Today someone in the shop thought a colleague was my son... the colleague is twenty something. It is a rude awakening for me, that even though logically I am old enough to be the mother of a 30 year old, I really do not like to be reminded of that fact. The fact that I look old enough to have grandchildren too; let us (meaning me) not forget the customer who thought a friend and her baby were my daughter and grandson. (Or all the customers who think I am married to the owner and ALL the colleagues are our children. And that I live right there in the shop and am online all the time so I can see them making their email order while they are making it - but that is by the by).
So... what is bothering me most? It is the inescapable fact that I am getting older, of course. Is there an invisible line we cross? that we wake up one day unable to dance; that suddenly we will morph, much like a werewolf? Getting hairier and twisted over into a hunched up snarling beast? Or will I one day look in the mirror and see the truth? That I am that grey middle aged badger shaped thing who has stolen the clothes of a younger, fitter woman? Will I be Atomic Mutton, or am I already? The dreaded '16/61' woman; 16 from behind, 61 from the front. I want to wear tartan bondage trousers when I feel like it, and Pink/leopard skin brothel creepers. I don't want this jowly turkey neck, these crepey hands and lined decolletage. Tired eyes that don't recover, skin that doesn't bounce back; no wonder famous beautiful Hollywood people go nuts and become addicted to 'procedures', they see everything magnified many times over up there on that screen, not to mention evidence of their ageing process documented in every film and magazine article. I read this week that in LA women are even shaving their faces, because the advent of HD TV has meant every impurity or facial hair showing up in minute detail, clogged with make up and concealer. Hm, perhaps I am getting off lightly then, I never got the hang of make up. In a roundabout, muddled way, I am trying to ask when do we retire our 'look'? Why should we have to? If I was Vivienne Westwood it wouldn't matter, but if I am a poor nobody, I am a figure of ridicule? Ha, that is very English; rich and eccentric, or poor and mad. I want to Get Old Disgracefully, because I am not done being young yet.
So... what is bothering me most? It is the inescapable fact that I am getting older, of course. Is there an invisible line we cross? that we wake up one day unable to dance; that suddenly we will morph, much like a werewolf? Getting hairier and twisted over into a hunched up snarling beast? Or will I one day look in the mirror and see the truth? That I am that grey middle aged badger shaped thing who has stolen the clothes of a younger, fitter woman? Will I be Atomic Mutton, or am I already? The dreaded '16/61' woman; 16 from behind, 61 from the front. I want to wear tartan bondage trousers when I feel like it, and Pink/leopard skin brothel creepers. I don't want this jowly turkey neck, these crepey hands and lined decolletage. Tired eyes that don't recover, skin that doesn't bounce back; no wonder famous beautiful Hollywood people go nuts and become addicted to 'procedures', they see everything magnified many times over up there on that screen, not to mention evidence of their ageing process documented in every film and magazine article. I read this week that in LA women are even shaving their faces, because the advent of HD TV has meant every impurity or facial hair showing up in minute detail, clogged with make up and concealer. Hm, perhaps I am getting off lightly then, I never got the hang of make up. In a roundabout, muddled way, I am trying to ask when do we retire our 'look'? Why should we have to? If I was Vivienne Westwood it wouldn't matter, but if I am a poor nobody, I am a figure of ridicule? Ha, that is very English; rich and eccentric, or poor and mad. I want to Get Old Disgracefully, because I am not done being young yet.
No comments:
Post a Comment