Old Lady…..

Old lady…….no young girl ruminates on the aging process after the get married and picket fence scenario, have you noticed? When we are little girls we impatiently await that one day we grow bumps on our chest enough that Mother notices and decides to take us to the local Wallie World to purchase a white with pink flowered training bra. We wait in line glowing from our toes to our nose for this long awaited day. As we climb into the back of the Van-go we not so inconspicuously slip the bra on under our shirts. We have reached the beginnings of womanhood. On the way home we chew over how soft the cotton is against our skin and how we cannot wait to show it off on the playground to prove to those “less fortunate” how we have begun the journey. After that we envisage the moment that lipgloss and mascara become part of our routine. We are 11 dreaming of 13. We argue that we shouldn’t be considered a child any more, after all we are now pre-pre-teen. We secretly love the “old” movies from our youth but they alas appear to babyish in our quest to be “older”.  So we claim we only watch “those baby movies” because there isn’t anything else to watch. We wear our training bras over our teeshirts and borrow make-up from the “older girls” in the house on Sundays. 13 is a magic number. By then we have real brassieres and the myriad of make-up includes the lip gloss and mascara along with every other source of “paint” that goes on one so “mature”. Boys are not so gross and clothing is experimental. Some days we knock it out of the park and sometimes we fail miserably. We have bodies that are gangly as do the male species. At 13 we see pass the male’s dotted face and long skinny arms to see someone who one day will be worth dating. If he holds our hand we are over the top-toes-to-nose-training-bra happy! Our journals are filled with the sagas of walking the halls in a new pair of jeans and being noticed by the unattainable 9th grader. 13 is awesome but is filled with the pondering of what 16 will be like. 16 comes in all it’s glory. Dating, driver license, young romance, jobs. Make-up and bras are antiquated subjects and life seems to be the endless search for fun, love, and wardrobes. The world is open to a 16 year old like life has never been. We think we are ancient with no consequences and real life like movies are made from the way we feel and communicate. It is the pinnacle we have looked forward too since the 4th grade. And yet…….we anticipate what 18 will be. Voting, college……um….college dudes, work, own car, moving out, college boys, football games, college studs, life is great at 18. When it pounces upon us we celebrate like it is 1999. Then we wish to be in our 20’s with a picket fence and babies. It comes quicker then we prepared for but the wedding day is either the best ever or worst then one could dream. But it comes replete with Prince Charming. 20’s are so great while we wait for babies and college to be done with. We wait for our picket fence and our new car. They all come, slow at first and then lightening speed. And there is a part of us that wishes we would have enjoyed 13 better. We liked being 11 and not wearing bras. We loved the love and romance of 16. 18 came without as much travel as we thought we wanted. Prince Charming came and gave a house and a family. 30’s are looking old until we reach it…..then it is miraculously becomes young. We dream of our children growing and coming home with their families and retiring with a cabin. But lay-offs and bad economy takes that. And you realize that as a human-girl you spent your whole life looking forward to something different that a older age offers. But never looked “past” the picket fence. Hot flashes and sagging boobs that even a training bra couldn’t help come when we aren’t looking. A sense of self that eluded us comes with despair for the “lost time” or a great satisfaction in “what I am now”. A sense of self comes. A sense of style that is unique to ourselves either the big clunky made-for-sense-type-shoes-I-look-like-a-worn-out-Motherhubbard or stilettos just for the hey-de-ho of it all and I don’t care that it is only the Piggly-Wiggly that I am going too. We find ourselves no longer looking forward to the NEXT stage of life but loving or working to change the stage we ARE in right now. We don’t look forward or backwards we just look at now. So stop in your tracks……stop looking for the future…believe me it is coming and you don’t need to worry about it. Look at the now and what you want “after the picket fence” to look like.

Go and do and grow old in the way you want too!