May was the one-year anniversary of that unfortunate time when I cut my hair very short. My reasoning was simple: I was going to let my hair finally go grey and by cutting my hair short I would hasten the process and then I would live happily ever after joining the ranks of my fellow grey hairs.
Well, it didn’t go quite as planned. I lasted about a month. I couldn’t stand it. I’d look in the mirror and shudder. I marched to the salon with a plan. I’d have the stylist highlight the grey areas and make them blend in.
Bad idea. My sad, brittle hair just broke off. I did the only rational thing I could: I cut my hair shorter. Now I have to live out the rest of my life with the knowledge that somewhere there’s a Patagonia yearbook with a picture of me with the worst haircut in history. This was all because I was about to turn 48.
Well, here we are again on the eve of my 49th birthday and one thing is for sure: I won’t be cutting my hair. Instead, I will be trying to ease into the fact that very soon I’ll be 50.
Thanks to a friend and all of social media, every time my knee hurts, I think I’m in full-blown menopause. (Men, it’s ok if you stop reading.)
Now I’m nervous all the time. Is my body giving out on me? Should I be taking calcium? Will the wrinkles start to accelerate? The grey hair seems so much less important.
By coincidence, I happen to hang with an older crowd. My closest friends are 20 and even 30 years older than me. Call me an old soul but I tend to have more in common with people of a certain age. I enjoy their candor and experience. I especially enjoy when they say, “You’re too young to remember this” when they are about to tell a story about a time and a place.
There’s lots of bonuses to having older friends. For instance, at Passover seders I always get to find the matzah.
Many of my friends drink expensive booze and claim the liquor they sip after dinner is for their digestion while they crunch on boxes of Tates cookies. None of my friends are on a self-imposed diet, so there’s always dessert after every meal and they’ve all learned their lessons about talking about politics.
I’ve learned a lot from my friends about what it’s like to be in that stage of life and it kind of gives me peace. They talk about death openly and joke about their impending futures in the great beyond.
Recently, while playing tiles, the subject came up about how, in about ten years, I was going to have to make new friends. It was suggested that I need to start making new friends now. Based on the age difference between me and my current friends I either need to find a group of cool 18-year-olds and be the older friend or find another group of 78-year-olds every ten years.
None of these scenarios seem likely. For now, I’ll embrace my coming birthday and look forward to the time I have left with my older friends, even though I’d like to think they’ll live forever.
I’m still not willing to go grey. For some reason I’m just not ready, but I’ll take the wrinkles and knee aches.
Time really does fly after a certain age and, before you know it, your childhood gets further and further away. That’s why I think I like to hang out with older people—they can hold a conversation about the things that matter to me. They remember Hee Haw, Burt Reynolds and the 1970s.
Most importantly they will remind me that on some occasions I’m still too young to remember, and to a gal that’s nearing 50, that’s really important.
Cassina Farley can be contacted at cassinaandzachfarley@msn.com