Growing Old Disgracefully

This weekend we will be going to a 60th birthday party.  This is the first of two or three that we will be attending in 2014.  The weird thing is that it is not for a member of our extensive family (on G’s side alone both his  parents are one of 6 kids).  No, this party is for a friend.  And 50ths have become commonplace, as have 40ths.

When did this happen? Our getting older?  At 45 I’ve got fewer wrinkles round my eyes now than I had after Little Man’s birth.  (This is probably due to more sleep and the fact that I have put on more weight.)  But the evidence of age is there…

·         I feel young at heart, but I can’t stop sighing as I sink into the sofa of an evening.

·         In a restaurant my friends and I all hold the menu at arms length in an attempt to read it. 

·         I find the occasional white (not even grey) White!!! hair in my eyebrows and black hair on my chin (And I’m not ever looking down below again…)

·         I have started listening to Radio 2, and enjoy it.

·         I go to bed to sleep. 

·         I look at teenagers walking around in crop tops in the watery sunlight and wonder that they don’t feel the cold as I do. 

·         The topics of conversation among my friends range from the aches and pains that we all seem to have, to the best way to clean wine stains off a cream carpet, to the impact the new impending changes in A levels will have on our kids.

 

Suddenly I seem to have become an adult…  And I didn’t see it coming…

I’m wondering when I will wake up and all my wardrobe is beige.  I look in the mirror and wonder what my skin will look like with the cracks and crags of age.  When should I let my hair go au naturel and grey?  Will I be cantankerous?  Will I shout at those teenagers in crop tops as I wait at the bus stop? 

All of the 60ths we are going to this year feature very Young at Heart people.  This one at the weekend is a Glamour Evening.  I am assuming we are not talking Katie Price style glamour, and simply a long dress kind of glamour – although I wouldn’t put either past the birthday girl.  In the day time she is one of the gutsiest and most knowledgeable accountants that I have ever met.  But when she goes out she likes to party.

And this is my point – growing older is not all serious business.

I hope that when I have a craggy cracky face, my lines will be laughter lines.  I will have aching joints because I ‘Mummy’ or ‘Auntie’ danced for that extra hour at the next generations' weddings.  I will still be dying my hair, but possibly a little more discreetly. And i hope that if I’m fat, there will simply be more of me to cuddle.

And as for beige…well, it will set off the leopard print scarf and red kitten heels perfectly….