Aging Gracefully - not gonna happen.

So.  When I was a young woman, in my teens, I, after careful thought, decided that when it came to be my turn to be old, I was going to age gracefully.  All the best elderly women in books did that, and as a consequence exuded charm and serene calm, and were blissfully grateful to be, and welcome to be, in the background of any story.  They didn't complain, they weren't boring, and they were amazingly poised.  That poise and charm and calm were definitely for me; I'll have some of that, yes sir.

Yes, I noticed that men did not have to age gracefully, but they needed to remain ruggedly powerful, or suave and sophisticated, or they, too, were cast into the outer darkness of icky old people being old and icky, quite possibly smelly and tedious, as well.

I've managed to avoid some pitfalls.  I didn't/don't moan about fashions showing off female anatomy in that "by god girls today are just asking for trouble" way, even if I do occasionally silently express gratitude that I don't have to adopt them.  This is a funny old-person thing - it boggles me when someone younger than me, who I *know* wore some pretty shocking things because I saw them in them, starts ranting about the latest over-exposed piece of pubescent anatomy.  If I call them on this, they fall back on the truism that it looks terrible on some girls.  Yes, it is true that the fashion doesn't suit the fleshy girls - but fashion never suits the fleshy girls, so big hairy deal.

So, that's one pitfall out of the way, but the next one got me so insidiously - "I remember when".  None of us really wants to listen to the other person's tale, whether funny, sad, or moving, and no one wants to hear about how good it was in the old days - but man, there was some fun stuff.  It's really difficult to keep a lid on it when younger people are going all retro with the old clothes in the back of the wardrobe - and I want to tell them that the only reason that unbelievably kitschy shirt is still in pristine condition is that it was never ever in style and never came out of the wardrobe after the first disasterous foray.  Maybe I'm part of the generation that sang about the loss of it then paved paradise anyway, but really some things that are now gone were really fabulous.  "I remember when" just sneaks out without any warning, even when I have identified the enemy and put a sentry out for it.  Huh.

And now we're getting into physical failure land.  I'm not as strong as I used to be, and I can't carry heavy things any more.  Internal structural wounds (knees, heels, like that) take longer to heal, and are easier to redamage.  And they hurt in a persistently whiny-two-year-old kind of way that just wears me down.

 And old age is sneaky: the things I'm prepared for (droopy breasts, crow's feet around the eyes) don't seem so bad.  The things I didn't see coming (droopy *ear*lobes?, fat stores becoming formless but gravity-possessed, raptor-talons instead of toenails), just derail me.

So, aging gracefully isn't gonna happen - at least not to this woman.  I don't want to go to old lady land and I ain't going quietly.