40 something

With my birthday month come and gone, I was wistfully thinking about the past year: another year older, what does that mean? I've always thought as I aged, I'd be the woman I had remembered seeing in some television ad in the 70s. She was healthy, and beautiful in her own way (no make-up of course, it WAS the 70s), her crow's feet were laugh lines; her double chin did not exist (perhaps because of her intake of Special K). She was content, happy AND she had a hunky, man ogling her. What more was there to life?

CLEARLY, that woman didn't have two teenagers, a husband (note the hunky, many ogling her), dogs that throw up on her carpet, a cat that sometimes misses the box NOR did she deal with hormonal changes that turned her into Brenda Bad-Ass or Glenda Good Witch.

The woman I imagined doesn't exist. I came to that conclusion early on in my mid-life journey; all it took was discovering the misplacement of hair on my body. Armpit hair had dropped. I mean it… for weeks - I thought this hormone change thing was great, every time I went to shave, I didn't find any hair… until one morning I discovered the hair I had been missing was still there - it's just that my armpit had dropped to mid-breast area! I also thought when Oprah did that show with some high-fashion mid-aged model about facial hair - she needed new content because obviously the fact that the model shaved her chin hair and Oprah plucked hers was a bit too much. I've tried both ways, and I'm still not sure what the best technique is for those pesky hairs. And then there is gray hair… well what can I say, my salon is making a killing.

Mid-life madness is quite a carnival ride. The eyes can be first to go. Can't see your face in the mirror? Oops! Time to get LASIK, but make sure you get plenty of drugs. My friend didn't (because she lied about her weight) and went through the whole procedure totally awake. Not the best experience.

This whole age thing drives me crazy. Up until I turned 40, I truly felt like I was 17. Now, I’m just hoping to age gracefully, and I’m glad to just be here TO AGE.

But even though I’ve turned another year older, I can still turn a head or two… like the other morning when my son and I stopped for gas. He was too busy with PlayStation to pump my gas… so I hopped out and threw the nozzle into the tank, and started to wash my back windshield… a guy pulled up behind me, rolled his window down and said something. I turned around with squeegee in hand and said, “Pardon, me?” He mumbled again. I stepped closer and said, “Sorry, what did you say?” “Do you wanta go have sex?” he said. I LAUGHED so hard, the 30 something male (who I might add, did not resemble a derelict) quickly drove off.

I’ve decided aging gracefully means never taking yourself too seriously.