I was cranky yesterday. It was a fat day. Even though I weighed the same amount of weight that I did the day before and today, I still felt enormous and was irritatingly aware of the way my clothes felt and the space I took up. Rob wasn’t helpful “Not much I can do about that,” he said, but he was at least superficially sympathetic. (Not sympathetic at all, he corrected me with a shrug when he first read this. The man will just not let me harbor any illusions.) Men don’t have fat days. They lament the loss of strength, hair, stamina and skill (and not necessarily in that order), but they never think they are fat. Of course, men aren’t held to the same standards that even old women like me are and with reason. I can’t count the number of times I have seen couples together where the women are so much more visibly aged than the men. But, yesterday I felt fat. And it made me cranky. And the reason it did was that, like the Toby Keith song, “I ain’t as good as I once was.”

I can’t get by on little or no sleep anymore. It takes longer to get back into passable physical shape. I like evenings on the couch (well, okay that doesn’t really count as I have always enjoyed a good snuggle and anything else it might lead to, but you get what I mean, I’m sure) more than nights out sometimes. I am finding myself listening to oldies from my junior high and high school days more and more, and I don’t even count those days as the best of my life because fat, (drunk for some) and stupid is no way to go through life. I am not pleased by the wrinkling I see, or the grays that my new hair stylist needlessly pointed out by way of explaining why he needed to over-lighten my bangs. Not to put too fine a point on it ……I’m old! When did this happen? And why didn’t I notice it before now? Maybe I could have done something about it?

And it’s not just me. Rob was a bit morose last evening too (not about me having a fat day. He thinks that whole idea is ridiculous), but because he spent quite nearly the whole day working on a reno project to find himself not done when dusk arrived, and worse, not inclined to drag out the spot lights and work into the night to finish it up. He would have once. Back in a not really that long ago day. When he was young….ger.

Old. Alright, alright….middle-aged, but this forty is the new thirty thing is just boomer nonsense. When I look at photos of famous women, who I know are older than I am, I don’t see well-preserved. I see women who are older than I am and lucky to have good make-up, better lighting and a photographer with a great photoshop program. 

I am not sure what it is. My child starting kindergarten when most people my age are celebrating empty nests or the fact that my 25th high school reunion is around the corner and I have been getting in touch with old friends. Old ones. People I have known now for twenty plus years. My friend Lisa and I go back to fifth grade. That’s more than thirty years ago. Relationships outside your original immediate family and relations that you can measure in decade increments is humbling. And it really adds to that whole “Damn, I’m old!” thing.

But, I feel better about my wizening today. After all, many people still misjudge my true age by a good five or more years in the direction of thirty-something. I am actually thinner than I was before my child was born. A note-worthy achievement because, and most women know this to be true, your stomach is never the same again. I am not ignorant of current music and cultural. No time warp here. I don’t need reading glasses. Really. My optometrist says so. And most important of all, my husband thinks I have a great bum. What more could a forty-ish woman want or need?