by Maria Ragan

Created on: November 15, 2008

AAAP has been stalking me this entire year. Say AAAP a few times really fast. It even sounds like a bloodhound on your heels. I finally gave in and signed up. I also discovered at fifty I could join the local senior center here in Bend. It is funny, when I was in my twenties and thirties I used to look inside "old" people's carts in the grocery stores. It was amazing that in nearly every cart was half and half and shredded wheat or raisin bran. I kind of get it now. We need the fiber and to wash it down we splurge on something that sounds rich and nutritionally illegal. I think I am still in denial to some point about my age. I still pause at the glittery teenage eye-shadow and think it might magically turn me into a ten that can fill in for a "Dirty Dancing" double, but even my feet are getting older. I never had to deal with a callous before. Why buy sandpaper when my feet have pilled my entire electric blanket. Then, I get an email tonight, "Your teeth are aging too" Is there no mercy? I have four older coffee buddies. We have met for coffee for the past ten years. I have noticed something very scary. When these gals get up from a sitting position after a couple hours of chit-chat. They pass gas. It isn't just one, but the entire crew. I told my oldest son of my dismal destiny. I told him if I blow the shofar of toots to take me out in the woods and shoot me. Please.

Acid reflus, sleep apnea, to stop urinating or to start. How many colors of pills can we manage to ingest in one sitting? I guess the thing that bothers me the worst is my thinning hair. I bet I have spent three-hundred dollars this year looking for a little poof. I know God is good, but how could He take what is on top of my head and then tease me with a mid-life mustache. I see women about my age with hair in the weirdest places. I don't know if my best friend would tell me that I have an upper lip shadow. I told her if she would tell me, tactfully, I would buy her lunch. But, just in case,I have upped my lightbulb wattage in the bathroom. If hair dye causes brain damage like some of these natural health practioners say, then I am in deep trouble. I would have almost black hair to begin with and either I pay to have the white out, or risk being romanced by that neurotic and carnal natured skunk I used to watch on Saturday morning cartoons. Which brings me to later life sexuality.

What was God thinking? I finally don't have to worry about pregnancy and my partner is tired. My nerves aren't frazzled by periods, pre-schoolers and pleas from the PTA and he turns over and snores. I have raging hormones and menopausal night sweats and he says, " Not tonight honey, my back hurts" The best part about it is I forget about it all,the next day. In fact, I am forgetting alot of things. I rememer my mother calling everything a "whatchamacallit" Bring me the whatchamacallit over there on the whatchamacallit. She was serious . I was supposed to fetch like a golden retriever and decifer her muted language. Now, I finally get it. I was a mid-life baby. I swore I would have all my children before I was thirty.

Then the grandkids. An African told me once that we should of had our grandkids first before our kids. I think I believe him. The things that bugged me that my kids did, give me a peaceful pleasure I can't explain when parroted by my two grandsons. Shoot grandma in the rear with silly string, it only takes a moment for that stuff to dry and sweep up. They tell me amazing things like "Grandma you feel squishy on your back too" but they still love me. So, I guess I will age well and laugh at the future, even though I accidently wrote my address in the TO: space. Not many people ever write a letter to theirself.It is all relative.

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