age gracefully

My generation is younger that the Baby Boomers, but I almost always feel like the folks I know from that generation are the “young ones”. They are the kids. I am not really young enough to be a GenXer, so I feel older than them too. Us 40 somethings are the old ones… it is like we are the adults. Just my own observation.

I’m truthfully not really asleep in this photo, in fact I have the camera in my other hand!

What a pile of years that sounds like. I mean if I had 42 towels, I doubt they would all fit in my linen closet. 42 eggs is a lot of eggs for a domestic kitchen refrigerator to hold. 42 snowflakes is not much, nor are 42 atoms, or bits of dust.

I’m 42. I don’t feel like a child anymore. I feel like an adult. I feel young though. I don’t feel ancient. I don’t feel like I am halfway through my life, although, who knows, I may be more than halfway through. I still have lots to see and do. I still have lots of plans. I still look nice in a dress.

My main change is that I don’t eat french fries, I don’t get carded at the beverage store, and I tend to use lots more lotion than I ever used to do. I also darken my hair every couple of months.

Is there a rule of thumb when to stop dying your hair and just let it go gray? Age 50? 50% gray? When you finally run out of coupons for Feria? When you get your first grandbaby?

I kind of feel like an “in between”. Past making babies, past spending weekends doing things I don’t want to do, past the stage of saying “yes” when I do not mean it, past feeling like I need to be who people want me to be… I am into the zone of knowing who I am. I am into the place of feeling I have nothing to hide. (Except perhaps for the odd gray hairs here and there.)

I am not in the place where I feel old or wise. I think that these are the most productive days of my life.

Grace? Why not? 42 seems to be a time of grace.

So that I have a basis on which to love myself tomorrow come what may.

I am better than I ever was. Not invisible. Curvy. When I wear blue jeans to the supermarket men and women check out my butt. Do I see women like me on the tube? In magazines? In movies? No. Do the stores sell clothes that fit my curves, celebrate my womanliness? NO! Then why is it than when I shop I see women like me, when I walk my dog in the park I see women like me, when I go to the YWCA I see women like me? And why aren’t we all naked?

Laugh lines. I got em. They are small and fine and underline all of the good times I have had in my life so far. I earned them, and they all look pretty good. So there!

Get over it

Man, since I turned 40 I love hearing people say things like that. Actually, not only is my daughter old enough to have a boyfriend… she has actually been dating her boyfriend longer than I have been dating mine… and she is going to college this year. What is my secret? I have no idea. Maybe I don’t wear makeup very often? Try not to get sunburned? Smile often? Eat lots of fruit? Genetics probably.