Last week, my 11-year-old niece challenged me to a one-on-one basketball game. Although I anticipated an easy victory, she dodged, scrambled and whirled circles around me on her way to a convincing win. Humiliated, I dropped to sit and gasped for breath. She smirked and challenged me to another game. I waved her off, mumbling something about wanting to help the family prepare dinner. In reality, I planned to lay in the sun with a glass of white wine. Then she hit me with the words every woman dreads: “Don’t be so old.” There. She said it. As with 9/11, everyone remembers where he or she was the first time someone called him or her old. And for me, this dubious milestone came that afternoon at the hands of my sister’s kid. This ghastly term suggests I’ve entered uncharted territory, and am heading toward decline. Sitting there provoked by her mocking words, I assessed my current phase in the aging spectrum.
At 20, I was just getting started and thought I’d be young forever. At 30, I was still that young woman on the way up. At 40 now, I’m still getting Playboy Magazine covers, but they’re adding hair extensions and Photoshop. Whoa…I barely hopped on the merry-go-round and I guess it’s time to start dragging my feet, desperately trying to slow it down? Indeed, this issue of aging isn’t on my agenda. I guess as a hot chick, I always assumed I was immune to the scourges of getting older (I’ll admit I sometimes shake my head in disgust at the women who are so foolish as to “let themselves go”). But age-related things creep increasingly into my life: fine print gets fuzzier, my facialist trims my eyebrows without me asking, and I pay attention to ads for hair color that I’ll soon be needing. Facing these ominous clues, I’m starting to realize that my prime will eventually give way to a new, unsettling reality.
I get defiant, wondering how others face this issue. My clients, all older men, don’t wither away—they wring every last ounce of gusto form life and have fun well into old age. Instead fo merely gawking in wonder at these age-defying heroes I’ve known, I want to join them when I get older. Sure, aging is a relentless monster stalking all of us, making the world increasingly difficult to navigate…but when it attacks I figure I have two choices. I can crumple into a fetal position and let the monster devour ne, or I can stand and battle the beast to my last breath. I can dawdle my life away or I can hit the gym. I can hobble around in my house or I can go travel and fly planes. I can wallow on the couch or I can compete with the young companions who think men prefer them (spoiler alert: the best men don’t).
Give me the ball…I’m just getting started.