Middle age: The Goat Years

I remember vividly a conversation I had some years ago with a co-worker who had just turned 40.  This woman, a gorgeous, dark-haired femme fatale of Greek or Spanish ancestry, maybe a mixture, told me in no uncertain terms that when a woman hit 40 their body would start to go bad faster than potato salad on a hot day.
     She'd just had her birthday and was now 41 and apparently in that 12 month period between celebrations things had started to go horribly wrong.  Nothing life-threatening, mind you, just the kind of things that one takes for granted: strong bones, low cholesterol, endless energy, stomach of iron, non-wobbly arms, etc.
     Apparently she was grappling with all of the above in one degree or another, which was unfortunate because she was the designated looker in our office, wearing very high heels and tight skirts, glossy hair tumbling down prettily, tossed occasionally as she passed the worker-bees in their cubicles.  I think she had taken for granted her special place on the pyramid of wannabes and it was a shock to realize that she was.....human.
     I nodded sympathetically when she came into my office with her dire warnings about aging.  But what she didn't know was that I was actually a couple of years older than her (not that it was any of her business) and I didn't have any of the aforementioned maladies that had suddenly descended on her.  But then again, I am more of a Pippi Longstocking, than a Kate Middleton and everyone knows (especially Pippi) that red pigtails are the secret to longevity and good health.
    What I wasn't to know at that point was that certain things were beginning to happen as estrogen flees, as it does for all of us now that supplements are strictly forbidden, and over time, oh so slowly, they began to manifest.
     So what am I confessing?
     I have great blood pressure, no cholesterol, heart problems or the like.  So far I have the same energy my much younger friends have who, like me, have hoisted babies, run after toddlers, and now must have the brain superpower to solve our elementary school children's advanced algebra problems and outwit them in every-increasing games of 'but why?"
    When I began this blog eight years ago I was, like actress Nia Vardolos of My Big Fat Greek Wedding, the mother of an adopted child and an Instant Parent (the title of Nia's new book).  And for a while there I was floundering, alone without much help and parents who were far away both geographically and from the memory of other grandchildren who were already growing up into scientists and engineers.  Being an older mother did give me new lease on life and may have staved off some of the reckoning that comes with... well...getting older.
    However, I have discovered some weird things that make me believe the human organism is very odd indeed.  Take facial hair.  My mother has always had peach fuzz, and like mine, is delicate, very blond, and almost invisible except if you put me under a strong light and stare.  But at some point my mother's peach fuzz started to mix genders and went from quaintly feminine to alarmingly and pointedly masculine.  The field was invaded by some random DNA from a Victorian uncle with stiff whiskers and bushy eyebrows. Some of the blighters are long enough to point out the directions on a compass.  And quite effectively too.
     My mother has macular degeneration, which she has successfully staved off for more than a decade to lead a fairly normal life, but she cannot read anymore and she certainly can't see the whiskers either.  It's kind of a yin/yang thing because what she doesn't notice, she doesn't care about.  But even with good eyesight they're trickly little devils, like weeds they find innocuous places to crop up and can be hard to detect.
    Which brings me to my face and the peach fuzz I inherited, along with a host of very good genes from both sides.  Although I have no idea what happened to the skirted beauty who once flowed through our office as if on a chariot of good luck and hope she has found balance, I do know that she was right about one or two things.  Or six or seven.  I now find myself regularly feeling my face like a hairsuit man who needs to shave before dinner, rubbing my hand along the contour of my chin feeling for the stubble that yes, inevitably comes back every week.  My mother warned me never to pluck because she said they would come back stronger than ever.  Oh, the things my mother warned me about that I completely ignored!  Aside from bushier and bushier eyebrows which I trim with the precision of a Japanese bonsai fanatic, I now sport a billygoat chinny-chin-chin and naught can be done about it.
    I suppose I could spend a pot of money and have the offenders electrolyzed permanently but then what fun would that be?  I've come to like them.  Maybe I'll give them names.  They do remind me that I've been damn lucky to have had not much else to complain about in what is becoming an increasingly longer life.
    My father has always said I'm a glass half-full kind of person.  Let's just hope I never have to put my teeth in it.