It’s a shocking thing to realise that you are no longer young.
I was browsing through a website today and reading about an up-and-coming singer who looked and sounded so much like me that I almost thought it was me until I realised that she was more than a decade my junior and she actually cited me as an influence from when she was a child.
Let me tell you, it wasn’t flattering. It made me feel like an old fart, a has-been, and I was torn between rushing off to purchase my burial plot and jump in now (swift and tidy death) or go on tour supporting Rick Springfield on his cruise ship (even while it’s afloat, you can sink no lower).
Until I had children I was able to fool myself that I was part of the zeitgeist, long after I really was (I was, wasn’t I?). And for the longest time, though I have to admit that was quite a while ago now, I was often the youngest person doing whatever it was I was doing: I went to school early; left it relatively young; managed, unbelievably, to purchase a large, ramshackle house in London during the last economic recession at a ridiculously youthful age, and we don’t often speak about the reckless, rock ‘n’ roll starter marriage which occurred at roughly the same time. I should point out that the starter divorce occurred fairly soon afterwards so that I was not only the first to get hitched, but also the very first divorcee in my social group. Very sophisticated, or even jaded, you might say for a girl barely past her teens.
Anyway, I flitted on, trying new things, being young and fabulous, or even a bit older, but still young for what I was doing and definitely still very fabulous, darling, if a little unstable and possibly heading for a collision course with bad moment of reckoning with my reflection and the sorry quality of my chosen consorts. Goodness me! That was a long sentence to read, and it was rather a longer sentence to live, now that I think about it – I was most certainly getting a bit anxious about the lack of reasonable marital prospects.
Then I met Husband and blah blah blah, here we are.
I managed, we managed, during our courtship and early marriage, to persuade ourselves that while we weren’t very young, we were definitely not old. We were in middle youth, that period where you still wear cool clothes, go to nightclubs, and buy music that has not been played to death on the radio already, yet you find yourself going to dinner parties where people have matching sets of plates and napkins and talking about the great wine they drank on holiday the year before. You feel the chill of the winds of time down the back of your neck but you brush it off with a slight shiver and pretend it wasn’t there as you laugh loudly and tell a funny story about your own bacchantic triumphs. Later as you undress in front of the mirror, you look anxiously for the signs of age upon your face, but you have accidentally on purpose dimmed the light so you can’t really seem them.
This can go on for a number of years.
The little hand on the clock of your perception remains firmly pointing to ‘youthful’.
Then you have children.
It’s all over.
It’s not really that the kids see you as old – of course they see you, and everyone who is bigger than them as grownup in one giant ageless lump. It’s that once you are a parent, everyone sees you as suddenly much older. Even I do! I find myself handing out advice to people with a sort of superior air on all types of subjects that I know absolutely nothing about because I am somehow automatically endowed with age and wisdom because I popped a sprog or two. What is really peculiar is that people seem to take me seriously and listen with grave expressions and assurances that they will follow my counsel. On a side note, I read the other day there are folks out there called ‘Parenting Coaches’ who get paid enormous sums of money to tell other parents what to do.
Damn! I do that for free!
I need to get in on that game.
Anyway, back to the age thing.
I had a horrible shock while we were in Africa when I was out with an older relative and the little ones:
We were at the Durban Botanical Gardens, idling along in the sunshine being observed by a small group of Zulu men who were taking some shade under a wide, leafy tree. After a while, one of them approached me:
They had been wondering, was I One’s mother or grandmother?
I was most put out and set them straight.
“Really?” they said, disbelievingly.
Then they asked if my 82 year old, white haired, walking-with-a-stick Uncle was my husband.
I explained the relationship and they seemed somewhat appeased although I was very agitated for quite some time. Later my aunt laughingly explained to me that, for them, a mother is a person of around 15 or 16 – so someone of my age is absolutely the norm for granny. My Uncle was rather chuffed at being mistaken for my husband, said he always knew he had a dance in him yet, so at least it was a good day for one old buffer. For me it was a bummer, though.
Sort of cancelled out being carded buying liquor last year.
In some ways I’m in better physical shape than I ever was; I exercise a lot, eat well..
No, that’s a lie, actually I hardly eat at all because I don’t have any bloody time and this is very good for the figure. However, Botox is looking more like something insurance should cover on the grounds of psychological wellbeing rather than an interesting cosmetic option. My once perfect stomach is fine if I stand still, but if I twist the wrong way the skin does something unpleasant and I find myself researching odd procedures to make it more like the skin on my.. Oh. I can’t think of a place. I’d rather just have the whole lot replaced from head to toe. Even though I don’t approve of plastic surgery. Do you think that if you do some kind of cosmetic restoration but you don’t tell anyone then it doesn’t count? Like eating chocolate standing up in the kitchen late at night isn’t really breaking your diet?
The ageing aspect of parenthood is much more than the oft-mentioned physical toll, however. There is some kind of subtle mental passing of the torch on to the next generation.
Something about putting their needs before yours and dreaming dreams for them, not for yourself.
I spent so many (SO MANY, let’s not count them, it’s cruel) years pleasing nobody but myself. I had thousands of dreams and ambitions, plans and hopes. I achieved some, failed at others and encountered things I could not have imagined along the way. Even at my lowest points, and there were plenty, believe me, I was still mistress of my own destiny and accountable to no-one. It was an extended youth. I felt young and free because I decided that was what I wanted to be, and who was there to tell me otherwise?
But now, I’m mother. Mummy. Putter on of socks, kisser of hurt knees, provider of explanations, server of hot meals, unraveler of mysteries, enforcer of bedtimes, chaser of small boys who try to climb over fences into dangerous territory.
I am guardian of their souls, gardener of their dreams, keeper of their safety, agent of their imaginations.
It’s a big responsibility. I don’t take it lightly.
They say that the president of the USA will age 10 years for every 4 years he/she spends in office. Some people say that parents also age at an accelerated rate, and that may be true, I only have a few years’ experience.
However, I am coming to think that in my polarising, Gen X way, I may have mistaken not being young for being old, and I am trying to blame this on the kids.
Really, though, all they have done is removed my ability to pretend I’m still young and carefree.
They just weren’t there before to tell me otherwise.