Older but not wizened

I have been wondering a bit about getting older – well not getting older but looking and feeling and “acting” older.

I was driving home the other Saturday after the lunch date with my youngest son that didn’t happen because he had been up most of the night at his mate’s house and hadn’t heard my 11.30am call and for some reason I started to think about never really seeing my own mum as old but seeing a very big difference between her at 54 than how I now view myself. I didn’t inherit my mum’s beautiful bone structure or her stunning deep cornflower blue eyes and dark brown hair; I think it jumped a generation because my daughter is very like my mum when she was young. My looks come from my dad’s side of the family including the lantern jaw.

My mum always got her hair permed and would have also got “tips” (highlights/streaks/frosting) which in the 1960s/1970s in small town Northern Ireland was very “daring” but I never, ever remember her having a pair of jeans and she never even wore trousers until she was in her late fifties and even then they were for the winter weather and not for “going out” in. However, when I was a small child my mum had style and I remember her clothes and thinking she was like a film star with her hats and suits. She was pin thin until her sixties and always dressed well even to go the shops. I was 20 when my mum was 53 and my daughter is 29 and today, there is very little difference in the things she and I like and very probably my taste in clothes is a bit more outlandish than my daughter’s whereas my mum very definitely wore clothes I wouldn’t have worn at 20.

Maybe it’s just the change in the time – my mum was the war generation and she and most of her peers didn’t work after having their families; there were of course exceptions but when I think back to primary school, I can’t think of any of my friends’ mums working. Whereas I went back to work with my youngest son was 6 and nowadays working mums pop them out in the morning and return to work in the afternoon (well not really but things have changed again and there is this expectation on new mums to be able to juggle everything and still be perfect).

I keep on wondering when I am going to get into the older person groove and if the 10 years between my younger husband and I will start to create issues. Children together for us didn’t happen even with lots of practice and right now I couldn’t contemplate the idea of having children at primary school; I had my 3 by the time I was 27 and while I absolutely adore my granddaughter and love spending time with her, I am not sure I would have the patience or the stamina to run about after small children full time. Still, I do wonder what would have happened if we had been parents together.

At 54 I don’t have many wrinkles and even my laughter lines are faint. I remember when I was at university one of my fellow students had lines across her forehead like she had just been tilled by a horse drawn plough – including the imprint of the horseshoe between her eyebrows. She was 10 years younger than me but her face was very lined even at 22. I have never smoked and I don’t have those lines etched through my top lip which results in lipstick bleeding like little trails of magma and while I am casual about cleansing, moisturising and toning, apart from my red cheeks, I don’t have too many problems with my skin; as I type this I am wondering if my jutting jaw-line has actually prevented the “side jowl slide” which causes women of my age to reach for the temporary solution of Haemorrhoid cream (slavered on by models long before Botox became de rigueur)the porcelain doll effect of Botox or even the longer-term tautness achieved by the cut and slice of the cosmetic surgeon’s scalpel.

I did worry that losing a bit of ballast would see my fuller face flesh sag and give me the Shar Pei look – I needn’t have worried, the face weight slid off not just down.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for my underarm awnings which have all the appeal of scored squid but with none of the bounce back effect. Thus, I am confined to sleeves, shrugs and shawls with upper arms that have all the appeal of part-cooked bread- a small price to pay for being able to drop 6 jeans sizes and squeeze my booty into an airline economy seat. Worth the dough I suppose. I am ashamed to admit that I stand in front of the bathroom mirror with my arms outstretched like the angel of the north and examine them with the bingo wings out of camera and see these lovely sculpted and toned svelte branches before allowing the tenderised tripe to blot my fantasy landscape.

It’s been a while from I meandered aimlessly like this and I have realised that I need balance – no I am not suggesting I want my inner thighs to hang round my knees flapping in the breeze but it is appreciating that stopping to smile about the daftness of it all is as important as being driven and serious.

Know what? I wouldn’t change any of me; well maybe just a teeny weeny nip and tuck here and there wouldn’t hurt balance and all that.