Just Thinking

I signed in today, and looked at my profile there on the right side of the page. Most of it is still true, especially the part about being married to the love of my life. But I'm kind of wondering, at what point do the mid-50s end, and I have to say I'm in my late 50s? Of course, resorting to "ladies never tell," I guess I don't have to broadcast my age at all, do I? But somehow, I feel that if I'm trying to express who I am in this blog, the age thing makes it all make more sense.

The fact that I have adult children, for example. They are real adults, not just-barely adults. When I was my son's age, I was dealing with three small children, building a house, and the passing of my father. I knew then I was an honest-to-goodness grown-up. My youngest daughter is thinking of buying a house. I worry about my baby getting into a huge financial commitment at her age - and then realize that when I was her age, I had purchased a bigger, better family home for the second time.

And what about looking our age? (Let's forget the acting our age part of it!) As a child, I loved to watch my mother put on her make-up and fix her hair. I know how little make-up she used, yet what a dramatic impact it had on her appearance. These days, we put on layers and layers of things, and we highlight, and we feather, and we line and smudge and who knows what else? It takes me twice as long to put on three times as much make-up, and look like I'm wearing half the amount my mother did. And don't you think that those red lips and darkened eyebrows made the young women look so much older? Look at this photo of Lolo:

(Consider this partial fulfillment of my promise to post more glamorous photos of her...) She was a beautiful woman, wasn't she? Look at that smile, and note that late-40s glamour make-up. This woman is only 18 years old in this photo! Beautiful...

Lest I seem hung up on age (I know I mentioned it with the fun new shoes post), I'm not. What I am is *intrigued* by it, or at least intrigued by MY age. I am astonished to realize where I am in my life, how quickly I got here, and I think of how wise and respectable I expected to be at this point in my life. I think it's amazing. I'm in my late middle 50s. I want to walk around, take people by the arm and say "Can you believe I'm almost 5X years old??" However, complete strangers might not find that as astonishing as I do.

So, through all this meandering, I did manage to fulfill a promise of posting pretty pictures of my mother. I should probably do the same for my dad, no? Hmmm...should I have incorporated his name into my blog title? He had a nickname or two...

PS - We "elfed" ourselves. Look here: http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1583635410