As Yaye and Tallulah awoke one morning from uneasy dreams...
...they found themselves transformed into sensible 40 year olds.
I hate to belabor the point -- and I do believe this is why I have been so silent, because it IS boring to go on whinging continuously about something so irreversible and inevitable and commonplace -- BUT, I must say, six months in, turning 40 still SUCKS!
It still sucks even when the 24-year-old working at the desk next to me tells me I don't look a day over 31. I mean, Jehovah bless her (she's a Witness), but she couldn't even throw me the whole bone and say I look 30? I should be grateful, I know. But no matter how useful those extra howevermany pounds are for keeping my face from sagging and pruning, my going-on-41 womb is nevertheless on final rinse and heading for the spin cycle. The multiplying grey canNOT pass for highlights, now matter how much I try to delude myself. The ass is getting softer. The ankles are retaining fluid with alarming frequency.
Today there was a package on my front doorstep when I returned home from my part-time temp job in Satan's Lair -- I mean, at the pharmaceutical company. The parcel contained a black and tan dress-suit thingy. The kind of dress-suit thingy that is made from a nice synthetic blend that requires no ironing, hangs on generous curves with forgiving flounce, and comes with tiny little pads that don't widen, but merely square off the roundness of shoulders deprived of barbell use. It's lovely. It's from Coldwater Creek.
I received unsolicited Coldwater Creek catalogs in the mail for years, and while I admired the earth-mother-meets-lunching-lady aesthetic of their collection of jackets, tunics, slacks, and dress-suit thingies, I would smugly place my clothing orders for flowing skirts and lacy bras with J.Jill and Victoria's Secret, and think to meself, "Someday, when I am middle-aged, I will order clothes from Coldwater Creek."
I was right.
Labels: 40, aging, coldwater creek, whinging, whining