and the herbs.  After last night I know, in my bones, that practicing the movements can lead the way.  It will make the rest easier.

In other news, I have been spending a lot of time cooking.  And in between, I have been eating less, and well.

braised pork from A Spoonful of Ginger.

toasted macadamia nuts.

banana muffins.

bread crumbs.

apple sauce.

carrots.

shakshouka.

oatmeal raisin cookies.

Off to make some turkey meatballs for common meal tomorrow and then put together taco fixings for tonight.

Peace and love.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

Two days ago I started a second post about flow that I couldn't finish.  Maybe I will later today.

Yesterday was supposed to be a beach day (celebrating a common meal friend's birthday), but Sag had a stomachache and fever so it turned into a quiet, healing day. 

Gem caught up in his Math (he expressed satisfaction and pride in a way that, upon reflection, he doesn't often get the opportunity to) and scored an 89% on the chapter test (I joked with him that that was an 'Asian F'...he didn't get it...anyone else watch Glee? ;-)

I finished 100 Cupboards, a YA novel that Daniel recommended.  I loved it.  I have put in a request to the library for the second book (it's a trilogy).  I nursed some GI difficulty myself later on in the day.

Sag took it easy.  He played on the iPad, he played Minecraft (it took some perseverance, but we figured out how to upload the latest pre-release update), and he strummed on his electric guitar (a child size one we gave him a few years ago).

We enjoyed a cozy evening watching Ice Age for the first time.  It was funny and delightful.

This morning we have already been food shopping and are nestling in for the rest of the day.  Sag's almost completely better, my gut showed itself to still be sensitive while we were out and Gem's system seems to be holding it together for now (after a slightly fragile evening).

It's tough to really sink into Dragon's Way while tending to two kids sans partner.  But, I have continued with the walnuts and honey breakfast, have cut out coconut juice entirely and am drinking only herbal tea with honey.  I've been finishing off the leftovers I've had in the fridge that don't conform to the guidelines (ie. the chimichurri is raw, the ground pork I cooked up mid-week).

Tomorrow, I will transition more completely to Level 1 food.

I mentioned I was hungry in my last post.  I realized later on that day that despite feeling "hungry" (and, really, just the awareness of hunger feels like "hunger" to me because I am so unaccustomed to that feeling...) I had plenty of energy.  I went about my morning and was very productive, very much in flow.  No weakness, no dizziness, etc.

After eating a more substantial lunch, I was tired!

It's almost as if I also don't recognize this more quiet energy as "energy" yet.  The more frenetic, buzz of energy that I recognize, is an ultimately tiring kind of energy...  Interesting...I am relearning what it is to feel certain, authentic and primal things.

One of the things I've never quite gotten my head around is how Master Lu talks about eating until 70% full.  The ability to sense this accurately feels completely foreign to me.  People can do that?!  But, this time (I think this is the third time I am doing DW), I am beginning to see that I can feel something between "hungry" and "full"...and that I can achieve this after eating.

I don't eat slowly enough to really feel it while I'm eating yet.  But, I can definitely manipulate how much I eat, visually and mentally, to put me on course to eat till I am 70%ish full.  I can still feel the pulling on my mind that what I see on my plate is not "enough" food.  But, the calm in my mind is stronger now and I eat and then I feel...satisfied.

When the calm is pushed into the background and I have my mind on things like finishing food off, like the loaf of Paleo bread that finally came out without being undercooked in the center, which I do not want to throw away, but I don't want to freeze it either...or my mind is whirled about in a dance of creative fantasy and I think the leftover ground pork needs to be nestled in sautéd shallots and softly scrambled pastured eggs...as they say in Project Runway, my editing skills are railroaded...and I feel stuffed...I go over the top.

And, as I mentioned above, I feel tired afterward.  (As my digestive system churns up my energy to work on the overload of food.)

Things are better, though.  When I'm tired, I am not tired for as long as I used to be.  I am also not as completely tired.  It can feel global, but after some rest, I am able to move on much more quickly than before.

I am sleeping so much better.

My moods, which can still pop up or down unpredictably, regulate much smoother and quicker after those rushes or dips.

I am keeping an eye out on the numbers on the scale.  I don't need the number to tell me whether I am feeling good or not, but dropping the number on the scale has been a part of this experiment for me from the start (the numbers of my blood work, too...for my next birthday, in January, I am planning on having a meeting with our family doc to see where all my numbers are).

The plateau is over and I have dropped five more pounds.  Breaking the 160 barrier was something.  I was about 160 when I became pregnant, both times.  I've been in close vicinity of 160 most of my adult life.  Times I've traveled above that have been stress times, times I've sunk below that have been stress times, too.

When I began this latest experiment of modifying what I eat/do, I was above 160 (by 15).  My blood numbers (most recently taken three+ years ago) were elevated, too. 

Going to Barcelona, in May, opened my eyes to the fact that I was, at core, stronger than I would have expected.  I withstood ten days of international travel (crossing time zones, very little sleep/jet lag, lots of walking despite normally being sedentary, different eating/food routines) with no issues.  No aches or pains, no GI problems.

When I turned 40, I embraced the beginning of the rest of my life.  Now, at 45, I am grabbing consciousness close and sculpting myself...inside and out, to better enjoy the rest of my days.

I am grateful to be experiencing some very real changes.  Thanks for being a part of it, with me.

Peace and love.

Hot flashing

So this is what it is like to be woken by hot flashes. 

Hot, toss, turn, go pee, hot, toss, turn, move to another bed with less bodies, hot, toss, turn, rub various hot points of pain/stagnation on back (the ones I can reach), feel some relief, think I will fall asleep, hot, toss, turn, hot toss, turn, feel open to experience, think of Kelly, think of Danielle, hot, toss, turn, really start to sweat, decide to get up for a  bit.

 

Oy the aches

And so things unravel.  Painfully.  But with what I will insist on seeing as promise.

I slept just about eight hours last night!  And I woke of my own accord.  This meant a more peaceful waking.

But, there continue to be aches and tightness, inside and out.  My body feels "sick".  I do have a fear that one of these years I am going to push things too far.  As it is, with each passing year, my body is going to have to work harder and longer to heal...to expunge the stagnation and toxins that have built up.

Finally letting up on this last cycle of misuse and disuse of my system, my body is starting to, trying to, truly breathe again.  Masking agents are being unwoven, unwrapped.  Things are starting to hurt.  And show their age.  I am happy to respond to the drumbeats of revolt.  I hope it's not too late.

I lay down on the floor and stretched out my lower back and hips.  How is it possible that I haven't "felt" how incredibly bound up I am?  Ow, ow, and ow.  Miasma of sedentary-life sludge.  Slow slosh as my knees and hips rock side to side.

My stomach is bloated and hard and hot.  Ew.  Dead animal full of gas comes to mind.  Double ew.

I am so worn.  I go into Dragon Standing Between Heaven and Earth while on my back just to combat the creeping dismay.  This clears and inspires me enough to stand up and do 30 Toe Dances and 20 Kick Forwards.  I feel more grounded.  My hands reach for my belly and my flesh is pliable and soft again.

Qigong, I'm telling you.  This stuff is like magic.

So, I'm up and at 'em.  My shoulders and the spot where my neck meets my back, are heavy, tight and hurt (yesterday it was my neck...progress?)  I am hungry now, but my stomach also has that acidy hollow feel to it (I forgot, and have been reminded, that yogurt doesn't really agree with me...I just don't feel good after eating it).  My mood is hopeful peeking out from temples and brow that also feel heavy with a bit of ache mixed in.

Today will be my third day of being essentially grain- and white sugar-free.  For me, it will not be enough for a solid reset of how my body processes grains/sugar (I'm using information from Dr. Mercola's book here).  My blood sugar and cholesterol readings from my last blood draw (about a year ago) indicated my body was starting to have trouble processing what was coming in.  I know that I am unwell enough to put my body through a more thorough detox.

So, I will keep going.  My birthday is about six months from now, my gentle and hopeful parameter.

Morning yum

Bing cherry jam from the farmer's market (Treelicious) and kiwi jam from Barcelona.  Made for a lovely breakfast with eggs from yesterday's farm delivery scrambled gently in olive oil, seasoned with salt and pepper.

I continue to be overwhelmed with bouts of insomnia/persistent sleep deprivation.  It has been motivating, in a way, to realize that my physiological disarray (hormonal-neurological-emotional soup) is likely due to deepening entry/full arrival into a new phase of my life: perimenopause.

This doesn't really change how I want to deal with anything (practice Qigong, take my herbs, keep rebalancing and recalibrating in pursuit of inner and outer peace, being gentle), but moving away from confusion (which at moments led to near panic) helps to transform some of the feeling of chaos into a jumble of pushes and pulls that feels more manageable.

I am still laughing, weakly, remembering the phrase I read a couple of days ago that perimenopause can last anywhere from two to fifteen years...

Which reminds me of a video my local homeschoooling fellow HCHS alum friend Elizabeth posted this morning on Google+ (I'm still there waiting for more folks to join me!) about living with indignant joy...

Peace and love and furious happiness to you.

The best "plan"

...is to not have a plan at all.

This post resonated with me when I read it last week or the week before.  This morning, I remembered it fondly as I realized the plans I had mentalized for today were not going to happen. 

The process wasn't stressful (as it sometimes is...in which case the post is a must-read).  I don't feel well.  Woke up moving extremely slowly.  My run-of-the-mill low energy tends to burn off within an hour of waking up.  But, what I am contending with today is something else.

Okay, those of you don't want to hear about sex/my sex life, stop reading now.

Last night, I had sex.  And today I am feeling like I sometimes do after a massage.  (It's all good body work in the end if done right...amirite?)  Stagnated and stuck points of energy were busted open and the toxins are now moving around.

Time to drink lots of fluids and flush those suckers out.

I'll be here with my feet up in this juicy organic strawberry-scented room reading Stephen King and drinking my English breakfast tea with honey and coconut creamer.

Salad turnips will be pickled, chicken will be stocked, kitchen floor will be washed...some. other. time.

Considering

this.

Practiced 1-8 of the Dragon's Way Qigong series this morning.  For the first time in...a long time.  I realize that my response to energy work is nimble.  I begin yawning almost immediately.  Things start to move inside me quickly.  Today, I coughed up some phlegm, too.  Pretty phlegm, not gross.  Clear little pearls.  (Apologies if this is too TMI for you.)

I have movement and cleansing on the brain.  I have considered buying a piece of home exercise equipment before, but the cons have historically stacked up against the idea.  Not so much right now.  This one seems compact enough to store in a corner of the living room if I let go of a piece of truly non-functional (sentimental...and somewhat aesthetically pleasing) furniture from my childhood.  The cost is doable, especially if compared to membership at the Y.

The biggest pros are:

• I am more fully recognizing and embracing my desire to even exercise.

• I could use this tool in front of the tv.

• This tool fits my homebody/introverted personality.

• Recognizing that having a tool like this at home will not lessen the amount of time I spend outdoors taking walks.  This doesn't subtract from the sum, it adds to it.  (Well, of course it will subtract some dollars from the bank account, but in terms of the exercise I am already getting, which is close to zero, there's no going in the "less" direction.)

• Walks outdoors can continue to be meandering and leisurely, cutting down on my itchy skin-frictiony issues.  Also, an indoor, at home tool cuts out all the meddling middling "men": weather, childcare, scheduling, the occasional anxiety about being out alone.

• Cap now uses one of these at the Y so this may get used by more than one person.

Hope things are moving for you.  Peace and love.

Physical

A few days ago, while Wendy was still here and I talked to her about some of what has been on mind re: the physical, it seemed so much clearer.  A head cold does intrude.

I could start with now, I could start with a long, long time ago.

A thought I had last night while lying awake and wanting to be falling asleep: for most of my life I have either thought I was overweight (and wasn't at all) or have been overweight without giving it much thought/fully realizing it (being surprised at my appearance in photos, a season returning and not being able to fit into its clothes).

My weight gains and weight losses have never been by design.  In our society weight gain is rarely by design.  But weight loss usually is.  The three times in my adult life that I have lost overage in my body mass have been due to:

• change in diet/culture: the year I lived alone in Japan right after college.

• illness brought on by stress: the year I had gastritis and was put on medication and the BRAT (banana, rice, apple sauce, toast) diet.

• continual unconscious massive calorie burning: the third year Sag and I nursed.

Turning my attention to the physical is not all about my experience of being overweight.  And yet it dominates.  A lot of strands come together.  Because of my age, my eagerness and excitement over redefining the second half of my life, I have been thinking about the internal physical aspects of being overweight.

I am overweight because I eat too much.  And I am sedentary.  The whys seem less and less crucial to figure out as I age (comfort eating, emotional issues, love of eating, compulsive about eating but not about exercising...) 

It would, simply, be better for my physical comfort and controllable longevity to lose some excess weight.

Not to 'look' better, but to give my internal organs, and myself and my kids, more time.

Michael Pollan comes to mind: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

Dragon's Way and Qigong comes to mind.

Daily gentle walking comes to mind.  (In the woods?  Bonus points.)

Why is it so hard to connect the part of my mind that thinks of these strategies to the part that executes my behavior?

Kiddus interruptus.  More later.

Metaphysical

There is change.  All the time.  But there are recurring themes.  And moments when some thing pings back to you, be it a few seconds later or a few decades later, and it is infused with new meaning.  Time and awareness diving and swimming about in metaphysics.

A wonderful discovery.  Farmer John, our organic CSA farmer, sells pumpkins at the farmer's market.  And they cost a fraction of what we have paid in years past at "pumpkin patches".

Met a friend this morning at my favorite place "out" to meet friends.  A constant that is not static.

Tree and sky.  A combination I will never tire of.  That renews me every time I take a moment to look.  Never exactly the same way twice.

Working on a project for Shannon, whose birthday was in September.  Some tangerine stash yarn called to me and began it all.  The process forces encourages me to be with it rather than to be myself.  This is something I resist big time.  I like easy going.  I am a manatee.  Discipline?  Hard work with no clear end/known result/kindred spirit beside me?  Yuck. 

But, I am at a point in my knitting where the easy is boring and the truth is an itch that needs to be scratched: my creative and intellectual potentials are no longer being met by knitting yet another garter stitch scarf if that's not what the yarn is wanting.

Since yesterday morning: I've knit garter, I've knit stockinette, I found a pattern, I discarded said pattern, I started with straight needles, I switched to circular needles, I started with size 10s, moved down to size 8s, moved up to size 13s.  The yarn is off the needles and rewound.  I will persevere.

Finally, this song.

I went through a CSNY phase in high school.  I have always loved harmony and still do.  Singing in harmony is high on my list of things to do/experience.  Helplessly Hoping was never a favorite, though I remember finding the repeating verse (I guess it's technically the chorus) romantic and wonderfully phrased: they are one person, they are two alone, they are three together, they are for each other.

I recently re-listened to some CSNY for the first time in a long time and was surprised (and not surprised) to find myself drawn to this song.

Middle aged brain

 image pulled from web.

I have succumbed and am finally subscribed to the Huffington Post's "Living" RSS feed.  A number of my FB friends read and post from Huff Post and it got to a point where I figured the benefit may outweigh the cost (I anticipate many posts coming through).

There was a piece on the middle aged brain that caught my eye this morning.  You can check it out here.

Love this yummy quote:

Developing relationships with people who rock your world and wake you up to how you are thinking is actually nourishing to your brain.

The article did make me wonder if maybe the ADDishness I am feeling so much more acutely lately has more to do with my aging brain than anything else...

 image pulled from web.

Cyclical mystery

photo pulled from web.

I swear it's like pedaling to nowhere.

Why why why at 44 do I still not get it.  (Not that it really matters I guess?)

Last night while the kids were playing with L&O and then settling down for the season premiere of Star Wars The Clone Wars at 9pm, I was at the computer, feeling more tired by the second.  I was positng pictures from the aquarium.  I was vaguely dissatisfied, physically out of sorts.  I remembered the chocolate bar I had picked up at Whole Foods (where we picked up some dinner items since our original plans to have sushi in Philly fizzled out).

It was a dark chocolate with coconut bar.  In the car, Gem had declared it too laden with coconut.  Sag didn't like it either.  I felt it was too sweet.  But, I had hated the feeling I had gotten standing in front of the chocolate bar display.  They didn't have my go to Divine.  Nothing else looked reliably good.  I was becoming disgusted at my American self standing in the pinnacle of American consumerist supermarkets unable to decide which chocolate bar I wanted and not wanting any of the hundreds at my disposal.

I almost walked away, so great was my anomie.  But, then I spotted the coconut, which sounded interesting and I grabbed it.

Fast forward back to 9pm.  I plucked the bar from my purse and proceeded to eat the whole bar.  Part of me was prodding my brain with a finger going 'really? really?!'  But, most of me was in a daze.  A daze with some purpose.  Must.  Have.  Chocolate.

I hit the point of crumpling shortly thereafter and walked to my bed and lay down on top of the covers.  I just had to close my eyes.  I was so sleepy.  Normally, when the kids are up, and especially if they have friends over, it would never occur to me to lie down.

Cap was working in the bedroom, half of which is his home office.  He bore witness.  He saw something I was too hazy to see and told me I should just go to bed.  In the recesses of my mind, behind closed eyes, I muttered 'don't tell me what to do', clearly unclear on my situation.  And a crank, on top of that.  He gathered his things, turned out the light and left me alone.

I got up briefly to brush my teeth, but then fell right asleep.

So does everyone else see what I didn't?  I woke up this morning and my period had arrived.

You know, it's actually kind of interesting.  I am definitely in the autumn of my menstrual career and things are changing.  PMS used to be distinctly recognizable and it no longer is.  Now signs of my approaching period (my body being fed a particular chemical/hormonal cocktail) include what were signs of pregnancy (ie. the supra sleepiness).  An opportunity to take a trip down memory lane before it all goes away?

I'm in awe, really.  Do men get to be so entertained by their body systems?

Fire

For now, a favorite and wondrous moment from a day full of such moments.  Their cabin is so special, so them, and they've been there less than a month.  They have worked incredibly hard and the fruits of their labor are amazing.

This place is so great it has me thinking more vigorously about my adult life long dream of retiring to a cottage on the edge of woods overlooking the ocean.

The fire has been stoked.

Blue

My healer had a serious health crisis and has been out of commission for over a month now.  I think I thought he was invincible.  Because I still can't quite get my head around the fact that he almost died.

It seems totally unreal.

During this time, the effects of my repro hormonal spikes and drops have been intense and hard.  

I first thought it was a coincidence.  As I approach menopause (I think?  I hope?), things have gone unpredictably loopy from time to time and I chalked it up to that.

Then, I thought that the tough intensity was explained by my tuning into the 'disturbance in the Force', if you will, in my energetic connection with my healer.

Now, I am thinking that not getting my weekly tune-ups, combined with the dwindling of my Chinese herbal intake, Chinese tea consumption, and Qigong practice, are all increasing the power of the vortex sucking me down.

'Cause baby, I feel blue.

And hazily dazed.

Barely tethered in the ether.

Oh

Just had a thought: lately, if I am bothered by someone (as opposed to something though if the something is making me all flustered then the thing would be considered, too), there is a pattern: I'm PMS-y...my system is experiencing some sort of hormonal surge or drop.

Because I am a female of a certain age (I'm assuming here...maybe it has more to do with the years long process of recalibrating I am undergoing), my PMS attacks are no longer happening a few days before my period.  Yesterday it was an ovulation spike (the lightbulb went on really bright as I was shoveling yet another handful of Glutino pretzels into my mouth...alternating the salt with squares of Divine choc).  I've also noticed in the last half year or so that I have emo waves as my period is ending, rather than before it comes.

The shifts of timing have thrown me off balance, but in a wonderful way, have opened my eyes.

What's helpful about this type of knowledge is that when I realize what's happening inside me, I can attempt to check myself.  Keep my trap shut and wait for it to pass because it will, it always does.  But, most of us menstruatin' women know that this is sometimes impossible.  It's part of the package, the wild powerful womanly craziness that is PMS.

This isn't to say that I completely ignore who/what is bothering me.  There is inevitably a hurt or frustration or confusion that is running below the surface.  Something worth excavating and either studied or tossed aside as useless detritus.

But, that urge to express and expunge, a primal need dictated by hormonal activity...it is by definition uncontrollable...by embracing it and knowing it, I can be with it a little better...hold it till the storm quiets.

Is seeing believing?

I enjoyed a talk with one of my local mama friends while our kids played this afternoon. She said something interesting which totally hooked into something I've been thinking about (a complete coincidence).

She made the observation that her husband, because he is overweight, has stopped seeing himself. The implication was that he is not happy about his weight, and therefore his appearance, and so his brain has brought down the shutters. Out of sight, out of mind.

A couple of weeks ago, while Barbra and I were staying at my mom's in the city, I was stopped in my tracks, in total shock mind you, when I happened to see my mostly undressed body in a full length mirror.

My reality and my reactions, when it comes to my weight and how I look, are a tangle of ideas, thoughts, and feelings. Not clear, not linear, not consistent. Lately, there's a healthy dose of facing aging thrown in there, too.

I don't want to parse all that right now.

But, it did occur to me, as the echo of my friend's words faded away in my mind: maybe some of us don't see in the same way to start with and that is how they "let themselves go" in ways that they didn't choose.

Another sign

My shoulders are starting to ache.  My body is communicating to me and I should move away from the computer, but there's one more post in me here.  Something that's been percolating in my mind.  Nothing deep, but kind of "now".

I recently saw two movies.  *spoiler alert

and

They were similar enough that comparisons were inevitable.  Both have cute white male protagonists and the movies tell the stories of their trials and tribulations in the romantic love department.

One notable difference was that DM is about a guy who is in his thirties and 500 is about a guy in his twenties. 

The guy in DM (Ryan Reynolds, who I am calling the Cary Grant of the aughts :-) is divorced and has a kid.  There are three relationships he's chronicling in the course of the movie.

The guy in 500 (Joseph Gordon-Levitt who has come a long way from 3rd Rock From The Sun) is single, meets a girl, falls hard, loses girl, is upset, but then experiences an uptick in life as an effect of their relationship despite its brevity/ending.

Both movies were enjoyable and well cast.  Both movies showed how the random connections we make with each other can shape our lives, our feelings, our thoughts (which I dig). 

I was surprised to realize that I liked DM more than 500.  Partly because 500 is a more "indie" movie and I tend to favor those over mainstream fare.  And so I've been kind of thinking about that.  And realizing that I probably liked the movie more because I could better relate to and appreciate the situations that the 30 somethings were experiencing more than the 20 somethings.  There was a difference in the resonance in the watching.

This aging thing...it's so interesting.  At late 43, I am understanding in ways that I haven't up till now, that, yes, I am getting older.  It's not unpleasant.  But, it is a new feeling for me.  I have always just felt "myself".  These days, I feel aging infringing on this self-conceptualization.  Whether it's liking DM more than 500 or whether it's confronting new and clear synaptic breakdowns (as highlighted in the NYT article my sister sent me), I find "myself turning corners and coming upon different aspects of "myself" who are unexpectedly unfamiliar.