Every Eleven Years

My dear friend, Miss Healthypants, just posted a very nice piece about what was going on in her life every ten years and how the passage of time will often surprise us.

So, I’m unabashedly stealing this idea and will do the same. However, I’ll do it in eleven year intervals because I don’t like even numbers and I’m fascinated with the prime ones.

Also, for some auspicious reason, my life really sucked big time when I was 10, 20, 30, and 40 years old. You don’t want to hear about that. Trust me.

11 years old: Lobster wasn’t available at all anywhere near my little bitty home town and I really wanted to try it. So for my 11th birthday, my mom and grandmother took me out to eat at this Dutch-themed seafood restaurant in San Antonio called the Zuider Zee for one of those pick-out-your-own-lobster dinners. I was one excited kid. It cost a whopping (are you ready for this?) eight dollars and seventy-five cents! I felt SO special.

Also that year, I got sent to the principal’s office for telling a bully to “Shut your f**king mouth.” I was finally coming into my own and finding my voice. . . .

22 years old: I was in college and singing (and playing the alto recorder) in one of those nerdy Madrigal groups. I also discovered that I hated Renaissance Fairs. By the way, if you have hairy legs, it takes two pairs of tights to cover them properly.

I was also working behind the front desk at a Holiday Inn where the cast and crew of Best Little Whorehouse in Texas was staying. They were filming in nearby Hallettsville Texas for about three weeks.
Dom DeLouise propositioned me.
Twice.
No lie.
(I politely declined.)

33 years old: I had just converted to Roman Catholicism and had become obsessed with monastic life. Also, my spiritual director happened to be one of the monks at the Cistercian monastery near Dallas. I was seriously considering joining and did end up joining a year later. I have to say that this was just about one of the happiest times of my life.
It was all very Thomas Merton.

I also quit smoking that year.

44 years old: Although the beginning of religious life was the happiest time of my life, seven years of it left me horribly, clinically depressed not to mention horribly, clinically addicted to sleep medication at the age of 40. By the time I was 44, I had moved to Chicago, gotten a good job and had wonderful friends like Miss Healthypants.
Chicago has definitely been good to me.

Now, if I could only lose about 30 pounds. . . after all, I really don’t want to end up looking like Dom DeLouise when I'm 55.