By Linda
First you get a glimpse of your lips thinning, and then the dentist tells you your gums are shrinking. You change your hair style or color and brighten your lipstick and still it comes, a line, a more alarming droop. You look in the mirror and think “Who are you?” My skin no longer has that plumb hormonal zest to it. I always took my youthful beauty for granted, never bothering too much with makeup except to have a little fun with color. I washed my face with Ivory soup and smeared Noxzema on it. Now I look at $300.00 creams and think about the promises they make. I don’t buy them but I do ponder something I would never have done. They were laughable to me. I am not laughing anyone. One morning after my shower I was looking in the magnifying mirror, (something that should be banned) when I thought” it’s a good thing I like myself or I would really be going off the edge.” I made the mistake of telling my husband and he said “come here honey sit down. He began to tell me lovingly what each line in my face represented. “this line on the side of your mouth was when you worried about your kids, this one on your forehead when you could not pay your bills, these under your eyes from when you grieved your loses.” All I really wanted was for him to say “honey you will always be a beautiful woman” or better yet, “lines? What lines? Your being way to critical.” He was trying his best, and I love him for it. Reality bites.
Dieting takes on a new wrinkle Even though you watch what you eat and exercise you never look as slim as you really are because you get shorter so the weight just gets more compact and if you don’t watch it you can start to look like a fire hydrant. Now to keep your weight down you need to eat almost nothing and exercise twice as much. I figure at this rate by the time I am eighty I will be eating a slice of toast a day and walking swiftly about four hours. The other thing about dieting is when you diet religiously you do lose weight but your neck gets scrawny and your face sags. You have to make a choice between your upper half or your bottom half.
Eating becomes more interesting. Snacks are an opportunity to give calcium to my bones. I used to eat cereal for the taste, now I look first to see how many grams of fiber. That pretty much determines what I buy? Apples and nuts with breakfast, no more because it tastes good. It’s the fiber and ‘good’ fat content I am thinking of. I now eat oatmeal for that full feeling and to balance my blood sugar. When my mother suggested this to the young me, I would just roll my eyes. I am preoccupied with carbs, sugar, sodium, calories. It kind of takes the joy out of eating.
Then I start to think about Tina Turner at sixty eight with leather mni skirt, gorgeous unlined puffy lips, hair, (I know it’s a wig) that is wild and sun streaked, long legs as trim as she was way back when. Look at Barbara; still a knockout and I know she is a few years older then me. Cher is another one, up onstage with spike heels pounding out a two hour concert. After an hour of gardening I feel like a truck hit me; tired, achy dragging myself up the stairs with legs that weigh a hundred pounds. And in the morning it takes me a half hour of stretching, a hot shower and two Tylenol arthritis extra strength to feel human again.
When you start to think about your digestive system you really know you are getting old. I worry about my colon now. What’s going on in there? I actually think about how my heart beats. I used to take it for granted that it was there and that it would always beat. I spend more time thinking about how much water I have had in the day. Is it enough? I don’t know. You get little stray hairs popping up here and there and something new I learned is that as the bone structure in your face shrinks your eyebrows grow outward so you have to cut them as well as tweeze them. Who could have predicted this? At this point you now find yourself checking your skin for spots or strange growths.
Feet, one of my favorite parts of me. I love pretty feet and painted toenails. I loved how my feet looked in delicate high heel sandals with slim straps around my ankles. Toward the end of their rein I felt like I was going through the Chinese ritual of having my bones broken to keep my feet small. I was a long time holdout for these shoes. I held onto all my beautiful heels long after I figured out they might be dangerous and oh it hurt to walk. I went shopping one day for comfortable sensible shoes. “Oh my God are these things ugly” I heard myself saying out loud. Another woman standing near me nodded knowingly. They were wide with rounded or square toes to make your feet look even wider. They had a clunky wide one inch heel. They were black, gray or beige. I was missing my turquoise, magenta, and red spikes. Appalled, I could not bring myself to buy them. I would rather go barefoot. I kept the shoes in my closet another year. I loved to look at them.
I have to be aware of my lower back when I get up from a sitting position. When I first get out of bed in the morning I do the Frankenstein walk, the one where you can not bend your joints. I wonder if Cher and Tina feel their joints screaming and rusting the morning after an ear splitting rocking concert. I hate to exercise but I know I have to do it and I hear myself self whine about it. My yoga classes are no longer for relaxation, a little stretch and tension relief. They have become essential if I don’t want to be the Tin Man. Now a walk in the park means more then communing with nature. It’s an opportunity to strengthen my bones and inhale life force.
People don’t fall down with their mouths open when I say I am a grandmother of big boys and one that is graduating high school. One person actually asked me if this was my first grandchild graduating. I was momentarily crushed. Then I thought she must be blind or jealous.
I recently bought an amplifier for my cordless phone because the voice sounds far away. Oh God, I hope it is the cordless and not my ears.
The realization comes. “This is not going away.” I better enjoy my life; I better keep a good sense of humor. I need to stop complaining about every ache and pain because I can’t stand myself when I do. I need to smile a lot and laugh and play and love and oh yes, take care of this body I was given so it doesn’t hurt when I dance.
God Bless |