What Happens When You’re Not Cute Any More?

Originally published on Nov. 13, 2014

By my birthday, in May, I will be ready to publish a book. (wishful thinking)  Yes, it is written and now it will be done.  Write it down or say it out loud to someone else and it is binding to your word.  It is a promise to yourself that you will keep.  It is a goal that you have set before you.  A goal that you will achieve for yourself.

Maybe a book on goal setting and how to do that and get your shit together.  How I have managed to do it all these years.  People are always asking how do you do it?  How do you get everything done with everything you do and with kids, etc.?  Maybe I should write about having nothing and doing it all.  LOL, It could be a bestseller.  How I went from welfare to board rooms.  How I went from the hood to conference calls with Washington.  Maybe, I’ll have lots of ideas and after this month is done, I will take what I have learned and I will apply it and I will finish a book and be ready to publish by my birthday.

My birthday.  I will be 49.  My last year in my forties.  Wow, I am almost fifty, AARP age.  Where have all the years gone?  What have I done with this life I have been given? What have I contributed to this world?  What has been made better because I am on this earth in this lifetime?  Who will miss me when I am gone?  It’s sad to think that one day I will be gone from this life and on to a new one and all these people will continue to be here without me.  Making myself cry.  This fucking menopause is kicking my ass.  I have got to figure out how to deal with this aging thing.  I am having a really hard time dealing with it.

When you are a woman who has relied a lot on your looks and then you age, you lose your figure, things droop and fall. It kind of leaves you trying to figure out how to survive.  If you are used to getting things because you are cute or pretty and that fades then what?  What are you supposed to do now?  Yes I know brains, and I have them, but cuteness always won out over brains for me.  If I couldn’t get what I wanted with my brain all I had to do was smile and bat my eyes or make a little pouty face and I would get what I wanted.  Now what?  Now how do I get men to do what I want?  How do I get ahead, get a tire changed, get to cut in line, etc.  Now what?

It’s really hard to look in the mirror these days.  I see my grandmother and not my face looking back at me.  Even when I have on full makeup up I see my grandmother.  It’s scary looking my mortality straight in the face.  So I avoid mirrors.  Most days I don’t look in the mirror at all.  Crazy for a girl who spent hours in front of a mirror getting hair and make-up perfect before venturing outside just to check the mail.  Getting old isn’t for sissies they say and I believe it.  It takes a lot just to heft all this saggy, flappy, stuff around every day and not lose your mind.  Ugh to be young and know what I know now.  I wouldn’t change a thing but I would appreciate it so much more.  I would savor the times He looked at me with tears in his eyes because he was so in love with me.  I would even savor the times I walked down the street and guys whistled and yelled at me.  Even that time I caused a wreck at the stop light because the guy was too busy looking at me.  Wow, to have that body now, I would have the world on a string and lots of money in the bank.  No problem with being a trophy wife if the money was right.  Youth is wasted on the young they say and I believe it.  It truly is.  Once you get old enough to appreciate things you can’t even get around to do those things anymore.  Hike while you still can, yes indeed. Yes indeed.