I used to be pretty…..

I love my memories of being young and staying out all night and dancing with friends. Those were the days when I could just pick up anything off the floor and it would easily fit. Sometimes it was even clean. Regardless, everything and anything looked great in my twenties.

Not that I knew that then; I never looked in the mirror and saw “fantastic”. I always had an eye on what could be better. I focused on the flaws. They say that youth is wasted on the young. I get that.

That’s not to say I didn’t have moments of feeling fabulous. I did. I loved the freedom of being able to experiment with different styles. I just wish my friends had told me that wearing headscarves like the Premier’s wife wasn’t necessarily my best look but even if they had shared that little fashion tip, I’m not sure I would have cared.

And that’s the point. I miss so many elements of being young and not caring. The magical time in life where anything was possible and transformation was easy and effortless. Red lipstick and black leather skirts one week, short shorts with a striped t and pink lipstick the next. Style and fashion were not finite, it was interchangeable with moods, imagination and a sense of self-expression based on a whisper of a whim.

It wasn’t just the experimentation of shirts, pants, skirts and lipstick, there was also the freedom to experiment with life on all levels. School, work, personal interactions, life concepts, social conduct and social construct. It was a time of developing a sense of self and it was fun to feel so free.

I miss who I was.

Forest Gump said that life is like a box of chocolates. No Forest, it’s not. Life is like ice cream left out to melt. A slow sense of sinking, a softening that slowly turns to mush.

I used to be pretty. Cars would stop when I crossed the street. I could talk my way out of a speeding ticket and always get help when I felt the need to ask. I flirted my way through my first thirty plus years. It was nice and definitely easier than where I am now.

Now I get called “ma’am”. Oh how I hate that. When it first started to happen, I looked for my mother. The “ma’am” led to “can I help you carry your groceries?” F U sonny, I’ve been carrying the weight of a family for twenty years so I think I can handle four litres of milk and a bag of potatoes. I don’t like being thought of as “less than”. Not yet. It’s still too soon.

This getting older comes with a sense of “settling” and that’s not just my chest finding a soft spot to rest on my belly. It’s a constant state of compromise for many different reasons. It’s in the workplace, volunteer realm, family and certainly how long I get in the bathroom. I also settle for “less” of myself in order to give “more” to those around me. When I was dancing on speakers, I had centre stage of my life without a care in the world. Now I wrestle with how to escape the confines of the consequences of settling and wonder how to stretch out for more.

The “settling” makes me feel frumpy and tad bit dumpy. I laughed when I recently watched an episode of The Crown on Netflix. Queen Elizabeth was re-playing clips of her youth including her 1954 tour to Australia when she was a young woman. Her husband Prince Phillip walks in and says:

PP: “look at all those crowds coming to see their beautiful new queen”

Queen: “now she’s old and dumpy and they want to get rid of her”

PP: “not old and dumpy; experienced and mature”

The Queen rolls her eyes. I’m with you Liz. “Experienced and mature” is a terrible consolation prize.

I think about the phrase “aging gracefully”. Why is this term seemingly focused on women and not men? Aging gracefully seems like another terrible passage that women must navigate and endure. Honest to god, haven’t we done enough? From twelve years old, we avoided wearing white pants once a month. We packed MIDOL into every bag to ensure that we didn’t inadvertently kill anyone that might piss us off. We would grind our teeth through period pain yet smile outwardly and carry on. I’m telling you, if men experienced any part of our journey, they would have fallen to floor, crashed through the glass ceiling and crawled into bed, never to be seen again.

For some, the next stage was motherhood. Lovely if you can bear it. I personally never found joy in leaking from every orifice but took it in stride. After three children, I should be an expert at stretching like an elastic band only I fear that I have finally snapped.

There was a brief reprieve in my 40’s. Freedom from diapers and packing lunches not to mention growing out of classroom festivities that required artistic talents that I certainly didn’t possess. I could leave the house without needing to remember the children and for a while, I reclaimed a part of me. It was a good stretch of time until it was over.

Suddenly I grew hot at a moment’s notice. I couldn’t sleep and although I had never been able to keep track of my children, the brain fog was so bad that name tags would have been helpful.

These changes were and are mortifying. While I could hide not being able to sleep, there was no hiding the arrival of 15 extra pounds and feeling a sense of shame. I was not who I wanted to be.

I used to be pretty. I used to feel free. I used to be someone that danced in the wind and twirled with abandon. I was the ocean and now I’m a pond.

Age gracefully. I’m not sure I know how to do it. I look to see how other women are managing. How they do it? How do they dress, behave, interact and adjust? They seem poised whereas I feel in peril. Recently my mother sent me a pair of grey cords with an elastic waist. I would be indignant if they weren’t so damn comfy.

I am determined to master this next stage and quick. I am haunted by the fact that in 8 short years, I will be 60. I don’t want to arrive at that doorway wearing grey cords and sensible shoes. I want to be sexy and sixty and rocking out a pair of jeans and a fabulous blouse. I’m hoping I can finesse the “french tuck” . This will take work as there is a good chance I won’t look french but frazzled; like someone who just forgot the full tuck as I rushed from the loo.

I want to have awesome hair and and a grounded sense of self that is kind, compassionate and confident. I want to sit in meetings and give meaningful input based on years of lived experience that matters. I want to know that I leaned in and had success with projects that had positive impact. I want to have that sense of grace that comes from running a hard race called life and being able to rejoice that I survived the moments where I thought I would quit. I want my memories to give me joy. I want to look forward with optimism and backwards with gratitude. I want to once again twirl with abandon and feel like the ocean.

Maybe the “settling” is actually an important part of the transition. This isn’t easy and I feel it’s even harder under the stormy clouds of COVID. It’s been eight months since I have felt that I have see the sun. I’m feeling an ache. The ache of sadness, of loss and often a deep despair that comes from floundering and having to constantly adapt and change. I mourn what was and I hope to God we can all arrive alive. This COVID world is crazy and creating so much chaos and confusion that it feels impossible to set the compass. These feelings are also tinged with a simmering rage that must constantly be quelled and replaced with a narrative of “be calm and be kind”. I just want my feet to touch the ground and find a path that has certainty.

I know. This sounds like self pity which is kind of true. I can’t blame aging on everything. I do have some sense of responsibility moving forward. I could start with saying “just one” instead of “just one more”. The problem is that I am craving the “more” to offset the feeling of “less”.

I used to be pretty but I also used to wear stupid scarves. To be young is to be pretty and as we move through ages and stages, we change and so must our descriptives of self. I am not pretty but I could stretch to attractive. I can land on confident and strong and celebrate that I am not afraid to speak out. When I was “pretty”, it was easy but lazy. Batting an eye didn’t require me to weigh in on what mattered. I allowed lipstick and blush to speak more loudly instead of me. I liked the easy path; until I tripped and met real life while face down. Those first hurts bruise, bleed and leave scars. But all battle wounds have a story and no good story exists without a struggle. I would like to be further into my story with the major obstacles behind me allowing me to ride into the sunset. Alas, that is not my path. I am not a short story, rather and extended version of War and Peace.

Today I write this because I am so DONE with COVID. The first few months were manageable and I welcomed the downtime to try and reinvent myself. Who knew that self-transformation would take this long and I am still not sure that there is an end in sight. I am envious of all those who have successfully used COVID to learn to meditate, take up yoga, change careers, reach a goal, tighten a belt by a notch or embrace new beginnings. I feel that I’ve stayed stuck in the same spot no matter how fast I have tried to moved my feet.

And maybe I am stuck in the same spot to learn the right lesson. I am not pretty but I am competent. I can choose to mourn my past or cherish the memories. If I stayed young, I wouldn’t know the deep connection that comes from being married, the total immersion of falling in love with each of our babies or come to understood that through pain and loss comes rebirth and new beginnings. If I stayed young, I wouldn’t have friendships that have spanned over 40 years, I wouldn’t know women who could say “I see you and you matter”. I wouldn’t be seen for what I have become, I would be landlocked in the beginning without depth or journey.

Maybe, just maybe, Forest was right after all. Maybe life is a box of chocolates and we don’t know what we might get. Yes, there are moments of pain, passages of hardship and the mortification of aging but with all that come deep friendships, rich connections and experiences that might finally allow me to settle into a real sense of self. Life is not easy. I’m a bit chagrined that I thought it would be. Silly really given that all the good bits come from falling apart. What kind of lived story is interesting if it always works out?

I’m not sure if anyone feels the same but if you are feeling adrift and COVID confused, you are not alone. I share your yearning for things to be easier and more certain but maybe we have to hold on just a wee bit more. By giving our all, maybe we can rise and shine with the sun and feel like the ocean while we twirl with abandon.

Here’s to doing hard things, believing in happy endings and celebrating the moments that matter that make us more than we thought.

With love,