Tonight I actually ran up the stairs in a rush to get something, and by the time I reach the top step, I forgot what it was. Since this isn't the first time that's happened it got me thinking. So I put on my now-requisite CVS reading glasses and sat down to blog. Blog about the effects of being...
40 - Something
What the hell is happening with my locks? Used to be a time when my hair was so thick my mother would have the hairdresser thin it out with these freaky scissors. Dumb, dumb move. I’m now starting to leave hairs everywhere I go. If I’m caught in a good wind, I sometimes feel like a giant dandelion who just had her fluff blown off. I thought I’d dread going gray when I hit 40. Now I’d will my hair to go gray as long as it stayed! I used to think this was just happening to me, until I started looking at all the other women about my age. Ladies in the gym, you may think I’m looking at you intently while we talk, but I’m just reassuring myself by checking out your also widening parts! There are quite a few thinners among us! First one of us to need a comb-over wins $20. And a hat.
OK, so if it’s coming out on top, why’s it coming in everywhere else? This is proof that if there is a God, he’s got a wicked sense of humor. When I was a kid, I would quietly giggle to myself when I’d watch my grandmother go to town on her chin and upper lip with her pink, rhinestone-encrusted electric Lady Schick. Now I wonder where the hell I can buy one. Sometimes I feel like Richard Nixon during the televised Kennedy debate. Like the world is noticing I’m developing a 5-o’clock shadow on my chin. Of course, the world has no clue (until they read this concessional), because I take great pains to mow the lawn. Again, I thought this was just me. Until a good friend admitted over lunch that she too tends the field. And if the school’s hottest mom has to do it, then I feel just a weee bit better about plucking. Now I just have to make sure I have a coma buddy lined up and ready to go. You know, a gal pal who’ll creep into my ICU room if the need ever arises, and tweeze as needed.
My arms are clearly getting shorter. Why else would I now need to hold menus halfway across the table in order to read them? Sure the computer screen is blurry and I have to get the kids to read pill bottles and microwave instructions, but I’m convinced it’s an arm problem and not aging eyes. It if wree ralely a prolebm wtih my eyes my splelnig on the copmteur would be afefcetd.
People are starting to get a little too respectful. Case in point: On a recent Friday night trip to the liquor store, the diligent clerk asked the three people in front of me the same thing. “Could I please see some ID?”…”Could I please see some ID?”…”Could I please see some ID?” When I got up to the register, I however was asked, “How are you this evening, ma’am?” MA’AM. Just stab me in the gut while you bag my bourbon, buddy! Of course to make matters worse, the next day I read on Facebook how my close friend~~a bald mono-browed and clearly 40-year-old Hatfield-ian (Hatfield-ite? Hatfield-er?) who shall remain nameless ~~was himself carded last week. Again, God’s warped sense of humor.
I could go on. I could write about how my knees pop when I first get up, how I’m starting to use dreaded phrases from my youth like “Because I said so!” and “Don’t make me come up there!” more than I’d like. How I sometimes find myself becoming…my mother (Hi, Mom!) But I won’t. There are a few things that are actually good about being in my 40s. I no longer really give a rat’s ass if I accidentally do something embarrassing. I’m way more outgoing and make friends easier than I did in my youth. Probably because I no longer care about being embarrassed. My car insurance premium decreases at the same rate my blood pressure increases. And my vocabulary’s getting pretty damned good even if my splelnig is geinttg wosre. So you lose a little, you gain a little. I can deal with the 40s I guess. But so help me I may go postal when I hit 50.
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