Growing old

Lately, I’ve been thinking about growing old. Perhaps because July is my birthday month and as soon as the first of the month appears, I turn restless, even critical of what I’ve become.

It’s easy to critique the body: after all, it’s all there. Every morning, I notice the lines on my face beginning to deepen. I always presumed my laugh lines would appear first just based on how big my laugh is. Apparently, it’s not size that determines such things but frequency. And so the lines by my eyes reveal that I frequently squint, or blink or, I guess, dodge what is in front of me. It is not crinkling I do most, or worrying. Avoiding, I think, is what I do.

Blue veins have appeared on the terrain of my face, traveling from the side of my face all the way to my nose, like teeny, tiny footprints. I like thinking of the face this way — as a map of all that it has traveled. It doesn’t look pretty, truth be told, but it looks interesting. I could, of course, research why they’ve come out but I tend to just trace the lines on my face, seeing how they connect and wondering if the thinness of my epidermis is a sign that I’ve become less thick-skinned, literally. How easily I hurt as I’ve gotten older. I thought the reverse would be true but it almost looks as if that fragile teenager has returned. Heavens! Even the pimples have returned!

My lips and I continue to be allies. I think half my face is made up of my thick lips. In all kinds of magazines, the “experts” warn older women to stay away from reds, pinks and corals. Better a slightly subdued face, they advise. Bright colors will highlight imperfections, they claim. But I am dead without brightness  (on the days I follow the experts and go “nude” or “natural” I am asked if I am not feeling well!) and suspect more that it is brightness that blinds all imperfections. Whose voice is it that guides my hand in the mornings? A faceless, careless voice that tells me perfection is the secret to life. But I am no longer in my 20s, and my internal voice so much stronger than anyone else’s in my head. “No, that’s not true,” I can answer back. “I think, more than anything, it is imperfection that I like; that I am attracted to. Imperfection is interesting.”

And then there’s all that lovely middle age spread — the tummy that never goes away. It is now my most reliable best friend, the one remaining thing that has promised to stay with me forever. My belly is now an appendage, a protruding mass of fat that spills over the treasures below it. No amount of running or discipline is enough to get rid of its loyalty to me. I remember an argument my mother and I used to have all the time. I realize now that I am at that age when she would claim that having two pieces of pan de sal in the morning would cause her to bloat. How exaggerated she was, I’d tell her. “How melodramatic, Ma!” I would exclaim. Well, apparently, she was right. Two pieces of pan de sal for breakfast is never a good idea.

In my college classes, we sometimes play a game I call “What I Am Not.” The rules of the game are very simple: you come dressed as someone you can never, ever be. I haven’t played the game in a long time and can no longer remember what poem or short story would accompany this exercise but I remember how much fun it was, and most importantly, how liberating.

One student came as a fireman, another as a flight attendant. There was one in doctor’s scrubs, while another came as a lawyer, her father’s law books resting on her arm. Each student had to enunciate what they would never be, and it began to sound like a chant, a mantra, until it was no longer just professions or jobs but qualities or life choices. “I will never be cynical.” “I will never compromise.” “I will not be corrupt.” “I won’t ever be afraid to fall in love.” “I won’t be afraid of happiness.” “I won’t compromise my dreams.”

I remember their young faces and thought of all the doors open for them at the time, as they were all just beginning. What a big thing to admit to — jobs that they would never take — and how much greater to commit to things they would never be. At the time it seemed all so romantic and you could see all of life’s possibilities in the energy of young, young souls.

From where I am, it seems like the list of things I can never be has simply grown longer. Like a production line, the things I could have been, closely linked to the person I could have been, have passed me by. There was a moment when I could still be dangerous and grab something new or different and perhaps be a new whole other being. But the production line of choices has passed me by. I am in some other part of the process.

My hands pass over my face and I wonder to myself how crazy I was to have ever thought I could be a model! There I was at 17, mouthing the lines of Jaclyn Smith as she modeled makeup. And there I was at 23 thinking I could be in the corporate world. There I was at 35 attempting to quit teaching to become… heavens, what else could I be?

The doors that have closed — which, for some time, could still open — somehow are now firmly closed. Some of them have closed by choice. And others, others closed for me. Part of aging is accepting that the finality of the closed door is a wonderful thing. I can no longer be a lounge singer. Don’t fight me on this one. It can never be.

Suddenly, I remember the poem that accompanies this game I play with my students. It is by Langston Hughes and goes this way:

“Harlem”

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up

Like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore –

And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over –

Like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags

Like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

Imagine all your unchosens in a bag. What would you like to do with them? I imagine myself planting them near my house and I am certain I will water and prune them with love. And I imagine that they will yield a beautiful, beautiful tree, and this tree will have fruit and I will eat this fruit from where I am. And all that I am will mix with all that I am not, and there will be a kind of wholeness, more awkward than peaceful. But it will be complete. I will be complete.

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You may reach me at rcbolipata@gmail.com.