Aging

I nearly got caught because I’ve waited too long and now it’s rained on top of the snow. I was busy vacillating in front of the mirror and the temperature dropped so my slippers have no traction. It’ll be okay because I’ve mastered the old lady ice shuffle. No worries though. I look too young to really need to walk this way, so if anyone’s watching they’ll think I’m just goofing around. My double sized order of placenta eye cream is hidden inside my jacket (I got a two month supply for only $19.99, free shipping). I threw out the box with the label right after it came in the mail and since I’ve been using two at a time there’s probably only 35 or 40 in my pocket. That company promised healthy tissue – soft and pliable as a baby’s butt – but the bags under my eyes still look like raccoon cheeks and I’m tired of pawing through my sock drawer to unearth the little tubes every time I have a moment of absolute privacy. I think I’ll still keep trying with the teeth whitening gel. Even if it doesn’t work, it comes with a really fabulous brush. I’ve hidden it inside my one pair of super elasticized, leg-swell reducing knee socks. I’m sneaking up to the outside garbage can because the picture in the advertisement was a lie. They probably used the face of a twelve year old. I hate to admit it but I really thought the placenta ingredient would do the trick.

The problem is I didn’t zip my pocket. It’s unnerving how far placenta tubes can scatter when the person trying to discreetly dispose of them falls down. One slipper’s out of reach and I’m afraid I’m crying, right here on the path in front of my house. I just never thought I’d get this old and I don’t want the evidence of my denial to surface next spring. It’s not like I don’t know about aging. I’ve been supporting my clients through life transitions for over twenty years. It’s just that I get this shock every time I look in the mirror. The me that feels like me doesn’t recognize my reflection. And why doesn’t anybody talk about it outside of therapy? I hope the garbage men don’t check inside the pails. After creeping back up the path in my wet slippers, this time with a shovel, I think I’ve got every single one of those worthless tubes in there.

The timing of it all somehow doesn’t fit the way I thought it was supposed to. Actually, none of this growing up business does. My daughter has an eight-month-old baby but it’s just recently that I’ve given up on the notion that someday I’ll really be a ‘grownup’ and my tastes will magically change. The fact that my cherished-baggy-black-pants are with me for the long haul is a relatively new insight. It’s not as though I don’t like what I like, or even that I don’t like what I am. It’s more that I still love to like what I like so much. And it seems to me that before I became the previous generation, things should have become a little more sedate. Aren’t mature women supposed to be a little less enthusiastic? I always thought grandmothers were supposed to be finished.

Actually, it’s not just baggy clothes. To be honest, words that roar unedited in my mental bullhorn are almost always adorned with colorful expletives and I have finches that fly loose in my house. I sweep snow with a broom and I love the sound of anything that resembles the ‘Beater and Block’ from my elementary school music class.

My daughter’s son was born right here in my living room. I think my wet slippers are drying now, right about where she squatted. Her partner held her up and I crouched underneath. She wailed that baby right into my arms. By the time the after-birth was out, I knew my aging in a whole new way (okay, so I fixed my eyeliner for the pictures but that was my only vanity). Through the weeping and the blood and the overwhelming awe of new life, I never once thought of actually using the placenta for my wrinkles.

Before the birth, when she asked me what I wanted to be called, I said “Anything but Grandma.” I intend no offense here. Many people love the term. It’s just that I realized – in the fraction of a second between my daughter’s question and the auditory waves hitting my heart – that I had some adjusting to do.

Now it all starts to make some sort of sense: a name that’s a crystal clear generic with all sorts of preconceptions isn’t going to look right on the shipping label of the next anti-aging product I purchase.

So. You can call me Babaka.