Why run with the crowd when you can run around in circles?

Wednesday, December 03, 2008

The Great Man Deterrent (hopefully)

Today it finally happened. Before I tell you what, let me set the scene a bit: My bathroom has soft mood lighting and a 3x5 inch mirror. That’s it. There’s another, larger, mirror in the closet, but that lighting is worse. I haven’t really seen myself since I moved in three months ago.

I have always looked a whole lot younger than I really was, and wondered how that would play out as time went by. I was carded twice at age 40, a scant three years ago. Would I still get carded at 50? Or would old age hit me all at once, like a blast of wind from a hurricane?

This morning I got my answer. I was sitting on the couch in bright sunshine, holding that little mirror from the bathroom, trying to get that damned tick off my neck using tweezers. (reminder-get a lyme’s test) The light hit just right and I was awestruck at what I saw. Tiny, fine lines all over my face. Surely it must be the light? I tilted the mirror this way and that, focusing the sun, and only saw more evidence of that dreaded American disease: aging.

Well then. That was rather abrupt. How rude. What happened to an occasional laugh line, followed by a few gray hairs, adding in a crease by the eyes, all slowly building to old hag? How do I feel about this sudden shriveling? Well heck, since recent events have left me feeling old, I guess I may as well look the part. Thing is, I know the feeling is temporary and will pass once I go sailing again. The wrinkle bit, well, I don’t believe in artificial ingredients, so there it is.

There are plus sides to this. Time and again, in bars and restaurants all over this great land, I have watched men well into their 60’s or better, bypass groups of women their own age, heading straight to the tables filled with much younger women, to drool all over them. Both groups of women wonder what the hell is wrong with these guys.

Well, they’re guys, they can’t help it. I have been saying that men are like flies, barely brush one off and another one lands. I can’t squash them fast enough. But now that it appears as though I’ll be crossing over to the ‘old’ category sooner than expected, I can be hopeful that finally, after all these years, the pests will bypass me on their way to make fools of themselves on fresher fruit, leaving me in peace.

If that turns out to be the case, glory halleluiah, bring on the pruneage.