Musings on becoming an old lady.

     I sit here writing and my eyes blur everything together so I have to blink hard to bring my world back into focus. I am forty-nine years old and my eyes are showing no signs of the “leveling out” that the eye doctor assured me three years ago would happen. If anything, they’re getting worse.  A funny thing. My brain has matured and I view life so much more clearly than  I did at twenty or even thirty, but my eyes are failing, my skin is getting that old lady crepe look, and my  thighs are starting to show signs of the first beginnings of small dimples.

     My body resisted the ravages of time for quite awhile, years after when my friends were showing signs of melting into middle age. I was so smug about it. But now, it’s finally happening to me too. I’m not smug anymore. I am trying to deal with the acceptance of it all. I am trying to ‘grow old gracefully”, but all I am accomplishing is generating a quiet simmering anger against the entire process. One of my friends told me yesterday that he fears the moment when he walks into a room and no one notices that he has entered.  I fear that also. Old people become invisible. My friend also said that getting old “ain’t for sissies” He’s right about that too. But I fear I’m a “sissy”, after all. Screw wearing red hats when I get old. I’m gonna run around screaming “Fuck!” at the top of my lungs.  The injustices of getting old deserve a good well placed “fuck” every once in awhile.