Susan Senator

It’s difficult to get it right when you’re getting on in years. I am not complaining about all the wonderful attention I got yesterday; but I find it interesting to see how so many of my birthday wishes were about my unfortunate age (44) — either it was a joke about kind of getting old, or it was a joke about my being eternally 29, 35, whatever. I have never lied about my age, but I understand why people do. I think that for women, especially, there is almost no place to stand as you age. There’s no way to get it right, because our culture puts such a premium on youth — meaning, being in your twenties or even teens. I buy into it, of course, in my desire to stay slim, my pursuit of the latest fashion, my despair over every new wrinkle in my face. Seriously.

I don’t think I’m shallow, but I do admit to spending a little time every week wondering what I’m going to do, what will it be like, when I really start to “show my age.” I am a product of my culture. I have talked about this in therapy. I think showing my age will be a grieving process, a loss, or some kind of transition. Unless I start to “fight” it artifically. First, with diet, workout, haircolor, spa pamperings, and in-style clothing. (But I get exhausted thinking about how I’ll have to torque up my workout as my metabolism worsens, and depressed with I realize how this will all deplete my checkbook, too. Not to mention the time involved with all of it.) Then comes the question: how much further are you willing to go to turn back or stop the clock? All my friends talk about it. Are we or aren’t we? Some of them have already had things “done.” I think about Botox, I think about surgery for my eyes. I won’t do it, because it is dangerous and expensive. Ned is philosophically opposed to it, too. But then I feel that sense of loss, imagining what it will be like to look in the mirror and have my face no longer be what I have always seen. Even though, obviously, my face has changed since my twenties, it hasn’t worsened. But I believe there will come a time when I will feel like it has. Already there are days when I sigh and say to myself, “Scarlet, you done had three children.” I look at girls in their twenties and I can’t believe how soft and smooth and babylike their skin is! Did I once have that, too? Did I even appreciate it? No, I was caught up in feeling too fat or stupid or like an alien among earthlings (because of my perpetual sense of alienation, or — dare I say it — my own dusting of ASD).

Ned tells me that I’ll never feel like I’ve worsened from time, he says it will always be good, and feel right, and make sense, because it will always be me. I don’t agree (yet). But he says, “Look at your mom. Isn’t she beautiful?” And I say, “Yeah, and she doesn’t even wear any makeup! What’s with her?” My mother, who is 67, (and I don’t think minds telling people, at least I hope not), has only two concessions to age: she colors her hair, and she keeps her body extremely slim through careful diet and exercise. Mom raised me not to be vain. When she caught me looking in the mirror, she’d say, “Quit it!” But I’d keep doing it — guiltily. She would not let me have pierced ears (she relented when I was 10, much to my delight), or wear makeup until I was 13. She never let me wear the high-fashion stuff because she said it was “ridiculous” for girls to dress like much older women, or tsotskellahs. These days, so many parents don’t seem to mind if their little girls look like miniature fashion models, with hiphuggers and platform shoes! But should I judge them? I’m an old lady wearing that shit!

I am not where Ned is (or where Mom is) in terms of being in touch with what beauty really is. My ideal is far more stringent, much more attuned to what the fashion magazines say. Even if I were to stop reading them, I would know, because I see how young women dress/look and I get a sense from them what the current fashion is.

Current modes are also found on television, of course. I remember realizing, after watching Friends, that the fashion had changed in terms of how women’s arms are supposed to look. Courteney Cox had very thin, ropey, muscular arms and I was shocked at the time. My own arms were so much more doughy. I started to notice other celebrities’ arms, sinewy and strangely male, though thin, and I was disgusted. Now, my own arms are a lot more toned, though they will never by that skinny because my body can’t be that skinny. I have too much Eastern European genetic material to be that skinny.

To be honest, I am happy with my age probably only because I feel like I’ve done everything I can, fairly naturally, to look and feel my best. It is a slippery slope, and I feel like I’ve already begun the descent. I am hoping that in time I will acquire the wisdom to know how to apply the brakes without injuring myself.