Apparently, I really don’t look my age. This is a comment I’ve been receiving a great deal over the past couple of months. At first I was flattered, but now I’m becoming slightly irritated by it.
In a few months, I will be 55. It doesn’t bother me, the age. Everyone ages, like it or not. I have far bigger things to worry about than grieving over the loss of my dewy youthful looks, which I never appreciated at the time anyway. I’m more concerned with the deeper issues of identity and who I am at this stage of my life; what I want to experience and do. I have plans. I have dreams. I have projects and goals to achieve. I have a very special bucket list of hopes and wishes!
These days I am waking up with slight joint pain and stiffness, especially on winter mornings and I have a small bunion on one of my toes. Do you know what? It’s not the end of the world. I find that exercise, a challenging professional role and having a teenage kid still at school do wonders for your energy levels. Oh and dating younger men, which always puts the spring into one’s step. I find they are not bothered by my bunion, bless them; it ignores them and they ignore it, we happily co-exist, a most excellent outcome for all concerned.
What am I supposed to do, say or be that would make me ‘look my age’? Well, the unspoken messages are very interesting indeed. Looking my age seems to be something to do with routine. I have recently changed employers and I’m about to start a course which could lead to a new career. Apparently I’m not supposed to do either of those things. I should be gardening, a past-time which I can’t abide although I love being in the wild. I should be interested in home improvements, again, not an interest of mine. As long as I’m reasonably comfortable, material things are not a major concern. I’m not supposed to change my appearance, either by gaining wrinkles or reducing them. Ha!
And very importantly, I’m supposed to be married but not enjoy full womanhood any longer because apparently I’m something called ‘post-menopausal’. Well, married I am not and as for celibacy…are you kidding? Torrential kisses, sleepy cuddles and everything in between are a vital part of feeling alive as far as I’m concerned. As for the post-menopausal state, well that is something that can happen between less than 40 and 60 years of age, a gradual process which can take up to 10 years to complete. Popular culture is an ignoramus of the worst kind, certain and smug despite its alarming lack of knowledge.
My life has never followed the traditional cohort transitions. Apparently I didn’t begin work at ‘the right time’, I did not find a mate at ‘the right time’, and I certainly did not have children at this non-existent period. Neither will I be retiring at ‘the right time’. And what’s more, I’m grateful. My life has been tough, challenging, painful, frustrating and also sweet, delightful and funny. But it’s made me grow into the person I am now and I like who I am.
What people probably mean is that I don’t tick their checklists. I’m relatively wrinkle-free and I’m curious about everything. I have learned that the older I become, the more there is to learn. I don’t look like the perceptions of someone my age, but neither do most of the people I know who are in my peer group! I suspect these perceptions are probably based on the assumption that the current 55 is the old 75.
So when I look at my face every morning in the mirror, I know that I do look my age. Moreover, I like what I see. Oh, I may not look as fresh-faced as I did when I was twenty-five, thirty-five or forty-five. But this is what my age looks like. I feel absolutely comfortable in my own skin! As long as I can, I will enjoy the breeze on my face, the scent of wet earth, the taste of fresh pomelo and gazing up at the sky to watch the flight of birds and the wonder of the moon and stars on a clear night. I will look for kindred spirits to accompany me, irrespective of their years.
Whatever my chronological age or physical state, I will be what I’ve always been, a free spirit in my own skin, a dancer on the edge of time, splashing in the puddles, searching for rainbows, for the many forms of love and for new wonders. I will still be dancing to a different, primal beat as the synchronised cohorts march past in military fashion. And I will not be the only one.
