Written circa 2006

            Just so you’ll know, I usually write this column about two weeks before you read it.  This might explain the vacant look I get on my face when you tell me how much you enjoyed (or hated,) the current week’s article – I always have to do a quick rewind before I know precisely to which column you’re referring. Since I have at least one opinion on every subject, there are lots of ideas ricocheting around my otherwise empty skull.  Being an opinionated old bat, I can usually knock out a column in a few hours time at my desk.  This week, though, I’ve had a tough time. It seems I have writer’s irregularity. (And, trust me, milk of amnesia would only compound the problem.)  I’ve begun to think it’s a function of growing older.  I’m just not as sharp as I used to be.

            Recently I’ve given a good bit of thought to the fact that I’m approaching the “double nickel” birthday.   This awareness began to gnaw at me sometime last fall when my lifelong best friend sent me pictures of our 36^th annual class reunion.  The photos were of old people!  The faces I’ve known and loved for most of my life now have wrinkles.  Their handsome heads all seem to be highlighted with white streaks.

I rushed to the mirror that morning and congratulated myself on the fact that my hair was still as coppery as ever. The longer I stared at myself the more I wondered what I would look like with gray hair, so I swore off Clairol.  After some months, I can report that gray doesn’t agree with me!  When I catch a glance of myself in the mirror I look exactly like my mother would look if SHE ever stopped coloring her hair.  Eek!

I’ve discovered a few benefits to getting older.  For one thing, the hair on one’s legs tends to grow more slowly.  Happily, this gives a girl more time to tend to her brand new beard and moustache. There is also a nice savings of time to be had when you stop fussing with your eyebrows.  I gave up tweezing the morning that I made myself bleed by plucking at a stubborn hair that turned out to be one of those ‘laugh lines.’  I’ve been assured that the changing contour of my skin lends my face a bit of character, but I’m not convinced that the world could stand me with any more character than I already have.  I came to grips with the whole thing eventually by not wearing my reading glasses when I apply makeup.  God, in his mercy, gives us failing eyesight for a reason. 

In a recent letter from my high school English teacher who is nearly seventy-nine, Mrs. Dunbar told me that her main problem with growing old has to do with chairs.  It seems that the chairs she encounters all have signs on them that say “Sit here.”  I can relate.  These days, each of the mighty projects I take on, like painting a room or setting out a few flower bulbs, requires a plan for “pacing.”  My handsome husband and I pace ourselves regularly.  We work a bit then sit a bit.  Life, it seems, takes a little longer to accomplish when you’re past fifty.

There are other benefits to growing older.  One young friend of mine told me that she looks forward to middle age.  She told me that women who have a bit of maturity can get away with so much more.  She’s right.  Nobody gives you a second glance when you stop at the Piggly Wiggly for a newspaper at seven thirty in the morning uncombed, in your sweats and without makeup.  Nobody expects you to actually wear matching socks - or shoes for that matter.  You’re thought to be feeble, so when senility sets in, (It all starts slowly.  You have little moments of “duh” in the beginning, but the moments grow longer and more intense as time passes,) it makes you seem all the more colorful.  I fear I’m becoming a curmudgeon albeit a colorful one.

Another benefit of aging is that you might just become brave enough to write for the local newspaper or create a paper of your own, which, as it turns out in this case, is pure therapy.  Phooey!   I may be pushing fifty-five, but I’m still above ground. Give me back my Clairol, buy me a red hat and sign me up for the second half!  I look great in purple!