Meditations on aging
I remember when I was young, 20 years old, I was dating the first big love of my life, who was 36 years old. We went to eat with friends, his friends and their girlfriends, and I came out of the bathroom stall to see the other women in front of the bathroom mirror reapplying lipstick and I noticed the jiggle in their upper arms. Ha!
Then when I was 30 and wanting to go to Paris but we had no money, I remember I was in a bookstore on Filmore Street in San Francisco and was thumbing through a large book on Italy and wistfully thinking about travel. An elderly gentleman was standing next to me and he said, “Beautiful,” as I turned the page to a gorgeous lake. I said, “Yeah, I’m dreaming of going to Paris, but lusting over picture books is all I have right now.” He said in a different more familiar tone, “Don’t wait. Go. I wanted to travel my whole life and waited till I retired and now I’m half crippled. Don’t wait.” We went to Paris on our credit cards and went on the austerity plan for a year and a half to pay it off when we came back.
I went to the bathroom in Lisbon at a restaurant. It was tiny, like all European bathrooms are, especially those in restaurants. It was hot because there is no a/c in Europe particularly in tiny bathrooms in warm restaurants. The entire bathroom was nothing more than a stall with a toilet but inside it was completely mirrored. I looked up and noticed how my skin just drapes, it drapes down my arms (forget about jiggle, this is drape), it drapes down my thighs. Like old lead glass windows it hangs in waves and ripples. I must say I prefer to look at old glass.
The stall was so hot because of my hot flashes but I tried to just think passed the moment. I’m wondering why women suffer with all this stuff all the time. Years of a period, now years of hot flashes. Blood and sweat. It’s what we’re made of.
I looked at my face, flushed from the heat, the lack of hormones, the crow’s feet deep from dehydration of traveling, the crepe like skin, hanging, and I just sort of laughed. Every year I see a photograph of myself from the previous year and I’m astonished at how young I look in the photograph. Who is that person? I say to myself.
That person we are in a photograph no longer exists. It’s quite amazing when you think of it.