Whats in a Name : Pineapple

     My family already knows why I sometimes use the nickname Pineapple, even if it is not something I am called.  When I started the blog a couple years ago I had no idea what to call it so I fell back on the old standby.

     When I was in high school,  I was pretty much a loner, with just a few close friends.  I didn't participate in many activities like sports or band.  My extracurricular thing was French Club, and I did that just because I had a crush on a couple guy friends.  I wasn't outspoken, and if you asked people from my graduating class if they remembered Marcy, I am pretty sure that most of them wouldn't, even if you showed them picture.  I mastered the art of invisibility, and for someone as awkward as I was, invisibility was a comfort!

However, if you asked some if they remember Pineapple, I am betting at least a few would.

     In my senior year we were required to take P.E.  Many of the girls in class refused to participate because they didn't want to get sweaty, and they definitely didn't want to use the showers.  I  really liked PE though, and  I put in a lot of effort, whether it was basketball, volleyball or flag football. I did manage to piss off a few boys in flag football because they just didn't pay me any mind until I yanked their flag. (Ahem, behave.) The only thing I wasn't crazy about was running the mile. However, in good Marcy fashion, I did try my hardest.

      One of those mile runs was the reason I got the nickname I  would keep for the rest of  the school year.  To say that I didn't have much of a style sense would be like saying  Jay Leno has kind of a big chin.  My choices for gym clothes weren't  the best, and I just grabbed something from the drawer and threw it in the bag.  Today kids get gym clothes, and how much less entertaining that year would have been if I had worn  athletic shorts.  In the eighties, you could  get away with wearing anything.  And on this day, I went to PE wearing thin cotton shorts and matching shirt that had fruit all over them.  You  read that right.  Think cherries, apples, bananas grapes, oh and yeah, pineapples. 

These are not my shorts, but close enough to gag.

     The class began normally.  I started in the back, because that's just what I do.  The athletic types were up front and  as we were running, many of the girls just  walked, so they fell behind.  I  am stubborn, so even if I had to jog  slowly,  I was going to do that mile. I wasn't really that heavy back then, but I was sturdy and strong and bigger than a lot of the little southern belles I shared that class with.  More than halfway through the mile, embarrassingly, the athletics had just about lapped me.  

     As three or four boys approached my lonely self from behind,   I suddenly became the center of attention.  When a girl  with some badonka-donk runs the mile, there is action back there. And if you wear thin cotton shorts, its pretty hard to hide the action.  What happened was that  the fruit on my shorts was moving right along with the rest of me, and that caught the boys attention. I could have stopped and let them pass me, but oh I am a stubborn one, and that was NOT going to happen!  As much as I  tried to be invisible,  I was not going to let this keep me from finishing.   I kept hearing the boys calling out the different fruit on my ass.  I can tell you one thing, as red as my face felt, I think I am glad that they could only see the back side of me!  And as for the pineapple, well, it was the fruit that was right in the middle of my butt.  It could have been worse.  As  I finished the race, a different boy who had already completed the mile cheered me on to the finish with a , "Way to go Butterball!"   That nickname would have sucked.  

     After that day the same boys, when they would see me in the hall, or when I would walk into class, would call me "Pineapple"  dragging out the first syllable. It stopped being embarrassing  after a couple weeks. I had an English teacher who turned the tables on one boy when I was absent from class.  She asked him why they called me that, and after he explained my fruity shorts,  she commented on his checking out my butt.  This was a football player, so that shut him up!  I had one friend in that class and  she couldn't wait to call me and share how red faced HE was!

   So that is how I got the nickname Pineapple.  For me it was probably one of the few memorable moments in high school,  and even though no one called me that after I graduated, I used the small  image pineapple as a signature on my artwork. 
    

Not a midlife crisis.....

   

     This week I will turn forty four years old.  Really, that’s not a milestone.  It’s not a number that is going to get the mailbox decorated with black balloons or over the hill birthday cards.    And I pretty much feel and look better than I did when I was thirty four, when I was carrying an extra forty pounds, plus or minus twenty,  and looked as tired as any mom with a one, six and 11 year  old.   I have a few more wrinkles, but they don’t bother me.  You see them mostly when I smile, and if you made me smile, I don’t mind if you notice them.   I will be proud to show more of them off if you do me the favor of making me laugh! 

     It  has thrown me for a loop, then,  that I seem to be experiencing some age-related transitional problems.  I refuse to call it a mid-life crisis, because crisis sounds far too dramatic and negative, and I don’t have the sudden urge to go out and buy a sports car.   Going from a minivan to a bad ass black F150 was just me boasting that I no longer needed room for three car seats.  That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

 

     While I won’t be celebrating a milestone birthday, all three of my children did last year.  My oldest son turned twenty one, my daughter was sweet sixteen and my baby turned ten years old.  Part of me has been waiting for this moment for a long time, the day when I would find that not only do all of my children have some degree of independence from me, but I have some independence from them as well.   Heck I even went on a few dates with my husband and came home late enough to make my oldest text us to see if we were ok.

But for all these years, my primary purpose and function was to take care of my family.   I kissed boo boos and wiped runny noses.  I made Play-Doh cookies and Lego castles.  I tossed footballs and painted fingernails, made snowmen and helped with homework.  I watched every Disney movie multiple times, and still know most of the songs by heart.  I made costumes, and carved the coolest pumpkins.   In all the time I was a stay at home mom, my main focus was my kids. I didn’t go out, I didn’t make many friends, I didn’t worry about what  I looked like  I tried to master the art of taking care of three kids and a husband. My primary hobbies were reading, working on genealogy, and   keeping up with the news online after everyone was in bed.  I didn’t mind that time at all, I loved it really.  I was shy and staying home appealed to that part of me.  

     Sometime in the very recent past, the looks I get from my kids are less “Mum you are awesome!” to “Mum you don’t have a clue!” And folks, that really cuts deep.   My kids are intelligent, spectacular and sweet.  They would never hurt me on purpose.  They are acting completely in an age appropriate way.   I know that most every mother goes through this, and I know my mom went from my hero, to a lady who didn’t have a clue, back to my hero.  I know I am not alone.  Why doesn’t that make it just a little easier??   Why does my honey get to act like a goof and yet he still can be the cool guy? Why does the song, “You’re gonna miss this?”  make me cry every time?

      Now that my kids don’t need that type of mom anymore, I am really starting to struggle. I am so glad that I started working at the primary school, because it has allowed me to retain the best parts of that time and of me.  I get to care for hundreds of little ones.  It helps me when  my goofy side comes out and my own kids  would give me a look like I’m a doofus, my school kids will  still look at me like I am the BOMB.  

     The unexpected and wonderful side effect of my job is being surrounded by so many wonderful and supportive people, many of them going through their own series of struggles with life and its never-ending series of changes. I am trying to figure out how to appreciate that I am pretty OK outside of my role of “mum”.   I am confused by my feelings that vary from day to day, from feeling the beauty and awesomeness that growing older allows me to be to, the terrified woman who doesn’t have a clue as to what she is supposed to be, hopefully, for the next forty four years of her life.  

     Like the women before me, I’ll get through this, hopefully without leaving as many scars as most life changes mark us with.  And don’t be surprised if I show up with a new tattoo or a crazy new hair-do.  At least that’s a mark I have a choice in!