Age has a way of sneaking up on you. One day you're 21 getting ready to graduate from college and the next you're 47 and playing with Barbie dolls with your six year old granddaughter. How did this happen?
I remember the first signs of it when one day, my husband who is 10 years older than I am, noted that our medicine cabinet looked like an "old persons" medicine cabinet and most of it was his stuff! He was 45, I was 35. I laughed and patted him on the shoulder and said not to worry, I'd take care of him no matter how feeble he became. This did not make him feel better about the situation. Me, I felt fine.
Flash forward a year to age 36. I am now wearing "sensible" shoes. One year in Michigan and I'm suddenly wearing "flats." I used to wear four or five inch heels. I'm five feet tall and need all the help I can get. Hmm....that whole Billy Crystal "It's better to look good than to feel good" thing from Saturday Night Live was no longer applicable. Along with sensible shoes came elastic waist bands in my shorts. I wouldn't have been caught dead in those a few years ago! The signs were starting to show up with me. This wasn't so funny any more.
Flash forward four years to age 40. I'm looking at myself in the mirror and I notice gray hairs. What??? I had one gray hair. Just one. I've had it since I was about 16 and there was always this one. I claim it happened during Driver Education when I was frightened out of my mind by one of my friends who nearly ran us into a ditch before we even left the school campus. But I digress.....My jet black hair was now showing some gray. I brushed my hair back and saw more!!! What happened? Hmm...well, it looks okay if I wear my hair back in a pony tail. For some reason it gives me that Mike Wallace effect. You know, the one where he slicks his hair back and until he was like 80 you couldn't tell he had any gray hair at all. Great! Problem fixed. I can manage this growing old stuff.
Flash forward a year. At age 41, my stepson and his fiancee had their first daughter. I was a grandma. "Oh you're going to be the new Grandma B!" my husband proclaimed. His mother had passed away earlier that year and so I was now Grandma B. Not funny. My husband and stepson thought it was hysterical. Fortunately, I'm actually Grandma Marsha. Somehow the whole Grandma B thing didn't take. My mother-in-law will be the reigning Grandma B until my daughter-in-law becomes eligible to be the next Grandma B. LOL Now that I find funny.
Flash forward two years to age 43. One day, I'm out shopping and I go to buy some new underwear. I'd been wearing bikini panties since I was in high school. Couldn't stand the idea of "briefs" or "granny panties." I was in a hurry so I grabbed what I thought were bikini panties (the old Hanes or Fruit of the Loom variety) and continued on shopping, checked out, got home and put groceries away and then the other things I had bought. I never noticed the underwear. I only noticed when I was doing laundry. I ripped open the bag and threw the underwear into the washing machine and as I did, I noticed they were "briefs" not "bikinis." Great, I bought "granny panties." Normally I would have given them to my mother who wore granny panties. However, mom was now incontinent and used Depends. Great. I can't return them cause I opened them and now they were being washed. Oh well, they found their way into my drawer and stayed there for a few months. I purchased more appropriate underwear and didn't think of granny panties for a while. Then, one day after a week and a half of not having time to do laundry, I ran out of my bikini underwear and found myself having to use granny panties. Ugh, I thought but hey, you gotta do what you gotta do. To my surprise they were actually quite comfortable. Since I no longer wear things that would show my tummy or those "hip hugger" style pants, it didn't bother me quite as much either. Next thing I know, I'm wearing these granny panties and buying more. The bikinis got rotated out of circulation as they wore out. I'm now officially a granny anyway, right? Sure, why not. It works for me.
Flash forward to age 47 - last weekend to be exact. I was looking through old photos and noticed one from when I was about 25 or 26. Wow. How young I looked in my tight fitting jeans with zippers all over the place, a low cut red top and my 5 inch "Barbie shoes." My manicured nails and my jet black hair with NO gray hair and my adorable stepson who was just a child and still shorter than me.
I showed this photo to my six year old granddaughter and said "See, grandma and your addy when we lived in Hawaii."
She took the photo looked at it looked at me with a very puzzled look on her face. "That's you and daddy?"
"Yep, when we lived in Hawaii," I said.
She looked at the photo again and looked at me and said, "Wow, grandma, what happened to you?"
For a moment my life flashed before my eyes. I went from being a twenty-something wearing tight jeans, sexy blouses, high heels, bikini underwear (definitely more sexy than the Hanes variety) and jet black hair to loose fitting clothing, flat sensible shoes, jet black hair peppered with gray and GRANNY PANTIES!!!
My granddaughter, who is a darling little girl, realized maybe she said something wrong. "But you look pretty now, too...." she said with a little more emphasis than necessary.
That snapped me out of it and I laughed. "Thanks, sweetie, I think I look okay now, too."
She smiled and gave me a hug and we put the pictures away and went to get some ice cream.
Despite the changes, I am so happy to be 47. I wouldn't trade it for anything. With age comes wisdom and the knowledge that life is too short to be running around in jeans that I can't breathe in if I eat anything, shoes that make my feet hurt, blouses that I worry about falling out of and underwear that was no where near as comfortable as my granny panties. As for the gray hair? You can see it now even with the "Mike Wallace" effect but I'm a grandmother and darn proud of it.
Youth is wasted on the young and from my perspective, it's highly over rated. I'm more comfortable in my skin. That young girl in that picture was probably one who could turn heads and garner her fair share of male attention but she wasn't as comfortable or happy about herself as I am today. My husband and I have been together for 23 years and I've got a wonderful young stepson who is married to a wonderful girl and they've got three beautiful daughters who bring joy into my life every day.
I enjoy being forty-something and am looking forward to fifty.
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Comments: 37
I'm not a grandma yet. February 2007 so only time will tell...
Don Kobes, 71
FYI - There is a group called Memoir that would be great for this article. I believe Birdie is the owner of that one and I just found it today and joined.
Nice attitude you have on life and being a grandma!
And I'm 30. *laughing*
Yet, I enjoyed this article a great deal because you truly are shining. I admire your confidence, and how you really feel comfortable with the person you are today.
But personally, I don't think 47 is the same today as when our moms and grandmas were our age. I don't know, maybe it's just wishful thinking, but I don't consider us to be "old".
And I am not a grandma yet (at least I don't think so!), and I'm not ready to be one. While I have two girls in their 20's, I'm still busy running around with my own 8-yr old son, which often keeps me hanging with the younger moms.
Anyway, happy belated birthday -- and welcome to the club!
Bonnie S., thanks for the heads up about the Memoirs group. I will definitely check it out.
Senobia, you are a lot better adjusted at your age than I was when I was your age. :-)
Kathryn, thanks for the recommendations. I'll check them out but I gotta say, granny panties have really grown on me. LOL
Bonnie L., yes 47 is definitely not the same today as it was back when my parents were 47.
Crazy, the older you get, the faster time flies. Someone once said her mother at age 90 something said, "Breakfast comes around every 15 minutes at this age."
Birdie, I feel like I'm still 21 in my mind though occasionally the body does remind me I'm not. ;-)
Rhonda, I went to a Judas Preist concert a short while ago with my stepson because I had free passes. You're never too old to rock. :-)
3-0 was my milestone birthday, the one that saw me panicked. Now, however, I am looking forward to 50 as 49 has been the best year ever ;)
Chances were her hair was out of a bottle too but usually pink, purple, or blue. OH MY how times have changed.
My opinion: Buying a swimsuit with a "skirt". That's the real tell tale sign of being "old"!
You are lucky to go gray slowly. I've had a ton of white (they don't have a silver or gray color at all, so I don't say gray) hairs since my early 20s. Not sure how I'm going to handle that as I get older, but my grandma still dies her hair at 88!