Age?

Age, and not looking one's age, is a hot topic in American culture.  Magazines abound with cosmetic tricks to fool the mirror.  Young is good; old is bad.  I have been told I look younger than my age, good for my age, or just plain tired.  Which is it?

When I was a young woman, I looked like a kid.  I remember a parent coming in for a conference during my first year of teaching.  Her eyes widened and she asked me, "Jeez, just how old are you?" I was always carded at bars and liquor stores.  Eventually, I stopped getting carded, and I realized I was getting old and looking old. 

When  I was somewhere around forty, I went out for a night on the town with three younger people.  Anthony and Jimmy were somewhere in their late twenties.  I had no idea how old Denise was, but I assumed she was close to my age.  I guess I assumed wrong, because the bouncer at the bar just glanced at her ID.  When I showed him mine, his eyes opened wide and he appeared startled.  Not sure how to take it, I guessed he was surprised by how much older I was than the others.  I was somewhat insulted at the time, but I look back on that night and realize I should have been flattered that at first glance, he took me to be their contemporary. 

At church this Sunday, we sang to celebrate Margaret's birthday.  You could have knocked me over with a feather when she said she was eighty.  Eighty!  Holy cow - my mother died at eighty.  This woman didn't look a day over seventy.  She's slender, has thick beautiful silver hair in a pageboy style, wears little makeup, and is spry and bouncy in her movements.  Maybe it is genetics that keep her young; maybe it is a healthy lifestyle.  Whatever it is, no cosmetics made her look as good as she does.

My hair is grey.  I dye it, but if you look closely, I have a stripe right now that is demanding I color it. I often ponder letting it grey, after all, I am sixty.  My teeth are dull.  I was blinded by the teeth on the newscaster last night.  However, unlike hers, my teeth have survived twenty years of smoking, forty years of coffee, and ten years (at least) of anxiety grinding and peppermint chewing.  Could any cosmetic treatment even make them white and shiny? Would they appear bizarre like that newscaster, or would I look younger with pearly whites?  Does it matter?

Madison Avenue surely thinks it matters; the advertising industry banks on our insecurities.  Since being housebound by the recent snowstorms, I've been inundated with commercials and magazine ads aimed at making me look as young as possible for a lot of money.  I'm not sure I have enough money to spend to make this old woman look young again.  But, the ads are beginning to get to me, even though deep in my heart, I know most models are airbrushed.  Airbrushed or not,  Annie Potts is sixty and so is Marylou Henner.  Now that's what I want my sixty to look like.  Sadly, my sixty looks more like Aunt Bea. No, I'm not turning off the television, but I will be trolling the cosmetic counters at the malls.

I'll be looking for that miracle in a jar that has the power to turn Aunt Bea into Marylou Henner.   When I find it, I'll let you know.