I just walked by a mirror and my grandmother's face stared out at me. I don't know when she got here. If I'm not looking in a mirror, I'm sure I'm still a thirty-year-old hot red-head. Okay, maybe not hot. But warm!
My sisters, you may recall, got the dominant genes in our family: dark hair, tall, straight noses, etc. In fact, they were really quite beautiful. One modeled and was often compared to the young Elizabeth Taylor. My sisters looked like each other. I looked like the red-headed step-child. I was red-headed anyway.
My own, sweet husband, who to this day insists that he fell in love with me the first time he saw me, (here is where you say "Awww.") said, when he met my sisters "Wow, your sisters are gorgeous." And later---wait for it, wait for it---"You don't look a thing like your sisters."
But, here is the payoff: If you never looked like Elizabeth Taylor (not that one, the young one, smarty pants!) it doesn't startle you as much when you begin to age. My sisters are still taking forever to carefully get dressed, do their hair and apply their make-up (and they are still looking fabulous!) before they leave the house. I can get out quick. I am the only one of us who has grey hair and it saves all kinds of time and money. Make-up? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. But when my sister and I went out to eat and she didn't get the Senior Discount because she didn't look old enough (she was) and they gave it to me without asking ( I wasn't), I didn't turn it down.
I can't tell you how many times little kids have seen me from across a room and started running toward me, yelling "Grandma!" Sometimes they stop when they get close enough to see I'm not the grandma they were expecting, but other times they come all the way to me with their arms held high to be picked up. So I pick them up. I get lots of hugs that way.
When you look like everybody's grandma people hold doors for you, they let you go first in lines and sometimes they even get up and give you a seat if you are in a crowded waiting room. They offer to carry things for you and hold doors open till you get there. And don't forget about the Senior Discount. I get it legitimately now. If I forget to comb my hair now and then, people make allowances. I don't drive at night anymore so if I don't want to go someplace I have a good excuse. And when I do drive someplace, as long as I have Dennis with me, I get to park up close, in the handicap space.
At first it seemed strange when I went to a new doctor and he was younger than me, or I got stopped by a policeman who looked about half my age. Now, I have one son who's a doctor and one who's a cop, so I'm more used to it but I'm still pretty sure I know more than they do anyway.
Since I had my mastectomy I have had to make regular visits to a plastic surgeon's office for treatments. I have to admit that I study closely the other people in the waiting room. There are some that I'm positive are there to consult about, or are in the midst of, face lifts and all kinds of surgeries to make themselves look younger. Not me. These wrinkles are hard-earned and every one of them has a memory behind it. I like to think the more lines on my face the more lines in my brain. Those people don't know what they'll be missing.
I'm staying away from the full-length mirror though.
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