This is Getting Old

This afternoon, as I put a Toy Story band-aid on my blistered heel, I feel old. It could be because I am hobbling around today with another one of those mystery pains, you know, the ones that show up and are crippling in nature, yet you can’t remember actually hurting yourself and causing that degree of limitation? Then again, it could be because I just spent twenty minutes inspecting my face in the magnifying mirror in my bathroom. Maybe it’s because I cleaned out my baby girl’s underwear drawer to make room for training bras. Or maybe it’s because I’m old.

Old is a relative term on the time continuum. I’m certainly not Egyptian pyramid old, but I am too old to pull off dancing wildly in my car. If a teenage girl is dancing wildly in her car, she’s cute. If it’s someone in my age range, it’s just a spectacle, and not the good kind.

I was hoping by this stage of my life, I would be approaching the self-acceptance, confident phase that comes with experience. Instead, I am still trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. The only thing I know for sure, I don’t want to be old.

I wanted to make an appointment for a massage tomorrow, but I won’t because I don’t want the massage therapist to see my roots. You know that inch of dark hair you see on your blond friends every five weeks or so? Well, mine isn’t dark; it’s white. I also plan on avoiding everyone taller than me for the next forty-eight hours until I can go to my hair dresser. Morticia Addams could pull off the white streak. Bonnie Raitt can make it look funky. The rest of us look like we need a babushka to cover our heads on our way out to the field to pick potatoes.

I hung out at the pool yesterday with my friend while my daughters were at day camp. When I told my younger daughter how I spent my day, she asked me if I played in the pool. I pointed out to her that people my age don’t “play.” Normally when I go to the pool, I don’t even get in the water. I sit in a chair and read a book until the heat becomes unbearable. That’s when I slip into the water, complain about how cold it is, then step out and back to my chair and book. I don’t usually swim with my kids because they hang all over me, and they are annoying. Also, I don’t want to lose a contact lens. That happened to me once, when I was sixteen. I was traumatized, clearly, since I still won’t put my head under water after decades. But did my friend and I have an underwater tea party and swim between each other’s legs like tunnels? No, sadly, we didn’t.

Using the word decades also makes me old.

I bought new sneakers last week, and I treated myself to a pair of insoles. I excitedly told my friends at the gym about my new sneakers with insoles. Then it occurred to me that young people don’t get excited about insoles. Old.

My older daughter has been complaining that her ankle is bothering her. She doesn’t remember to take it easy. She just plays soccer and tennis and runs around like the kid she is, and then she wonders why it still hurts. I take the stairs one at a time because even my heel is too mature and set in its ways to try something out of the daily routine.

When you are a teenager, you can sleep until ten o’clock and everyone just thinks you need the rest and are probably growing. When you are my age, they hold a mirror under your nostrils to make sure you are still alive.

Okay, I’m not that old. I can still get pregnant, unfortunately. I can balance on one foot for over a minute. I remember what I had for breakfast and also the score of my IQ test from the second grade. I can order a bottle of wine and sound like I know what I am talking about. I can end a sentence in a preposition if I want to. On the down side, I can’t go backpacking across Europe and stay in youth hostels. If I joke with the bag boy at the grocery store, my daughter finds it creepy. I look like I should be driving a minivan. I can’t shoot pool, but I can fold a set of king sheets in under two minutes. I take vitamins. Lots of vitamins. And those spots on my arms? They aren’t freckles.

I would keep going, but I don’t want to miss the early bird specials.