You’re what?!
I’m 48, I told my dad, who shook his head in disbelief.
“Susie, that is just not possible. What does that make me?”
“You’re almost 80.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“Well, it’s true. And we won’t talk about how old mom is.”
Mom had just celebrated her birthday, and I wasn’t going to ruin it by using the number that accompanies it.
The truth is that my kids think I am 47, and they’ve religiously recited this number for the past two years. I like the number 47: it’s a prime number, which somehow makes it feel positive: so I’m sticking with that number until they wise up to time's real progress There’s another truth, though, agreed upon by me and my mom—we don’t feel our age. We still feel like a much younger version of ourselves. When we come to a mirror, we still expect to see someone with fewer chins. I have quit dying my hair and the gray that is threading through my brown is like the expensive frosting jobs that women actually paid for in the 1970’s. Remember the 1970’s? That was 4 decades ago in another millennium. Remember Farrah Fawcett and her long ash-brown locks? Most of us probably remember more her lightening-white smile and brown clingy top, but her long, feathered tresses had that brown threaded with silver/blond look that many women tried to emulate. (It was easier to emulate her hair than the rest of her.) That’s almost the hair color I have now, and it’s natural, too.
Here’s something else I recently discovered: my mother and her gorgeous friends are not only unafraid of their age; they embrace it with few reservations. Among the 10 women who recently celebrated my mother’s birthday at an exquisite luncheon featuring bawdy humor, not one woman was fading on the vine. Not one flinched when it came time to pass my mom her R-rated cards. Their humorous stories about some of their own risqué moments, flavored with anecdotes about being flipped off while driving (and their responses there-to), would perhaps shock some younger women. But as I have grown older I have definitely come to appreciate honest, down-to-earth, I’m-not-putting-on-any-airs humor. And I admitted to some of the women there that I had inherited the family “smart ass” gene from my mom. (Since my children are adopted I hope it passes out of the family this generation. But if environment plays as much a role as genetics in personality development, there’s an unfortunate 50-50 chance they might carry on this trait.)
Dad continued lamenting. “Susie, I still can’t believe you’re 48.”
It’s true, Dad. It’s true.
“How did that happen?”
Good question, but my husband is 52, so I know it’s true that I’m getting up there.
“Deane’s 52??? Good grief.”
Yes, it’s good. But I don’t grieve it. In fact, I’m glad. I like this age more than any other. In fact, I’ve always known I’m a late bloomer, and lately I’ve been feeling like blooming even more. Not bigger, I hope, but better. There’s an up-side to getting “up there.” One up-side is that you don’t care so much about what other people think about you. Another up-side is that you can freely be silly because you know silly is freeing. Yet another up-side is that you can be honest about your inadequacies because you’ve embraced the reality that no-one is perfect, and trying to be perfect is a perfect waste of time. Pretty soon I’m going to be 49. My kids might start to catch up and think I’m 48. I don’t mind if their counting is off. The actual number is irrelevant to most everyone except the Department of Motor Vehicles. I’m not going to worry about going a year ahead. The time gives me more stories to tell—the bawdier and more poignant, the better.
Mom, tell your women friends I had a ball. And I’m really glad I had a chance to see what I have to look forward to when I am their age: R-rated cards and four-star food.
