45 RPM
Most of the times that I claim to be glad to be aging, I’m lying.
Sure, age brings wonderful mental attributes. For instance, I seem a lot more patient. But actually I think that’s because I don’t move very quickly any more, so I just react to everything a lot less. It reads as patience, though, so I just take the credit.
And wisdom comes with age, y’know. But wisdom is easy. Wisdom is just experience someone else hasn’t had yet.
It’s true I have more influence with my clients than I did when I was younger, but that’s because they’re more or less the same age I am and we know we’d better stick together or the young will take over the world. They already have cooler phones than we do.
But the physical side of aging is a jolt. I don’t exercise much or stretch every day, so getting up is crinkier and slower. Exercise would help but every time I go (which is twice in the past year) I feel like crap for the next three days. Frankly, I don't have that kind of time.
But happily, over vacation, I discovered the one absolute joy of being older. You see, I went to visit my family in my hometown, and it being midsummer, we went to the country club pool to swim. I have been going to that pool since I was a teenager and I have hated it for 33 years. Nothing to do with the pool itself, mind you, or the club, it’s a lovely spot in the mountains and clear and cool and green all around. But the deck is ringed with chaises and all the time I was a teen those chaises were filled with girls I knew from school. And to my childish mind they were all judging me. So going to the pool was never about swimming or tanning or socializing. It was about sucking in my stomach. Especially on the way to the snack bar for one of those really runny cinnamon iced buns. I know, it’s a contradiction to feel fat in the tum while eating a sweet. But if you don’t know that particular combination of mixed feelings, you're not really human and you should go away now.
This time however, I went to the pool in a way I never had. I went as a 45 year old woman. And you know what I discovered? The joy of looking “good for my age.” There were my contemporaries – the same ones in whose eyes I had judged myself chubby and revolting. And they were every bit as old and tubby as I am. And suddenly it didn’t matter a damn. I hopped in the pool, I paddled about a bit and cooled off, I sat in the sun and chatted...and I went to the snack bar. But I didn’t hold my tummy in. And it felt so…free. Try it sometime, when you’re 45. It’s quite nice.
Sure, age brings wonderful mental attributes. For instance, I seem a lot more patient. But actually I think that’s because I don’t move very quickly any more, so I just react to everything a lot less. It reads as patience, though, so I just take the credit.
And wisdom comes with age, y’know. But wisdom is easy. Wisdom is just experience someone else hasn’t had yet.
It’s true I have more influence with my clients than I did when I was younger, but that’s because they’re more or less the same age I am and we know we’d better stick together or the young will take over the world. They already have cooler phones than we do.
But the physical side of aging is a jolt. I don’t exercise much or stretch every day, so getting up is crinkier and slower. Exercise would help but every time I go (which is twice in the past year) I feel like crap for the next three days. Frankly, I don't have that kind of time.
But happily, over vacation, I discovered the one absolute joy of being older. You see, I went to visit my family in my hometown, and it being midsummer, we went to the country club pool to swim. I have been going to that pool since I was a teenager and I have hated it for 33 years. Nothing to do with the pool itself, mind you, or the club, it’s a lovely spot in the mountains and clear and cool and green all around. But the deck is ringed with chaises and all the time I was a teen those chaises were filled with girls I knew from school. And to my childish mind they were all judging me. So going to the pool was never about swimming or tanning or socializing. It was about sucking in my stomach. Especially on the way to the snack bar for one of those really runny cinnamon iced buns. I know, it’s a contradiction to feel fat in the tum while eating a sweet. But if you don’t know that particular combination of mixed feelings, you're not really human and you should go away now.
This time however, I went to the pool in a way I never had. I went as a 45 year old woman. And you know what I discovered? The joy of looking “good for my age.” There were my contemporaries – the same ones in whose eyes I had judged myself chubby and revolting. And they were every bit as old and tubby as I am. And suddenly it didn’t matter a damn. I hopped in the pool, I paddled about a bit and cooled off, I sat in the sun and chatted...and I went to the snack bar. But I didn’t hold my tummy in. And it felt so…free. Try it sometime, when you’re 45. It’s quite nice.
posted by Whoopla at
3:27 PM
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