Not Just A Number

This is what the last day of 59 looks like. I won’t lie, I’m not happy about turning 60 tomorrow. Don’t tell me it’s just a number, I look in the mirror and know that’s not true. My body is different now. No amount of weight lifting brings real muscle tone. Fat settles in different places and leaves others where it would be welcome, like my face. Hair has moved around too, from my legs to my chin, where it sprouts in wiry spikes like the heavy duty nylon thread you use to sew on buttons. I spend hours tweezing all the while worrying that those bristles are the only thing holding up my sagging skin. I can’t even talk about my neck.

I see a huge difference in one year. Bags under my eyes that won’t go away because it’s so hard to sleep through the night. Either I can’t fall asleep or I wake up at 3am and can’t go back to sleep. I have to worry about whether it’s too late in the day to have a cup of even decaf coffee or anything chocolate. Anything more than a few sips of wine ensures falling asleep too early, midnight sweats and angst.

Weird changes too. I no longer sweat under my arms, but under my eyebrows and above my lip.  If I feel the slightest bit warm, which continues to come in waves, I become blinded by salt dripping into my eyes. I have brown spots on my cheeks too big to be called freckles which require I start buying face creams and makeup I am sure are nothing more than a scam to prey on panicked people like me.

There’s so much I can’t do anymore, like go to sleep on a full stomach. I can’t stay up late and miss my drowsy window and I can’t sleep in even if I don’t have to get up. Even when I get a good night’s sleep, I don’t feel refreshed. It takes twenty minutes to get out of bed and another ten for my body to completely wake up. I can’t get up and go straight to the gym anymore. I have to follow my routine: drink my vitamins and supplements, have breakfast and wait a half hour to digest before working out.

I can’t believe I’ve become “set in my ways.” When I interviewed for my retail job, the thirty-something manager said, “We have people working from 6:00 am until midnight daily. Are you available all those hours?” I said yes because I have no time demands on me, but soon found out I have no desire to work at night or too early either. There’s no way I could work late one night and then return the following morning. As it is I can barely make it through a five-hour shift with only a fifteen minute break during which I need two chairs, one on which to put up my feet.

I believe in my heart that 60 is the new 40, and I want an exciting life, but I’m not sure what that means. I think wistfully of the coffee bar I had and loved, but look at the clock when I would have to start baking and know I couldn’t do that now. I no longer have the drive to go to law school or get the PhD I always wanted, so instead I “take a class” while reviling at doing anything that sounds like something a “senior” would do. I’m starting to relate to how my grandmother in her 80s, living in a senior apartment, refused to socialize with her neighbors because they were all “old people.”

I know I’m not old, but my hearing is not good and I’m starting to get words wrong like I always pick on my mother for doing. I called myself “typhoon” instead of “typhoid Mary” which my husband was helpful to later correct. I hoped the others present were too young to know the proper term. I’m trying not to talk about my age-related physical maladies, which thankfully are more annoying than life-threatening, although I am terribly depressed about not being able to wear heels anymore, ever again.

Being around the kids at work is fun although I feel sad remembering how I viewed someone my age when I was young: irrelevant and clueless. I know I’m not, but I fear sliding down that slope. I won’t go peacefully into my 60s. I want more than the same old with longer vacations. I haven’t found my mission yet but trust it will come to me. Until then I will continue to let my hair grow long and wild and defy social convention wherever possible. So long as I’m not too tired.