Repetition

I turned 50. I'm going to say it one more time and then never again: I. Turned. FIFTY. 

Now, this particular milestone happened some time last year. I'd tell you exactly when, but it's really none of your business and beside the point.

Of course, I didn't want to talk about it even though it occupied my every waking moment.

Didn't want to admit I'd reached the youth of old age. Especially not when I had spent the bulk of my middle years cheekily telling folks I was 27.

I want to think some of them believed me. Especially since my ploy – having continued to dress as if I were still attending high school (REM t-shirt and jeans, not lace tights and black nail polish) – is still in effect however dubious it may seem.

Instagram filters and lucky lighting have helped in this deception by allowing me to selectively curate my likeness to within twenty years of my actual age.

Also having the state-sanctioned ability to carry a license featuring an image of the second-year college me helps cement the illusion.

Having successfully avoided looking directly at any mirrors, or squinting protectively so as not to see the clarity of any details distorted though they may be by any reflective surface, I have even managed to trick myself into believing I haven't aged.

Of course, I have. But if I avoid those thoughts … or let them float away within the protective bubble of contemplative meditation … I don't  have to think about fitting into anyone's idea of me, especially my own.

But lately, I've been caught off guard by this person creeping around the house inside of the mirrors.

Eeeeegad! Whoisthat?

This person, upon closer inspection, is most certainly not a teenager. Or a college student. Maybe not even late 30s?

She has crows' feet and eye bags, and those strange little spots that old people have, and hair of an indiscriminate color at its roots.

Nothing about her looks rested. In a younger person, this could be shrugged off as burning the candle at both ends. In an older person, it becomes the early signs of dottery-old-ladydom.

Is this why women start shopping at Chico's? Is this why billowy, colorful clothes exist? So we can still look ridiculous but in an age-acceptable way?

Of course, it's not all about looks; she says as she pulls the skin back from her cheeks and up into her hairline. She is inspecting the chicken skin of her throat.

Oh, Third person! You have finally arrived to allow me the space I need to get to know the new me.

"Siri: Put. Moisturizer. On. The. Shopping. List."

"OK: Put most FBI Don the shoo-in lost."

The inevitability of the erosion of my abilities – especially as a person capable of harnessing modern technology -- is already showing wear at its raggedy edges.

The fact that my eCalendar has multiple entries for all national holidays (and I can't figure out how to delete them) might be Exhibit A in this Elder Self decline. However, the youthful me is still capable of arguing the fact that I use my smart phone's calendar AT ALL is totally and completely exonerating.

So what if I repeat myself?