Aging? Who's Aging?

Truth be told, like it or lump it, we all are.

Susan, at e-i-e-i-omg!, using her usual great sense of humor, wrote about the old age bugaboo in a recent post.  She hit the button right on the head and has inadvertently encouraged me to put forth my current feelings on the subject.

In our living room, we have a good-sized mirror over the couch.  The placement of this mirror was not intended for vanity purposes but rather in an effort to fool ourselves into thinking our tiny living room is bigger than it actually is. 

Nonetheless, every time I pass through this area, which is several times a day, I involuntarily find myself glancing in the mirror.  Bad idea.

"Arrrgh," I groan inwardly (and occasionally outwardly) each time my eyes are drawn to my passing image.  Unlike most women who find themselves looking more and more like their mother, I see my father's face looking back at me.  Even though my father was a good-looking man, the first person who says I'm beginning to look just like him may get decked.

Age . . . what is age?  I can easily remember many years ago sitting on my grandmother's lap and asking her how old she was. 

"I'm 56," she replied.  Good gosh, that seemed old.  EL-derly.  Ancient.

Personally, I was never bothered stating my chronological age . . . until I hit the big 7-0.  Now that just sounded old.  Still, I've been fortunate to be in super-duper physical shape and to not feel "old" as I hear many folks professing at the time they hit that milestone.

My mental age blissfully remains somewhere in my late 30s.  I only wish the appearance of my physical body would retain that message.

In the past year (I turned 70 plus 4 this past spring), I've noticed big changes in this temple of a body of mine.

My skin texture is changing.  (I've yet to delve into those ads for eradicating crepey-looking skin, but still.)  I'm beginning to fear this unsightly pooch of tummy fat is going to stick with me forever.  Are the knuckles on my hands growing bigger every day or is it just my imagination?  The aches I experience during the first two weeks of garden work every year have now expanded to two months . . . and counting.  Up until this past year, when I stood with my legs together, the tops of my thighs didn't touch each other.  Not anymore.  From where did that ugly flab come?

Maya Angelou once said (and I'm sure I'm paraphrasing here), "My breasts seem to be in a race to see which one can reach my waistline first.  So far the left one is winning."

I must remember that with aging comes wisdom.  So as my physical body slides into slothdom, it surely means my brain cells are becoming sharp as ticks.

I mean tucks.

No, tacks.  Tacks!  Yes, that's the word I meant to say.