What a difference a day makes.
One day I was 39, the next day, I was 40. It didn’t seem much at the moment, but after a couple of weeks, when the news had had the time to sink in, I realized that time was flying by …, and I was growing “old.”
You know, 40 is halfway to 80!
I thought back to my grandma. I remembered her sitting in her rocking chair. She loved knitting, and I always found her rocking in her chair when I stopped by after school. I remember thinking, “She is an old lady.” But thinking back, she probably wasn’t that old at all, perhaps around 45, at that time. It was just that we perceived our grandparents to be older than they were, I suppose. Also, her calm and dressing made her feel more senior and more paused to a young child. Grandparents didn’t wear jeans and tennis shoes back then. ;-), remember?
And now it was my turn. It was sinking in; I was wondering, How do my children perceive me? Am I old? How will my grandchildren perceive me? Will they think of me as an old lady, like my grandma?
My most significant relief is that no dressing code or rocking chairs identify people my age any longer. We have the freedom to dress as we want and behave as we wish. And that’s a great thing! That means that all I needed was some wrinkle cream to hide the first wrinkles, and I could go on living as I was still 39, and no one would know ๐
And now, I’ve turned 53.
(… is THAT old?)
