AGING GRACEFULLY...NOT

It's official.

As of today, I am not aging gracefully.

It is not that I am refusing to grow older with vim, vigor, vitality and majestic, flexible energy...it's just that it has become painfully obvious -- and I do mean, painfully -- that I can't age gracefully.

It just is no longer an option.

Not that it ever was, but all the beauty product advertisers had me convinced that I had every opportunity to, if not avoid the aging process, at least slow it down a tad.

Goodness Gracious, I have tried every gimmicky anti-aging/anti-wrinkle lotion/potion/cream known to womankind, and yet, just a few moments ago, I caught myself putting the garlic salt away in the fridge instead of the spice cupboard.

Yup.

Truth is, ain't no Oil of Olay gonna change the fact that I cannot remember shittake mushrooms these days.

Gah.

Furthermore, every part and parcel of my 56-year-old body aches from sun up to sun down. Especially after schlepping groceries all day.

And I cannot hear anything with my left ear.

Oy.

I am sure the cold, dreary, winter Iowa weather plays a part in the fact that I shuffle and moan for the first 20 minutes of each morning as I try to a)get out of bed; b) remember what day it is; and c)figure out why I shuffled and moaned my way to the fridge as I stand and stare blankly at the cat food can for what seems like an hour before the light bulb in my tired, old brain flips on.

"The cats!  Feed the cats!"

And it's really no better later at work after I think I am awake.

Granted, after two cups of coffee, and two hours of painstakingly showering, futzing with my hair, and slathering on a lengthy, layered concoction of alleged age defying concealers, I gaze into the living room mirror (the soft lighting is kinder there than under the bright, anything-but-beguiling bathroom spotlights) and think I look no older than 50...maybe even 48 on a really good day. 

But the fact that I proceed to hand back $39 in change to a customer when the change is only 39 cents, and charge some poor woman $4,011 for bananas because I pushed "4011 enter" instead of "4011 PLU" on the cash register, tells me I am 56 going on 86.

In fact, I know 86-year-old women who are much sharper and with-it, and got it goin' on in a myriad of gracefully aging ways.

I will, apparently, never be one of them.

Well, that's my "ARGHGHGHGHGH, I AM GETTING OLD FAST -- AND IT AIN'T PRETTY" rant for today. Time to pop a couple of Aleve, touch up the under-eye concealer...maybe rub in a little Neutrogena Healthy Skin Anti-Wrinkle Cream Original Formula SPF 15 (A Retinol Facial Treatment With Vitamins) on my flabby turkey neck, and smear a little lip gloss on my  (unlike my post-menopausal hips) thinning-never-to-be plump-again lips.

Not that I am bitter, mind you.

Just old.

Nevertheless, I am spritzing some Hello, Darling  perfume from Victoria's Secret over my soon-to-be-smelling-like-broasted-chicken sweatshirt and jeans before dashing, er, meandering, off to work.

After all, an old, arthritic gal like me can still dream.

I just can't remember the dream.