I got out of the shower, wrapped my hair up in a towel, and looked in the mirror.
(No, that wasn’t the horrible thing.)
I had some of yesterday’s mascara smudged under my left eye so I got a tissue and rubbed gently from the outer corner of my eye to my nose.
(The horrible thing is coming now.) View Post
Last week, sorting through some piles of crap in preparation for another house move, I came across my first ten-year passport. (The one I had to report lost, after it found its way into said pile of crap).
I was 18 years old, and sporting a boyish crop. I’m smiling, my cheeks are rosy, and despite the fact that I already have a one-year-old child, I look fresh. The world is my oyster and I am ready to explore.
I took out my current passport to compare, where I’m 32 years old. Good grief, I wish I hadn’t. In this one I definitely look like I need a holiday, but that I probably don’t have the energy to pack a suitcase. What has happened?? I know I don’t photograph well, but this is ridiculous. You can almost see me sighing wearily.
Well dur, you might say, you’re 14 years older, of course you look worse, but it’s not even that. I could slap on any amount of anti-aging products and I’m not sure it would help – it’s the difference in the expression that concerns me more than any wrinkles. 14 years down the line and I look tired, like I can’t even be bothered to smile for the camera.It’s pretty scary.
A couple of days after I found this, I had to have my driver’s licence renewed, and I wasn’t going to be caught out in the same way again. As I stepped into the photo booth I tried to remember how it felt to be 18. Not much different I didn’t think. So I smiled anyway, and attempted to ooze youthful innocence and joy. (Not easy when you have a woman from the Post Office squawking ‘you can look pleased, but no teeth!’)
Hopefully this one will turn out a little better. Otherwise I think I’d better stock up on my anti-aging, Q10, plumping, firming creams. And maybe some prozac.
Don’t you just love getting older?
As the wrinkles spread and the boobs head south, we still feel likes teenagers inside don’t we? Today I have a guest post from The Undercover Granny, on getting old, grey hair, and staying positive…
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When I was young and heard old ladies saying they still felt 18, I used to snort with derision. How could this possibly be true? Surely there is some kind of old person’s switch that flicks the moment you reach 50 and thoughts of music, clothes and romance are replaced by a desire to knit, grow lavender and tut loudly at anyone having even the tiniest bit of fun.
Now 52 and a granny myself, I realise this is, of course, complete nonsense. I still feel as if I’m in my early twenties and it’s only the odd creak of my bones and the strands of grey in my hair that remind me I am no longer a mere slip of a girl.
When my son was small he embarrassed me hugely in a queue in a shop by asking loudly why old ladies all had the same haircut and if they all went to the same hairdresser. It is perhaps this alone that has left me determined to keep my hair longish forever and not succumb to the pressure to have it teased into a white helmet.
In most respects I feel no different now to how I did in my younger years. But it is undeniable that growing older brings with it a sense of peace.
In your teens and early twenties there’s a real immediacy to every problem. If you might have to miss a party it can feel like the end of the world. If a boyfriend is drifting away it feels, momentarily at least, as if your life is over.
With age, however, you learn that you won’t die if you don’t buy that gorgeous yellow mini skirt and, in fact, having some money in the bank or not running up an overdraft is a lot better for your emotional wellbeing.
In essence, I believe you are the age you feel – as long as you look after your body and mind – and that it can be really freeing to leave behind the tiring drama of youth. Just make sure you retain a sense of optimism and the feeling that anything is possible.
I’d love to hear how you feel on the subject.
Seriously? I was in the co-op at lunchtime and there they were. Kinder Eggs. Eighty five whole pence.
They were never really good value chocolate wise, but at 40p or so you could sort of justify it for the toy. But this is just crazy. And then I started looking around and really thinking about things and how much they cost…
When did cans of Coke and Mars bars stop being about 30p??
I don’t like it.
It makes me feel old.
In preparation for my first writing workshop this week over at Sleep is for the Weak, I am writing on the theme of false assumptions – those funny things that people think about you that seem to come from nowhere.
This is an interesting topic for me, as I’m pretty sure people are quite often not sure what to make of me. For a start, I’ve been told I look younger than I am – 32 this April – and the perception of youth can often effect the way people interact with you. A couple of years ago for example, a salesman came to the door, trying to flog gas and electricity. I answered, and he asked me if my mum or dad was home…
Age gives a woman a certain gravitas and I do often worry about not being taken seriously. Sometimes when I meet people for the first time I want to come right out and explain – “I may look young and have the voice of a child, but really I am a proper grown up who knows how to do stuff. Honest.”
Add to this the fact that I was pregnant at 16, when I looked about 12, and I’m fairly sure I must have attracted some curious glances in my time. Not that I have ever really been aware of it. I’m just me inside, and I forget sometimes that other people can see my face when they are talking to me.
Another occasion I remember well was when I got my GCSE results. I was particularly geeky at school, a straight A student and prize winner, and everyone I went to school with knew it. (I made sure of that – hence not having many friends at school…). My boyfriend at the time however went to a different school and when his friends – whom I had known for some months – found out my results they were stunned to say the least. “Blimey,” they said, “we’d thought you were pretty stupid!” Charming.
A couple of times in the last week people have made reference to me being terribly organised and orderly, an assumption which I challenged, not least because it made me feel terribly dull. Who wants to be thought of as ‘the woman whose files are arranged nicely’?
It’s true that I am fussy about some things – I do like my books to sit flush which the edge of the shelf, and have been known to arrange them in colour order – but I don’t think this makes me hugely organised. In fact, a quick glance around my study or bedroom would show quite the opposite. Piles of magazines, newspapers, unread letters and mountains of clean and dirty washing, merging together in one giant heap – hardly the hallmark of a neat freak.
And then of course there are the friends who see me scoffing sweets and quaffing wine like the grape is about to become extinct and assume I am some kind gluttonous lush with no self control. Oh hang on a minute…