Growing older, and growing wiser

With age comes wisdom. Grow old gracefully. A couple of fine old adages which I think for the most part ring true.\rAfter all, it is rare to see 60-year-olds behaving like teenagers. You won’t see Uncle Mike rocketing down the stairs of the Federal Court building on a skateboard, you won’t see Aunt Jessica kick boxing in the park, and it’s not likely you’ll see Grandpa Will attempting an aerial 360 on his BMX bike at the gravel pit. After all, Grandpa always used to say “where there’s a Will there’s a relative,” and he’s not ready to pass out the prizes just yet.

I like to think of it as self-preservation.

For instance, I learned to ski when I was in my 20s. My husband at the time had learned to ski in France from the age of about 10 minutes, his having parents being very keen sporty type people who encouraged their three sons to join in every athletic venture they could.

I grew up, not only not surrounded by snow, nor countries which could offer snow at a drop of a hat, but with parents whose athleticism led them to golf and lawn bowling, neither of which held any mystique for me or my three brothers. Thus, the opportunity to learn things like skiing at an early age was somewhat lacking in my upbringing.

So I went skiing – well, in all honesty – I got down a mountain or two in my own good time, one way or another – for several years before my gorgeous daughter, Madam, was born.

 It wasn’t long after that I realized that I just couldn’t afford to be laid up with a broken leg or a dickie knee and so without a backward look decided that snow-plowing just wasn’t worth the risk.

With age, you realize that your God-given body just isn’t going to behave as magnificently at 50 something as it did at 18.

You’ve learned that partying all night just doesn’t have the same je ne sais quois any more. Remember those days? Out to have a rip-snorting time with your friends Friday night, get to bed sometime Saturday afternoon, wake up 11 a.m. Sunday with just a tiny headache?



Now you adopt the more sober approach, realizing that the tiny headache you had when you were youthful in fact feels more like a small army of Smurfs has taken up residence somewhere behind your eyeballs, and they’re in drill-mode for about two days. So you know not to do it any more. See, age and wisdom at work.

It would be nice to think that we’d wised up across all facets of our lives, but sadly this is not necessarily the case.

Take me last night.

My makeup removing technique as a teenager would be to go to bed with it all on, knowing that the shower in the morning would take it all off. Being more afraid of an acne breakout than pretty much anything, I wouldn’t moisturize at all, and let my fabulously pubescent oily skin take care of itself.

Now if I don’t go through the routine my skin ends up looking like an old piece of papyrus left out in the Sahara for a couple of weeks, and so I, wisely, go through the motions each night before going to bed. Sir realizes this, in not such a quiet manner, and knows to give me a half hour start before leaping into bed.

 But back to last night. I had a particularly cranky muscle knot in my neck and so thought a great slathering of Tiger Balm would be in order. If you haven’t met Tiger Balm, it’s a Chinese invention and is a little pot of grease mixed with herbs and menthol and works wonders on cranky knots, headaches, stuffy noses and all kinds of ailments. And I just knew that’s what was going to fix me.

But do you think I had the wisdom to put it on after I’d done my face a favor?

Hell no.

So consumed was I with the pain in my own neck that I didn’t think things through, and despite a liberal hand washing episode, when it came time to take my eye makeup off, I copped an eyeball full of the remnants of menthol and camphor.

Now there’s a wakeup call. I think I cried my eye makeup off and then had to liberally apply Visine as my big brown eyes had now taken on the appearance of road maps of Mars, or as my Dad used to say – oysters in buckets of blood. If I didn’t put on sunglasses I was going to bleed to death.

For the most part though, I do believe I’ve stuck to my conviction of growing old with as much grace as I can muster. Sure the skin isn’t as taut as it used to be, the boobs lack the perkiness of youth, and the butt saggeth inexorably southward, but I’m quite happy with how it all turned out.

Oh sure, if someone gave me several hundred thousand bucks to go in for some nipping and tucking I probably wouldn’t say no. But wait.

Wisdom and grace dear girl. I spotted woman whom I haven’t seen for ages last weekend. Never a favorite of mine, I think she’d taken lessons at the Most Poisonous Person School of Ill Manners. I couldn’t believe how much of a heap into which she’d fallen. Facial contortions, beaky nose, eye twitching. My God, I thought, indeed with sympathy, she’s had a stroke.

Apparently not. She’d had a face lift.

Twice. The first one didn’t work.

Sir’s reaction? “Hope she has a good attorney.”