I’ve found a new time suck.  You know those little videos that you can watch on Facebook?  Scrolling through them is a pretty no brainer thing to do but once in a while something, good or bad, pops up that catches my attention.  

There is this one young woman doing videos, who has decided she is God’s gift to being cool and/or sophisticated in the most shallow ways.  What to wear, what not to wear, how to do your hair, how not to do your hair.  Tonight was ten things that make you look older.  Congratulations to me for doing almost all ten.  Capri pants, Bermuda shorts, little sweaters over dresses, floral dresses, clunky shoes, glasses and gray roots.  Yep, I am apparently the epitome of what is looks like to be older.

Of course, being “older” is relative, right?  After all, she’s only in her 30’s.  Her priorities include taking a bedroom in her home and turning it into her closet so she can make videos. In my 30’s, I was concerned with juggling three little boys (four if you count Doug), and my first teaching jobs.  My hands were full.  I was lucky if my clothes matched.  I wore the same pair of cheap black cloth mary jane shoes so often that my students asked if I had any other shoes. I colored my hair myself because it was too expensive to get it done professionally and shopped for things to wear on sale at Old Navy.  In the early 2000’s overalls were my go to. As much as I wanted to look better, I didn’t have the time, the means or the know how to do it. 

My 30’s were a half a lifetime ago and I suppose I am what she would consider “older”.  As I think of all of these wonderful young women who talk about older as if it will never happen to them, I take great satisfaction in knowing that yes indeed, it will.  And maybe she’ll be lucky enough to be one of those beautiful young women who ages into that sophisticated beautiful older woman I always wanted to be.  Or, (depending on her height), she may grow to be that petite, chunky, grandma that I am.  The one who wears capri’s to hide the spider veins on my legs (one time, someone asked if a cluster of them was a tattoo), Bermudas to hide the thigh flab, little sweaters to hide the “bat wings”, glasses because contacts just don’t seem to correct things the way they used to, chunky shoes so the plantar fasciitis doesn’t act up and the occasional gray roots when I can’t get to my stylist as soon as I should.  Older is work and not always pretty.

Then there’s that “older is relative” thing.  Last week it was brought to my attention that data is meaningless unless we place meaning upon it.  Age is merely data.  Put a group of women the same age together in a room and while you may see some things they have in common, they will not all be the same.  I believe however, that most if not all of them would tell you that they feel much younger mentally than the number of candles on the birthday cake. In my head I’m a much more self assured 20 year old.  And while I would love to have my 20 year old body back, I wouldn’t trade it for who I am today.  I certainly should have but didn’t appreciate the body back then and was full of angst.  Not that I can’t occasionally be angsty at my age but it’s tempered with a lot of experience and a bit of reality.  I am who I am at this point in my life.  Good, bad or in between, I am who I am because of the choices I have made and continue to make.  Choices to act my age or not, to color my hair or not, to retire or not.  Age is a number and while I have no choice but to get older, a blessing, I might add, it’s my choice as to whether or not I grow old.  And my choice as to whether or not to do the 10 things that make me look older.