Ageless Grace

I promised myself years ago that I was going to handle aging with a grace unknown to women.  Tough crowd, eh?  I don’t know why I thought I would be able to handle it so much better than the average woman.  It’s not like I’m without my fair share of vanity.  And I’m not always that great at predicting the future in my own life.  I mean, I thought that I was going to be able to handle pregnancy like an ox.  Well, I suppose I do … I mean, if oxen throw up hundreds of times and lay in the hay all day.

Anyhoo – the other day my daughter came up to me and pointed out that I have a wrinkle on my face.  I knew it was there before she said anything.  It starts at my nose, curves around the left side of my mouth and down to my chin.  I didn’t realize it, but my smile always starts in the left corner of my mouth.  And that’s really only the beginning of it. 

I started wearing bangs a few years ago because I realized that my forehead was really wrinkled.  Every time I notice I remember that Calvin and Hobbes comic where Calvin comments to Susie that her bangs do a good job of covering her lobotomy stitches. 

Another painful subject is my sagging waistline.  The other day I caught myself reading an article in a magazine about how to hide that … and finding their suggestions extremely helpful.  Boo! 

That’s when Logan’s Run comforts me the most.  Any of you who know what Logan’s Run is are probably twitching right now wondering how these things relate.  Well, I read it when I was in college.  Forget the movie.  In the book, everyone voluntarily gets gassed in a sleep shop when they are 21 years-old and their dead ashes are put on a shelf.  Doesn’t that sound riveting?  They talk about a building in their midst that has a red jewel-like exterior.  The inventor of the process was naturally a teenager and he only got half of the building done before he turned 21 and obediently went to a sleep shop taking his secret with him.  So, the building would never be finished. 

I love how the book trashes glorifying youth, evading parenthood, and living only for pleasure.  It tries to teach that you will not accomplish the best things in your life when you’re a teenager.  Your achievements build with your age.  Or at least they should.  What should matter is that I’m still growing as a person, not that I look less and less like Cleopatra every day.  That may seem like a bold statement, but try to remember that I am a narcissist.  Now I just have to learn to be crazy about myself when I’ve got crow’s feet, laugh lines and a tummy like a bowl full of jelly. 

Ugh … good luck to me …