Saturday, September 12, 2009

The mirror lies.

My blogging buddy, Anita, just posted one of her typically charming and smile-inducing pieces on the subject of aging, Fifty is the new forever. I suppose that's what we do here whether we address the subject head-on or just obliquely, through our personal kaleidoscopic lives.

One of the things I love most about Anita is that aging never seems to give her a moment's pause or stress. I, on the other hand, am borderline obsessive.

I look in the mirror only out of occasional necessity and all I see are lies.

I stopped growing older in my mid-thirties. It was a good age for me. It's the age I chose to be for the rest of my life. So, as I push sixty (though I prefer to think of it as pulling fifty) my thirty-five year old spirit peers into the mirror at an old man and while I've never been especially attractive nor self-conscious it just doesn't work.

I can't feel like this and look like that.

I know the only option I have in order to re-frame myself is to give up and be my age because I can't possibly look thirty-five again. That's fine if I can figure out how to age without getting old. That's really what concerns us, isn't it?

Do I have to turn grouchy? Will I be forced to wear khaki pants and sensible shoes?

I'm going to work on this self-image thing because I don't believe it much matters what anybody else thinks of my appearance as long as I'm clean and semi-tidy.

The thing is -- at thirty-five this stuff never crossed my mind.

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