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Feb. 26, 2005 This is going to sound awfully conceited to start with ... I've often wondered whether ageing is easier if you've never been pretty. Is it easier to accept the changes of your body if you've always been a bit shapeless, or overweight, or plain? Or is growing old equally hard for ugly girls? It's well known that Bette Davis was the woman who first said: "Old age ain't no place for sissies." Well, it's very true! No, I'm not quite there yet, but the signs are obvious. Let me enlighten callow youth about what awaits them. First of all: enjoy your best years! Too many of you spend time feeling sorry for yourself, bemoaning a lost love who wasn't worth your attention in the first place, or worrying about your "big bum" or "small bust" or legs or a little extra fat -- or, if male, bemoaning the lack of muscles or the inability to play football like David Beckham or attract girls like flies. Girls, boys, enjoy the precious thing you have right now: YOUTH! Once it's fled, you can never get it back. Do not squander your youth but use it wisely, and you will, perhaps, slide quite gracefully into older age. Look after your skin, not with the most expensive creams on the market, but do wash that face and rub in a night cream. Appearances count, believe me. I'd rather not go into substance abuse, but you should know NOW that cigarettes, hard liquor and drugs will play a considerable part in ageing you before your time. But this is not a beauty story. This is a story on how it feels to have your youth and beauty slipping away -- or should I say, taken away slowly? And also how it feels to be sidelined by youth or treated as if you are brainless. I am finding it damned hard, this business of growing older. Once I was pretty and naturally slender. (Be warned: it sounds conceited). I was more than pretty: long black hair with reddish glints, my face a perfect oval with white skin: somewhat like a less beautiful Audrey Hepburn. From a thin child I grew into a slender and athletic teenager. I ate like a horse and never gained an ounce. (It might have been the healthy farm foods we ate). I became used to the constant attention of men of all ages. In fact, I disliked it, because it made me very uncomfortable walking into a place and having all those eyes on me. That was me, circa 22 ... For some strange reason -- like all of youth -- I somehow believed that I cannot change. I will always be young and lovely, the girl from Ipanema who could slip into her small red bikini and walk proudly along the beach. This girl that was me then met her soulmate, married at 26, and had 2 children before she was 30. Perfect. I was thinner after the babies than before; I didn't even have "pregnancy fat". I was still the same girl I had been 10 years ago. I never even noticed, because I was used to ME, to BEING ME, wasn't I? Well, well, well! A time came when I realised that, after the two pregnancies, I really have lost my cinched-in waist ... Oh well, just wear the belts a little tighter. Fine. Then, one terrible day, I turned 40. It hit me for the first time: Joanie, you are growing .... older!! I had (premature?) grey hairs. I started using hair colour. As I didn't even own a scale, I got on to a public scale one day, the kind where you put a coin in a slot. Geeeez, louise!! What's happened?? I weighed 127 lbs! This was the heaviest I'd ever been in my life. My normal weight for years was 112 lbs. After marriage this slowly increased to 120 lbs, which was abolutely fine for my length and frame, and it stayed there. Or so I thought. Okay, to cut the long story shorter: somehow the years started getting shorter. My birthdays seemed closer together. My weight would not come down, and I found that, because I was used to a perfectly normal diet, I was unable to diet as it caused me unbearable suffering!! (My husband never minded. I did. It was my body). And so, one day, I noticed that my perfectly oval face wasn't all that perfectly oval any more. Oh, I still didn't have wrinkles; that would not have bothered me as much: I think wrinkles are overrated as a sign of age. No, no, it was much more insiduous: my face was ...ummm ... sagging a little. Losing its contours. I went into a panic. Sadly, the weight crept up too. I was, after all, no longer the girl I used to be. I was, gee, suddenly, a middle-aged lady. Genuine panic would sometimes overwhelm me at the idea. And of course you know the rest: shorter years, quicker ageing, and, worst of all, when I met youthful strangers -- salespeople for instance -- a new attitude towards me crept into their approach. A don't-care attitude, an attitude like I-no- longer-see-you-as-a-woman. I was no longer that girl from Ipanema the young men lusted after. I'd left her behind and I missed her desperately. Are there no compensations to growing older? Oh, yes, let's be grateful for small mercies! I am much, much wiser than I was at 22. I am much more empathetic towards the sick, the poor, and the really old. I was finally mature enough at age 50 to write my first book. In all honesty I confess that I have great admiration for young authors who write good books. I could not do it. I did not have the insight, the perceptiveness, the depth of thought, the experience, to write well. I needed to grow to age 50 before I could do it successfully. I also realised that my best women friends were all growing older with me: I was not alone in all this! And my husband's friends still desired me (mind you, it stayed a game, always), because THEY had grown older! And in many ways, men grow older in an uglier way than women. They grow beer tums! They start snoring! They can't wear make-up! Their hairdressers cannot do much about their thinning hair, while women generally do not have bald pates! One also reaches the age where it is okay to say "No, I cannot do that. I really do not want to." Or you can say, probably in all honesty: "No, I don't want to go out tonight. I'm tired and I'd rather watch TV or read." This is a distinct advantage of being older: I remember well all the wasted nights of my youth when I really didn't enjoy a party and would much rather have been elsewhere. I can think of many more advantages -- but I'd really rather have my youth back! Lastly, there is a favour I'd like to ask of youth -- you with the glowing complexions and wonderful bodies, YOU who think you will always be exactly that perfect. It's simple: be nice to older people. Be aware that they are often wise (not all older people are wise, granted!), sympathetic towards your woes (they've been where you are, remember). Be aware, always, that even that old lady of 90, and in a wheelchair, still wants to be thought of as a WOMAN first and an old lady last. Once upon a time she also was a lovely young thing, hard as it might be for you to believe. Treat her like one! Young men, if you treat all women like desirable young women, it will get you very far in life!! I do not mean that you should try and sweet-talk your sharp-faced boss lady or try and be friends with the neighborhood witch. I am referring to the common-or-garden older woman. Be solicitous without making her feel disabled in some way. Be polite without making her feel stupid. Remember that she might be older and chubbier than 30, 40 years ago, but she still has the same IQ, the same mind; she is still, somewhere inside, that young girl. Give her a compliment (hopefully genuine) like "Your perfume is seductive," or "You have such a twinkle in your eye!" You don't have to lie, or be falsely sweet. Just treat her like the woman she wants to be -- always. You are all going to be where I am now, even though I am not really old yet. Not in my own eyes. Perhaps the worst trick of life (or the best?) is that we never feel older than we did at 18! I don't want to be considered old and ugly and stupid. Even should I grow to be 100, I still want men (and women) to know that inside me lives a very pretty, slender girl who will always, in a sense, be 22. Let me (and all womenkind!) keep that illusion. ------------ About the author Joanie Woods: My first 6 books were written in Afrikaans, so won't be of much meaning to your readers. My first book written in English, an autobiographical non-fiction book with recipes, is due out in April 2005. I'd rather give details closer to that date. Email: gullcry@yahoo.com Tell a friend about this site! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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