Halfway.

The average lifespan in the United States is 78.2 years. I will be 39 on my next birthday.

Halfway.

There is a part of me that feels as though I could go tomorrow having lived a full life.

There is a part of me that prays every night I will live to be the little angel's mother for a long, long time.

---

I have so many friends who have already lost parents. I have not lost mine.

I have so many friends who have lost children. I have not lost mine.

The average number of close friends people have is two.

I have more than that.

I am blessed.

Because I know and care about so many people through the wonder of the Internet and my job, I am subjected daily to their sorrows and their strengths. I realize, perhaps more than any generation before me, how completely normal everything that happens to me really is. I have bad days, I have good days, and that is normal. The universe is chaotic, and peace comes from within. I believe in God, but I also believe my God is both empathetic and hands-off. We learn from our chaos. We get another day, but the next day might suck. If we didn't have the low points, we wouldn't appreciate the high ones. There is a need to balance darkness and light.

---

My daughter is upstairs sleeping. I wanted her very badly, and then I didn't want more children. I hope she will not be upset with me when she is halfway, and I am as old as my parents, and she is looking upon potentially being the only one left when we are gone.

I pray she will have more than two close friends. I pray her friends will be her sisters and brothers, because even though I treasure my sister more than I can say, I'm also thankful for the other friends who have stepped in when my relatives can't be right by my side. I think people get planted for us when we need them, virtually and physically. I believe in paying it forward. I believe in answering the emails I get weekly from women struggling with eating disorder recovery. I believe in the woman I saw in the Serenity Suite crying for Susan Niebur when I didn't realize that was what she was upset about. I was talking with my friends when she started crying, and I hope she doesn't hold against me that I didn't realize what she was doing. I didn't lose Susan in that I didn't know Susan well, but I've lost my own Susans and I understand that pain. I'm sorry, blonde woman. I hope you don't hold it against me.

---

Halfway.

When I thought on goals for my life in high school, they were grandiose. This year marks my twentieth high school reunion. I have reached an age in which many professionals look like teenagers to me. I wonder if the people I bonded with in high school will come back or if they will stay secure in their new lives and their new selves, not wanting to be reminded of who we were at eighteen. I don't hold it against them if they want to forget. I was sick when I was eighteen. What does anyone know of me then? I don't even remember it myself.

Have I gotten old?

I am only halfway.

---

Last weekend, I listened to Katie Couric talk about how much more she has to contribute now that she is in her fifties than when she was in her twenties, and I understand. As much as I miss the elastic skin of my twenties, I don't miss the angst. I don't miss the uncertainty.

I wonder if I will feel even better about who I am in another twenty years.

I wonder if this website will still exist.

I wonder if my novels will be published.

I wonder if my daughter will still want to be held by me.

I wonder if I will be the person I want to be.

---

I am halfway, and for some that would seem a bad thing, but for me it feels glorious. If I am lucky enough to achieve the average lifespan in the United States, I will have another whole 39 years to become twice as good as I am tonight, twice as meaningful. My words will hold twice as much weight as they do tonight. My grandparents lived to be fifty-something and eighty-two or eighty-three, three of them. I never met my maternal grandfather, but my other three grandparents were strong well into their late seventies and early eighties. They had so much to tell me in their last years.

I am halfway, I hope. And I have so much more to learn.

So ... if you don't like sponsored posts, which I totally get, come back tomorrow because I have something more normal for me planned then. 

Most people who visit Surrender, Dorothy already know that I work for BlogHer. And so, of course, any time my colleagues in the publishing network want to try something new, I always volunteer. I say YES WE SHOULD ALL MAKE MORE MONEY. It's not always a popular opinion in the blogosphere, but I think art + commerce = novels, so why not have art + commerce = Rita's Blog.

Anyway, today I'm talking about Olay and Proctor & Gamble. Proctor & Gamble has an ecommerce initiative I'm trying on for size. It's an online store, and if you buy things there, I get paid a little bit, very much like the mphoria store in my left sidebar. So far, I have not noticed the ability to buy tile for Chateau Travolta's kitchen floor, but that's where all the extra income in my world goes -- toward stimulating the home improvement sector's economy.

Here's my story about Olay. When I was in college, I went to this bar in Iowa City called Joe's. It's still there. It's actually where I met Beloved for the first time, but this time wasn't that time. This time I was there and drunk, I believe, and I ran into a woman who told me she was thirty. THIRTY. And I was all, "Why aren't you wrinkled?" Because I, in my 21-year-old stupor, thought anyone over the age of 25 was wrinkled. Now I realize we all look fabulous forever, right? I mean, I'm 38 and I look amazing. (cough)

So this ancient 30-year-old pointed at me with her beer bottle and said, "START MOISTURIZING NOW." And I was so moved by this statement, that the next day I went to the drugstore and stared at the wall of moisturizers. The only one I'd ever heard of was Oil of Olay, so I bought a bottle. I have put Oil of Olay on my face every day for the past 17 years. It seemed counter-intuitive, because I actually have oily skin, but I realized it was helping even out my skin tone. My guess is that parts of my face were all THERE IS NOT ENOUGH OIL HERE WE MUST MAKE MORE and once I started moisturizing, my oil glands felt comforted and stopped overreacting. Because yes, even my oil glands overreact. #catastrophize

The product I've selected to tell you about in the P&G store is 

Olay Regenerist Skin Care Starter Trio Pack

It says "great value" right there!

I just copied and pasted that because I can't spell "regenerist" on my own. I think they might have made that word up. I haven't used this particular pack, but I have used all of the lower-priced Olay products and they are all great. I also appreciate the price point. You can pay the GNP of a small African country for skin care products, but I'm frugal and don't do stuff like that. And, you can get 10% off your order if you go through my awesome link on that huge type from now through August 31, 2012. There is free shipping on any order over $25. And I'm supposed to tell you P&G is an Olympic sponsor so there is a lot of cool Olympic-themed stuff in there, like this.

For those of you with record-breaking periods. FTW! ha ha ha 

Either way, START MOISTURIZING NOW. Especially if you are older than 21. My tip from me to you. And if you need some P&G stuff, by all means, buy it through this link so I can rip up my lineoleum a little sooner. (And tell your mother, who probably moisturizes, too.)

I've been gone! All week! To BlogHer 2012! Here are my thoughts as they fly through my head.

• So honored and proud to work for BlogHer. The conference just gets more amazing every year in terms of programming, which is my favorite part.
• Very excited this year there were at least as many women of color speaking as white women, maybe more -- Polly didn't have the final numbers. This is hugely important, and might perhaps be the biggest win of the conference for many reasons.
• Martha Stewart, Katie Couric, Soledad O'Brien, Christy Turlington Burns and Malaak Compton-Rock all live in person.
• The sitting president of the United States addressed BlogHer directly on live video. I'm pretty sure I never thought that would happen in my life, and it made me feel very heard and respected. Thank you, Mr. President.
• I thought I would not like the fashion show as I am not a fashionista, but it was amazing in the way the first community keynote that became Voices of the Year was amazing -- I just saw what it was supposed to be and loved it.
• The Voices of the Year community keynote continues to impress me and inspire me to try harder with my writing. 
• I had so much fun laughing with so many friends and meeting new people and putting faces with email addresses. There is truly no replacement for meeting people in person, and I'm so glad when I'm able to do it.
• I got to share my hotel room and my experience with my awesome sister despite her having the worst travel experience I have ever seen go down in my entire life -- six-hour delay coming out and cancelled flight going back. Boo, United! 

I'm back at the office today and working frantically on some exciting things for BlogHer, so this has to be short today. More soon!

Hi everyone! I'm at BlogHer '12. I'll post when I get back!