Didn't My Skin Used to Fit?

by Martha Bolton

  So there we were celebrating the Fourth of July in style. No, we wouldn’t be seeing the Blue Angels in a flyby (although there were a couple of wasps inside that were putting on quite a show). There wouldn’t be a marching band or rockets going off or even sparklers. It was just the two of us with a pocketful of quarters and five loads of laundry needing to be done.

  Now that I look back on it, it was a pretty enjoyable evening. We actually got to see some of the fireworks through the reflections in the washing machine portholes, and my husband found a quarter behind one of the chairs. As Yakov Smirnoff would say, ‘‘What a country!’’

  YOU KNOW YOU’RE

  GETTING OLD WHEN . . .

  you start buying Geritol by the six-pack.

  16

  Thanks for the Memory . . . Loss

  Memory is another thing that dulls with age. But more importantly, memory is another thing that dulls with age. As you grow older, you’ll find yourself repeating things and forgetting where you put your glasses, your car keys, your checkbook . . . your teeth. I heard of one older gentleman who looked all over the house for his dentures. He finally found them hours later when he sat down on his sofa. Imagine explaining that one to the emergency room team: ‘‘I don’t care if it is physically impossible, doctor, I’m telling you the truth. The bite was self-inflicted.’’

  We all know the negatives about losing our memory, but believe it or not, there are some positives. For one thing, think of all the new cars you get to drive home.

  ‘‘Whaddya mean we don’t own a Lexus, honey? It was parked in the same parking space I distinctly remember parking in. It’s got to be our car!’’

  One night you get to drive home a Lexus, the next night a Suburban, the next night a BMW convertible. For some reason, though, if you find a Yugo parked in your spot, your memory usually comes back to you.

  Another plus to memory loss is the fact that there always seems to be more money in your checkbook than there should be. That’s because you don’t remember to record amounts written and to whom. I’m still working off the deposits I made six months ago. I think I’ve spent the same money five or six times. Maybe that’s why my bank keeps sending me all those letters . . . and here all this time I thought they were just being neighborly!

  There are other good things about losing your memory. When your memory goes, your Christmas list gets cut in half. ‘‘How many kids did you say we had again?’’

  And without a good memory, you only have to mail in your taxes every other April 15 or whenever you happen to remember you’ve got an Uncle Sam. That alone should take some of the sting out of aging.

  You even start visiting your neighbors more often. Of course, it’s because you think that’s where you live, but they don’t know that. They might, however, get a little suspicious when an entire season passes before you say you need to go home.

  It hasn’t been proven yet, but I’m fairly certain our memory cells die faster with physical exertion. They must. Think about it: How many times have you walked into a room to get something only to stand there looking around wondering what it was you went into the room to get?

  I think it’s the walking that does it. If you would have stayed in your chair just thinking about getting up to get whatever it was you needed to get up and get, you would have remembered what it was you were going to get up and get in the first place.

  Memory cells die off while using the telephone, too. Has this ever happened to you? You dial a number, then completely forget who it is you’re calling. You don’t hang up, of course, because you’re sure you’ll remember who you called the minute you hear the voice on the other end of the line. Unfortunately, though, a six-year-old answers, and you’re still clueless. The kid doesn’t help you out, either, when you ask him who his parents are because he’s been taught not to talk to strangers. So you simply pretend to have dialed the wrong number, until the six-year-old finally recognizes your voice and says, ‘‘Grandpa!’’

  What I don’t get is why our memory has to go on the blink at a time when we’re given so much to remember. Our doctors tell us to take three of one pill four times a day, four of another pill three times a day, and one of yet another every ten hours for twelve days. How are we supposed to remember all that? Why can’t they just put all our medications into one giant capsule that’s set to release the proper dosage at the proper time? Sure, they make those little containers marked Sunday, Monday, Tuesday . . . but what good are they if you don’t know what day it is?

  Then there are all those other numbers we have to memorize nowadays: our bank account number, our driver’s license number, our Social Security number, the PIN numbers for twelve credit cards, our previous three addresses, our age, and our frequent-flyer account numbers. I don’t know why we can’t be assigned one number for all of it and stay with that for the rest of our lives. Like twenty-five. I’d be happy to keep the number twenty-five for my PIN, my phone card number, and my permanent age.

  Long-term memory doesn’t seem to be as big a problem as short-term memory. While we may not be able to remember what we said to someone five minutes ago, we can clearly recall the hurtful comment our spouse made back in 1984, what he was wearing at the time, and the barometric pressure that day. Some people call that selective memory. Maybe it is. Maybe as we grow older we get better and better at selective memory. We remember in vivid detail those few things that brought us pain, while forgetting the hundreds of blessings that come our way every day.

  I think we’ve got it backward.

  None are as old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.

  —Henry David Thoreau

  17

  You Don’t Bring Me Flowers Anymore

  It happens over a period of time, a change so slow you hardly notice it. First, it’s your birthday gift. Instead of getting that cute little nightie with the embroidered hearts, you open the gift bag and discover a lovely pair of flannel pajamas, complete with feet. You tell your husband you love them, and to a certain extent, it’s true.

  You appreciate the fact that the pajamas will keep you warm when he sets the thermostat to twenty degrees (minus-four degrees wind chill factor with the ceiling fan). But flannel pajamas, no matter how well crafted, could mean more than toasty warmth on those chilly summer nights. They could be a warning sign that something has changed in your relationship—not a serious change, just a notable one.

  Christmas gifts are affected next. Maybe you get an egg poacher instead of those marcasite earrings you had your heart set on. Or maybe it’s an industrial-size container of Spray ’n’ Wash instead of the perfume you wanted.

  Anniversary presents are the last to change. Instead of pearls, it’s plumbing supplies; a makeup kit is replaced with oven cleaner; and that romantic weekend getaway you’ve been hinting about for months has become a pass for an all-night bowling session.

  When these gift changes start to happen in a relationship, there’s no denying it—you have a problem. It’s called practicality. Now on the surface there’s nothing wrong with practicality. After all, why buy your sweetheart a box of chocolates when you really need a new toilet plunger? And with roses costing up to seventy-five dollars a dozen, why waste that kind of money when you can rent a carpet shampooer for half the price?

  If we’re not careful, by the time we reach middle age the romance in our lives can be virtually nonexistent. We can become too comfortable with our spouse, taking him or her so much for granted that we stop doing those little things that are so necessary to keep love alive. We can easily fall into the trap of never paying attention to our loved ones until they walk in front of the TV while we’re watching our favorite show or tie up the telephone when we’re expecting a call.

  Think about it—when was the last time you went for a walk with your husband? (Helping him take out the garbage doesn’t count.) Did the last note you left on the dresser tell him you love him or was it a reminder to pay the electric bill? And husbands, when was the last time you broug
ht your wife flowers, besides that packet of seeds you gave her to plant last spring?

  The good news is your romance doesn’t have to grow cold. You may not be the young starry-eyed couple you used to be, but you’re still a couple. Some of the most romantic couples I’ve seen are in their seventies and eighties.

  There’s something wonderful that develops between a man and a woman who have survived all the storms of life together. They can celebrate their fortieth, fiftieth, or even their seventy-fifth wedding anniversary and look back on a good marriage— no marriage is perfect—to which they have stayed true. Their disagreements taught them how to compromise, and through their disappointments they learned to appreciate the good times. Instead of growing out of marriage, they persevered and grew in it.

  To endure is the first thing a child ought to learn, and that which he will have the most need to know.

  —Jean-Jacques Rousseau

  18

  Regrets

  One of my favorite songs is George Burns’ ‘‘I Wish I Were Eighteen Again.’’ It’s the kind of song that makes you feel good and sad at the same time. (‘‘You’re the Reason Our Kids Are Ugly’’ does that, too, but in a different way.)

  Whether you’ve just turned forty or you’re nudging one hundred, by now you’ve no doubt accumulated your share of regrets. When you look back on your life, there are things you’d do differently if you were eighteen again. Or twenty-five. Or thirty. You know the things you wish you had done but didn’t and the things you wish you hadn’t done but did. There are people you’d like to have spent more time with and a few with whom you might regret having spent so much time. There are places you wish you had visited and a few you might wish you had skipped.

  Maybe you regret having taken so many risks. Maybe you wish you had taken more. Now that you see the bigger picture, you wish you hadn’t wasted so much time worrying, because what you worried about never came about and the difficulties you did face never could have been imagined.

  If you could do it all over again, maybe you’d want to make more money, save more money, or give more away. Maybe you’d have the same friends; maybe you’d choose different ones. You’d surely trust some people more because you can see now that they are trustworthy and you’d trust some people less because of your experience with them. Maybe this time around you wouldn’t treat each day as cavalierly as you have in the past.

  As much as we’d like to do a better job the second time around, the truth is this is it. Whatever regrets we have now are going to go with us into eternity unless we take steps now to change them.

  I have regrets I need to deal with.

  I regret the time I spent waiting for the other person to call when I had the power to pick up the phone myself.

  I regret not verbalizing my opinions instead of verbalizing my frustration with not being able to verbalize my opinions.

  I regret not keeping more journals. I had plenty of blank books but usually forgot to write in them. Journals are not meant to remain blank. A blank journal gives the impression you’ve had a blank life. Nobody leads a blank life. Even if it feels blank some days, it’s really not. If you woke up on Wednesday morning, May 14, that’s noteworthy. If you didn’t wake up, you wouldn’t be able to write that in your journal; in fact, it’s the only viable excuse for not writing in your journal.

  I regret not trying out all the recipes I tore out of magazines. What was I saving them for?

  I regret the time I wasted wishing I had more time.

  I regret not standing up to the bullies who crossed my path. It takes a lot of courage to confront a bully. That courage never came easy for me.

  What I don’t regret is the time I’ve spent with my family and friends. I don’t regret anything I’ve ever done that might in some small way have had an eternal significance in someone else’s life. And I don’t regret dedicating my life to God at the age of six and the fact that I am still trying my best to honor that commitment today at age . . . well, you know, somewhere over forty.

  We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give.

  —Winston Churchill

  19

  The Gravity of the Situation

  I doubt if I’ll ever forget it. It was one of those images that burn in your memory like a scene from a low-budget horror film. I couldn’t sleep for days, and if I’ve ever been certain of anything, I’m certain of this: I never want to see it again.

  It was early in the morning, an ordinary day—nothing much planned except a business meeting I had to attend in about an hour.

  I curled my hair with my curling iron just as I do every morning, then began to brush it out. Having read somewhere that brushing your hair upside down gives it more body, I decided to give it a try. Fat hair should be everyone’s goal in life, right? So I bent over and brushed . . . and brushed . . . and brushed. I could feel my hair thickening with each stroke. Not being able to resist the temptation, I turned my head to the side and peeked at the mirror. I caught a glimpse of my hefty hair in all of its glory all right, but I also saw something else. I hadn’t bargained for this. It was a complete shock. To this day it sends shivers up and down my spine.

  What the ‘‘Ambassador of Obese Hair’’ forgot to mention about upside-down brushing was the fact that a woman over the age of forty should never look at herself in the mirror with her head down. If you’re over forty and you bend over, all forty years bend with you, believe me. Gravity kicks in, and every fold of skin that has ever thought about becoming a wrinkle suddenly gets its wish. Your hair may look great, but your face looks like Methuselah’s mother on her second week without sleep—during allergy season.

  This is why when an older movie star is interviewed she tilts her head back in an unnatural position. Notice this the next time you see one on a talk show. Her head is tipped back so far you could give her a sinus exam. No doubt she’s had the experience I had the day I bent over and then looked in the mirror. Stephen King may have gotten his inspiration for his last three novels after doing this himself.

  I don’t recall this phenomenon occurring when I was younger. I could bend over and tie a shoe, bend over and scratch my leg, bend over and take the dishes out of the dishwasher, and my skin stayed pretty much in place. I’m sure I could look at myself in the mirror upside down or right side up and know beyond a shadow of a doubt who I was.

  But the person I saw that day was someone else entirely. Someone who looked about fifty years older and a lot scarier than the right-side-up version. Thus, I’ve decided to stick with my anorexic hair.

  I suppose it has something to do with the law of gravity. Gravity affects our whole body, skin included, and there’s not much we can do about it. Areas that used to hold their own now seem to be falling faster than the stock market after an interest hike. Gravity affects men and women alike. It strikes people of every race, creed, and regional setting. You may be a northerner, but by the time you hit middle age, your body will be heading south.

  For all its negative effects on the body, though, gravity does have its advantages. For one thing, it’s what keeps us from floating off into outer space. And since there aren’t any outlet stores on Mars, that’s a good thing.

  I can’t retire. Who’d support my mom and dad?

  —George Burns

  20

  All Grown Up

  I distinctly remember the last Christmas my mother gave me a doll. Being a junior-higher, I considered myself much too grown up for dolls. Dolls were for little girls, not young adults. I tried to act pleased but I was more embarrassed than pleased. Couldn’t Mom have given me something more appropriate to my age? Something more mature? Something like a nice sweater, a daily planner, or maybe even a pair of high heels?

  After all, I had just turned thirteen. Thirteen. How much more grown up could I get? It was time for me to put away childish things, to move from Barbie to Bach, or at least to rock. I was growing up and needed grown-up gifts. I didn’t play with dolls anymore. I hadn�
�t played with dolls in several weeks, at least. Hadn’t Mom noticed that?

  I was a young adult. I wanted to be included in adult conversations about news events. I knew who the president of our country was, and I was part of the working class—I had a job babysitting twice a month. I was certain I could hold my own on any adult topic. I had even been watching TV like an adult. No more cartoons except on Saturdays and after school three or four times a week. Instead, I was tuning in to shows like Meet the Press and 60 Minutes. You won’t hear a single ‘‘Yabba-dabba-do’’ or ‘‘Th-th-that’s all, folks!’’ on either of these award-winning programs. (OK, maybe between takes, but that’s different.)

  I was dressing like an adult, too. Instead of cut-off jeans and a T-shirt, I was wearing more sophisticated attire—skirts, blouses, and formal T-shirts. I was changing right before Mom’s eyes, yet had she picked up on even one of the signals? Apparently not.

  So there I was—holding the newly unwrapped doll in my lap and trying desperately to release the words ‘‘Thank you’’ from my lips. When I finally did, it wasn’t very convincing.

  Don’t get me wrong. I realize many perfectly well adjusted adults still have dolls, and that’s fine—for them. I have a lot of my dolls on display in my home, too. But at this particular point in my life I was trying desperately to be accepted into the adult world, and Mom’s gift set all my efforts back an eternity, or at least a couple of years. All I wanted was to be treated as the intellectual, deep-thinking thirteen-year-old I was so certain I had become.