Wednesday, February 14, 2018

Teary Eyes and Crepey Skin (A Valentine's Day Post)

*After I initially posted this piece I realized that it was almost kind of appropriate for the holiday!

I don't know for sure when I understood the principle that old people are just young people whose skin has gone and shriveled up on them, but I am so intrigued by the concept. I cannot help but look at random teary eyed, crepey skinned old folks and see a young person with their whole lives ahead of them. I try not to stare too long, but I want to stare as long as it takes to grasp the reality that I'm looking at someone that played in the dirt, learned to ride a bike, served in the military, tried out new recipes, felt new attraction and fell in love. I never feel like I have enough time to really let it sink in, it's always just out of reach.

I've had a few experiences in the last little while that are stark reminders that my time for teary eyes and crepey skin is coming. I joined a basketball team a couple months ago. I've spent almost 20 years remembering how much I loved basketball as a teenager and young adult. I just wanted to have a chance to play again, so in a moment of irrational courageous midlife crisis I found an adult women's league, paid my $50 and waited for the season to start. I will write about my days as a chubby, middle aged, Mormon-mom-of-8-basketball player in a post all its own where I can really do it justice, but for now, suffice it to say that I was the proverbial black sheep on the team made up of much younger, much more in shape specimens. I felt old the first day I practiced with them, but I became comfortable and in essence forgot that there was a 20 year age gap with some of them.

During one practice the girls on my team decided that we should invite the young men, off shooting hoops in a nearby court, to come play full court b-ball with us. I played for all I was worth. I was so focused, so intense. I was having the time of my life for about 5 minutes at which point, having wet myself, just a wee bit, about 3 times (I hadn't transitioned to the idea of adult diapers yet), I could no longer breathe or raise my arms. I took myself out before I passed out. There was a girl there on the sidelines, darling and young, with long blond locks and a tiny waist, that was attached to this group of men somehow. I used to be very shy, but as a more mature woman I have grown out of this and so I struck up a conversation. It was then that the force of reality hit me, almost enough to wet myself again. Every last one of those boys on the court was 18. For all intents and purposes they could have been my daughter's friends. As the realization of my comparative antiquity dawned on me, it was as if my graying hair and arthritic knee started laughing. "Hahahahahah!!! You forgot you were OLD!!! HAHAHAHA!!!"

This morning I had an altogether different experience, but one that has kept me thinking all morning about aging bodies. I was driving Leah to school just after 9 so she could have the pancake breakfast offered by a teacher there in honor of late late start. (I remember when I used to get excited about pancakes, back in the olden days.) We were still in our neighborhood, which is a slightly sketchy part of town that is full of stray dogs and feral cats, when I noticed a darling white dog standing in the middle of my side of the road. Leah, fearing for the dogs life, while I was looking at it going 15 mph, said with much anxiety, "MOM! DON'T RUN OVER THE DOG!" I explained to her that part of my obligation as a licensed driver was to look straight ahead as I drove. I slowed down expecting the little white dog, with the floppy pigtail-like ears and innocent expression, to run when I got close. No. The dog just stared at me and then back at the object of her devotion, the Century Link guy. Now, I knew that the dog did not belong to the guy pulling equipment out of his work van but I looked at him anyway. Leah was chuckling, I was smiling and dumbfounded that a dog wouldn't run from the sight of a large  approaching vehicle, and the worker guy was trying to ignore the cute little dog. Eventually realizing that it was up to him to unstop the small traffic jam (another car had approached in the other lane), the Century Link guy tried to shoo the little doting doggie away from him back across the street where she came from. It was then that I saw this initially generic worker guy's face. Oooohhhh! Girl! He was ca-UTE!!!  He was tall, dark and handsome. Throw in the floppy eared puppy and the crooked embarrassed grin on the maintenance man's face and my heart reacted involuntary! It was as if the page from a calendar had come to life in front of my very eyes! ...It was like watching the Budweiser commercial from the Super Bowl ads on YouTube! I drove past the puppy who was still ignoring the danger, but was at least scooted enough that I wouldn't run over her. My heart was all aflutter and, chuckling, I glanced in the rearview mirror to see what my hair looked like. Dramatically I said to Leah,"he was cute!" She said, "what! The man or the dog?" Haha! Both!

I don't know about you, but I have a lot of conversations with myself. I once read on the internet (so it must be right) that it was a sure sign of intelligence. That made me feel a whole lot better about myself. The conversation I had with Erica this morning, as I drove from the scene of the unexpected heart palpitations, was this, "Erica! You are a 42 year old happily married woman with 8 kids! You stop that right now!" It was very effective, but I did start thinking about "cougars." Isn't "cougar" the term people use in reference to older women who are with a much, much younger man? Hmm, I get it now.

*Confession- I have no idea what gender the dog was.☺

No comments: