A Flick of the Pen

The moment you realize you’re old. It comes for all of us.

For me, it started when I asked the twenty-something hostess for plastic cutlery to go with my take-out. She met my gaze with a blank stare.

“Cutlery?” I repeated.

Still, she looked confused.

“A fork and knife?” I mimed eating.

“Ah! Yes!” she said, offering me a sealed packet of plastic cutlery.

I must have sounded as extravagant as the upstairs elite.

It makes me uneasy that my primary care physician is younger than me. Not because I fear she lacks adequate experience, but simply because my doctor isn’t supposed to be younger than me.

It looks like a chess match is under way in my medicine cabinet there are so many bottles of supplements and prescriptions. Mammograms and colonoscopies are suddenly a thing. My knees creak. I’ve got a turkey wattle forming under my chin. The flesh where my biceps should be swings back and forth when I use a hair dryer. Where did that extra skin come from?

All I can do is try to take these realities in stride just as I must when my three-year-old tells me I look like a dinosaur and my husband tells me my hair smells like a goat.