Growing Old

Contents

Foreword

Dedication

Introdustion:

My Hello

Chapter 1

Cussing Isn’t Always the Coolest

Chapter 2

Just What Is a Lucille Ball Moment Anyway

Chapter 3

Sands through the Hourglass

Chapter 4

The I Hate Heather Nuttall Club

Chapter 5

Things My Parents Taught Me

Chapter 6

Becoming a Runner

Chapter 7

50-Somethings and Tattoos

Chapter 8

The Day the Music Died

Chapter 9

The Snake Wrangler

Chapter 10

The Obstacle Course Called High School

Chapter 11

Experimenting with Self-Care

Chapter 12

Making Things Happen After 50

Chapter 13

The Second Half of My Life

Acknowledgments

Appendix

Foreword

Being married . . . it’s like driving a car. It can be fun, exciting, comfortable, boring, terrifying, and you can never quite anticipate what’s over the next hill. In our case, the journey started out on a gravel road. What gravel roads don’t have are signs warning of dangerous conditions ahead—or even speed limits for that matter.

Our road was pretty bumpy. What no one warned me about was that married vehicles come equipped with two steering wheels. Two steering wheels and two people with different driving styles can make for a very eventful journey and at times, somewhat dangerous conditions. The trick to successfully driving this vehicle is to learn your copilot’s style, strengths, weaknesses, and most importantly, to know when to remove your hands. If it’s a blinding snow or rainstorm, I know I’m up: time to slow it down and be a bit cautious. Heather is more suited for a racetrack. When we head down that long stretch of interstate, I have learned to let go and maybe close my eyes at times. I know we’ll cover the next one hundred miles in about twenty minutes or so. She is the souped-up race car I had no business getting ahold of before learning how to really care for something that wild.

Our road has become much smoother as we’ve gotten older. As I look through the rearview mirror, I’m reminded of all the adventures we’ve been on and the few detours we had to navigate. Now looking through the windshield, I’m reminded that the road ahead is much shorter than the road behind. It sure is nice to relax and enjoy the ride, maybe to take one hand off the wheel to hold the hand next to you.

She gave me veto rights to any story in this book, but I didn’t need to use them. She’s protective of our marriage and me, even while being brutally honest. When you read, know that these stories are both of our views coming together in one book. This is the story of our lives, told with my blessing.

To Heather:

I’m proud of you honey. I don’t care how many books you sell, you’re a best seller to me.

~Corey Westover

I’m not really sure I deserve him. There are still many ways we struggle to meet each other’s needs if we aren’t being intentional. Being able to look back over my life and say that I was never required to hand over my individuality, that I had the freedom to take care of us while at the same time taking care of me and still having a best friend since the age of thirteen is probably better than any trophy NASCAR could give me anyway. Thanks for everything Corey. ~Heather

PS, I can’t believe you got me to willingly reference NASCAR.

Dedication

Delvin and Juanita Nuttall, there aren’t enough words. You weren’t perfect, and we struggled in what I now know to be perfectly normal ways. The parents this teenager thought had so much to learn turned out to be very worthy guides and mentors. Thank you.

Corey Westover, our girls, our boy, our grandkids, and all the souls who called us Mom and Dad in one form or another, you dominated the first half of my adult life and filled it with so much love and driven purpose. Thank you.

To all of the Gypsy and German bloodlines in the Nuttall and Bush heritage, well, you created one little perfect storm in this blue-eyed, hot-tempered wanderer. Thank you for all the generational pieces of courage I needed to keep going.

To the Sully Buttes Chargers, each family who made up the school system, each student, coach, teacher, and volunteer, in the eighties, we didn’t really push very many options for girls. But I wouldn’t have ever believed I could do anything without all of you who made me the woman I am today. All of my experiences, great and terrible, fed the fire in my soul to never give up. Thank you.

Andrea, thank you for stepping out of your comfort zone and approaching me that day at BOOMTOWN Pints & Pies. We had never met in person, but after watching my social media, you overcame your introverted tendencies and approached me that day. You are the match that finally lit my fire to make this first book happen. I won’t let you down, and this one isn’t the last.

To every soul who ever commented or liked a comment stating, You should write a book! here you go, I did it. Thanks for the encouragement.

God, I will never completely understand your unconditional love for me until we are together. You gave me the perfect earthly Dad to walk it out in front of me. You gave me children to test my limits and prove to me the needle never moves in my amount of love for them, no matter what. You gave me countless spiritual mentors, night skies filled with northern lights, your soft gentle voice, and your unwavering standard of holiness. I’ve fallen short in so many ways and still don’t know how to reconcile all of that, but I know you’re true, you’re faithful, and you’re the never-ending fountain of hope in my soul without whom I would not have made it this far. For whatever time you have appointed for me, let me be strong, let me be soft, let me be courageous, and let me be true with your message. ~Amen

Introduction

My Hello

South Dakota Farmer’s Daughter. Unwilling Lucille Ball Moment Survivor. Rejection-Sensitive Overcomer. Lover of Life. Seeker of Joy.

I am the perfect storm of my parents. I have the Lucille Ball gene from my mom. If there’s something awkward to be said, it’ll be flying out of my mouth at the most inopportune times. If there’s a least graceful moment to trip over my own two feet and land flat on my face or have a wardrobe malfunction, it’ll happen to me automatically. Like my dad, when these things would happen to my mom or anyone else, my first instinct is to laugh until I cry. If someone gets hurt (but they’re okay), I’ll help them, but they’re going to have to give me a second to stop laughing first. I know how to love hard and lift others up to be the best they can be. Stubbornness and determination were poured into me in double portions. I am the perfect storm of the Nuttall and Bush families.

I spent most of my life practicing self-rejection religiously, maybe even more consistently than my faith. With every successive birthday, I started taking a longer look at who I was and how I’d gotten here to be fifty. I think that’s a normal thing.

In a Netflix documentary about his life, The Last Dance, Michael Jordan said, As you get older, you look back and you understand how you became the person you are. I had already begun this review of my life, and what I found was pretty fascinating, at least to me.

I used to spend a significant part of my life rejecting myself, being embarrassed of myself, and trying to hide my imperfections. I often played the defensive role in life while doing damage control and wondered why it wasn’t working. The older I became, the more I was able to own my Lucille Ball Moments. I shared them with friends and even started posting them on my social media pages. I became the person people could laugh at—only this time, it wasn’t embarrassing. I could honestly see the humor in all these moments and knew that if I were on the outside, it would bring me great joy to witness the chaos as well. So, I took it all in, and here we are.

As I interviewed people for this book, I noticed a theme. People fell into one of a few groups.

•The Defensive Line: Many people were sitting back playing defense with their life.

–They felt the peace between the gut punches were enough. They were letting life direct them instead of proactively causing their life to travel a certain way. Life is totally in control for them; they just wait to see what it brings next. This used to be me.

•Special Teams Standouts: This group viewed age with a little trepidation, mostly directed toward what health issues might arise for them or their loved ones.

–I’m afraid I’m going to have lived this incredibly beautiful life and not be able to remember any of it! she said as she pondered her possible future. Alzheimer’s ran in her family, and she had to consider the possibility.

–All I want before I die is a minute of peace, she sighed after recounting all that she’s experienced as an registered nurse in health care.

•The Replay Officials: A gentleman who describes himself as a negative person said, We should want to make a difference in this world, but I’m glad I’m closer to the exit door than the entrance door. He also stated fear that he hadn’t done enough of the right things all his life.

•The Quarterback Club: The last group, and the one I now so deeply identify with, are the ones who don’t play defense. We are offense, and we are calling the plays every day without letting one day just roll into the next.

–I don’t want to look back and think, ‘I wish I would’ve . . .’ This amazing teacher has a specific plan for the things she is going to accomplish. I get her.

–I feel like I’ve lived a life carrying an umbrella of fear because of some things that happened early on. Right now, I’m being intentional about folding up that umbrella and putting it away. She wants to own her own hydroponics business as soon as she retires from her first career in nursing. Again, she speaks my language.

The people in The Quarterback Club are the kind who are always looking for something to make the moment memorable. It doesn’t necessarily mean that things are easy for these adventurous, grab-life-by-the-horns people, it’s just who they are. I recently went back to South Dakota, and while running an errand with a friend, they just ran right off the road on purpose and drove out into the middle of a cornfield so we could check the corn. Of course, that’s not something you could do all the time, but spontaneity is a great companion for those of us looking to make every moment count. These are my people. We have the same drive to get to where we want to be.

I am in the second half of my life, and I’ve started a new career as an author. Although I still have one child at home, I’m now able to do something for myself, and writing this book is my great adventure. For the first half of my adult life, I wholeheartedly wanted to be and gave myself to being a wife and mom—to pour into those whom I loved the most and help them become successful. I wasn’t perfect, but I did what I could, and when I learned better, I did better. I’m not fond of my mistakes, but I refuse to dwell on them. I realized over the years that this is who I am; the whole package is beautiful and should be celebrated. I think sharing my triumphs and blunders equally relieves the pressure of living up to everyone’s social media perfection standards. I’m being much more intentional about connecting with people and giving them some joy in their day. You have to look for the funny to have joy.

After living with so many awkward