CATCHING UP

Life seems to be catching up with me these days. It’s the aging thing.  One cannot after all, halt the advance of time, the tides of time, the march of time, the procession of time, the parade of time, or the slow-rolling-moss-covered-Godzilla of time. Whatever one chooses to call it really makes no never-mind, time just keeps on coming at you.  However, age has nothing to do with being elderly. Granted, there are those days when my mother’s wrinkly skin mysteriously appears on my arm as I reach for a glass. And the long window next to the front door is wont to reflect a dowdy-looking granny type working in the garden. But, that is all smoke and mirrors. Really … believe me when I tell you, I am nothing like that old lady!

However, the most annoying thing about my accumulation of birthdays is the ads that pop up as I search the web. Last week I finally realized that in the cyber-world I am now officially old … really, really old. And I really, really resent those ads for the constant reminder. Someone, somewhere has made me the target audience for chair yoga classes, knee pain home remedies, reverse mortgage offers, and old-lady comfy bras guaranteed to make you stand up straight, and look sexy, while never having to say you’re sorry for the pain. One would think social media advertisers would realize there are those of us of a certain age who are happy to revert back to our youthful burn-the-bra mentality. I mean after all, tie-dye is back for the second or third time, I have a picture of my sister using a hula hoop as recently as last year, and let’s face it, for those that love em, ripped jeans never really went out of style. However, I will grant you my knees are not what they used to be. But some of those remedies for knee pain look like my worst kitchen nightmares brought back to haunt me. No way am I going there!

All of this cyber profiling makes me realize how schizophrenic aging can seem. Like the image above … Picasso-like … there is a crabby old lady living behind my non-elderly self. I mostly keep her in check, but she pops out every so often as a sort of dire warning. She is like a memory of my father’s mother who was way old, short-tempered, strongly opinionated, and totally never ever wrong in her life. She lurks behind the preferred image of myself, and only shows up when I slip-slide-away and buy into the physical aspects of aging. So, I studiously ignore the ads that insist on repeating themselves. And, in an effort to forestall anything like grim reality, I wear my glasses only when necessary to avoid actually seeing myself clearly. Then too, face masks are in their own way a blessing for those of us suffering from moderate to severe facial slippage. Thus, by practicing discrete self-deception, I am granted free admission to la-la land. 

I know one day my snarky old elderly-self will most likely catch up with me. But with luck, dim light, and a head start who knows how long it will take her. Also, she would never be caught dead cheating, so I do have the edge on her.