Age: A High Price To Pay For Maturity

Some days I just feel like I’m going to hell. Not because of what I did in the 80’s, but because I’m wrapping my mind around something that everyone faces sooner or later: aging. My body feels like it’s mad at me most of the time. I always have to bend over backwards to get it to like me again. I get up twice as early so I can do some yoga before starting my day. If I don’t, I feel like the lumbar discs of my spine are collapsing. Yoga has helped. I know I’ll never do a backbend again in my life. I’m okay with that. And jumping jacks are out of the question or I will pee in my pants. However, there are a few things that I’m not okay with. I’m not okay with not being cool anymore. In my head I still think I’m 25. And I’m not okay that the wear-and-tear on this banged up model doesn’t have a warrantee. In a couple of years here, I’m going to need my 50,000-mile tune up.

I got a new iPhone recently. I have no idea how to use it. I’ve had the same little Samsung phone for four years. It served me well and I hated to see it go. This iPhone has lots of bells and whistles. But when “I” use it, I don’t look hip. I look like I’m lost in a labyrinth of technology. One of the cute youngin’ from school (as I affectionately call them), busted out laughing at me while I was pecking cautiously the smooth surface pad of the iPhone. She said, “I love it when ‘old’ people text. It's so hilarious!” Old people? Really? Am I now in the Old People category? I must look like my grandmother who could never use a VCR. Smart-ass kids! One day they will be trying to figure out how to use the chip in their head to turn on the coffee maker. I smile and laugh along with them. But if you really knew me, I’m thinking, “Oh my god, this is happening. I’ve gotten labeled old.”

Last week I was caught. For the first time in 23 years, Rich walked in on me with a facial mask on. I thought he was downstairs absorbed in some hockey game. He called up to me and I answered him, thinking that would keep him downstairs. Then he came up to tell me how excited he was that the Hawks were in the playoffs. There was no time to run into the bathroom. And I didn’t want to throw the covers over my drying, caking face. So I just sat on the bed like it was no big deal. It WAS a big deal. I wasn’t just exfoliating my skin; I was dealing with the ever-present reality that things are sagging all over my body without my permission. I’m just holding back the decline. My face was red underneath the green clay. He laughed like he just saw a clown in the circus. “I’ve never seen you like that before!” he exclaimed. Does a man really want to see his wife in a clay mask? No! That is why I’ve always slapped on my wrinkle-be-gone creams and clays when he’s out of town. Nora Ephron in 'I Feel Bad About My Neck' wasn’t kidding when she wrote, “Our faces are lies, and our necks are the truth.” Don’t get me started on my neck. 

My feet are in on the rebellion. I got Plantar Fascitiis a couple of years ago. It is so painful and inconvenient. I now have a permenate water bottle that is in the freezer at all times. If I feel the slightest twinge of ache or discomfort in my feet when I wake up, I’m rolling the frozen water bottle under my foot until it’s numb, and stretching the arches (another reason I do yoga). But here’s the kicker, I can’t buy those sexy 4-inch heels anymore. I’m pushing it if I wear 3-inch heels. I put them on and my feet look up at me and say, “Seriously, you think I’m going to let you cram those size 8s in those bad-girl-heels just so your calf’s can look sculpted?” So what do I do to appease my ‘snarky’ feet? I caved in and did the unthinkable. I bought a pair of Birkenstocks. I don’t care how comfortable they are! Let me say it again, I don’t care how comfortable they are or how much support they have for your feet. They’re the ugliest shoes on the planet. There I said it! I don’t even feel like a cool hippy in them. I feel old. Soon I’m going to be one of those people wearing tan New Balance shoes. When I used to go to the health club I’d work out and watch all the walkers go round and round the track. All the old people wore New Balance shoes. I don’t want to wear polyester or New Balance shoes. But I do want to be comfortable and THAT is where the body eventually gets 'its' way every time!

And then there is the reading glasses issue. Like I didn’t have enough to deal with already. I’ve got the super highway wrinkles going horizontal along my forehead, the creases around my eyes, and the thinning gray (colored over) hair. Because of my reading glasses, I have a permanent line across my nose. My grandmother had one too. It became a divot. I have glasses all over the house. And yet, I often don’t have them nearby. I try to fake it and hold the menu out a little further while out to lunch. I’m visually confronted with the fact that I am getting old. Most days I don’t even see that I spilled yogurt on my shirt again. Yep, just like my grandmother. If I don’t use the glasses, I’ll cut off my finger while cutting up an apple. I'm now up to 250+ readers. What's next? I can’t put my make up on without a magnifying mirror x10. I don't know if magnifying mirrors are a mercy or and insult to the vain modern woman?

Mark Twain says, “Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.” Shut up Mark!! It does matter! I went to the Body World Exhibit down at the Chicago Science museum. When you first walk in there is this huge screen progression of aging through the year’s in pictures. It spans time from 7 months to 70. I stood in mild shock as this lovely woman aged right before my eyes. I kept thinking, “Holy Oil of Olay, that is gonna me!!” Someone said that old age comes at a bad time. I couldn’t agree more! I try to spiritualize this aging process and work on my attitude. I've been internally challenged lately by the proverb, “Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain. But a woman who fears the LORD shall be praised!” I agree with that too, but I don’t think I’m pulling that off convincingly enough. Maybe aging will get easier over time as I let go of my attachment to all things tight and perky and trade if for contentment and gratitude?