Middle-Aged Mermaid
From Chicken Soup for the Soul: Get Out of Your Comfort Zone
By Julie Angeli

Be a mermaid. Swim fast, wear a crown, and dream big.
~Author Unknown

I’d always been a positive person, but the stuff of life was wearing me down. In my twenties, I struggled to be like the women on magazine covers but was never pretty enough, thin enough, or ambitious enough. In my thirties, I had children but never managed to be the kind of mother the parenting books said I should be — homemade organic baby food, a daily routine, a clean house. Not me. In my forties, my children became teenagers, and I felt old. As their store of knowledge grew, I felt as if mine was evaporating.

I didn’t know who I was anymore. That all changed when, at the age of fifty-three, my best friend presented me with a mermaid tail. We didn’t normally exchange Christmas gifts, so I was a little surprised when she handed me a bright-red gift bag. I was more surprised when I pulled out a rubber monofin and a tube-shaped garment made of shiny, green Lycra. (Keep reading)