On Pushing 64….

🎼”Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I’m 64?” Wasn’t I just 34 like last week? How many times in your last few gatherings of family or friends, or say, in a restaurant, did you look around and think, holy crapola, am I the oldest person here?!! It’s really mind blowing. I’m that old lady, old mother, old aunt, WTH?!! Here’s the thing, when my mother was what my age is now, 63.75, I thought she was kind of, shhhh, “old”. Crazy, right?? I’m way cooler than she was, aren’t I?!! Ok, don’t answer that.
Every now and then I think about former teachers and try to figure out how old they were when I was in their class. I can guarantee they were much younger than I thought they were, which means, right now I’m much older than they were, which means, I’m old!! Shite!!!

Okay ladies, those of you who still have loads of estrogen carelessly floating around in your lovely toned bodies, enjoy it! Live with those darn monthly cramps, embrace your womanhood!! Why? And this is a warning…bcuz when that “friend” disappears, other “charms” insidiously appear!! And my dear old, now Heavenly, mother never warned me about EITHER!! Hell, if it wasn’t for that 5th grade gym class movie, “Growing up and Liking it” I’d know nuttin, honey! Here was my middle school life: 7 people, a 5 room house, 4 brothers, 0 sisters, 1 bathroom that thankfully had a hook and eye lock on it (cue brothers: smack, pound, band, rattle, rattle, get out, Kate!!!) and a mother who basically told me zippo, naddah, noTHING. She handed me a box of 40 Tampax tampons in the 5th grade and said, and I quote, “You might need these someday.” Get the picture? Thank God Lynne Carter lived up the street and didn’t mind going to the store to buy me monthly supplies! Not kidding… But I digress, back to estrogen or lack there of…. Think of estrogen as the mozz cheese on a pizza. Ever get a pizza from a new pizza joint that just doesn’t have enough mozz on it? Such a bummer. Sparse mozz, looks all dried up, unappealing, just down right sad. (You need a few beers just to choke it down.) Contrarily, ever order a pizza w/extra cheese? Moist, juicy, yummy! (One beer is plenty!) Which would you prefer? Lots of Mozz, supple, delicious, thank you!! (Ok, hope I didn’t ruin your love for mozz cheese “abeets”!)

Here’s a list, or at least my list, of those insidious “charms” created by old age and thus, Low E => 1) Beyond drier than dry skin, that has “barnacles” growing on it!! No lie, that’s what my dermatologist called the spots growing on my skin, barnacles!! (Medical term =>SK seborrheic keratosis, aka feckin Irish skin!) Boy, that’s awesome, forget the $75 cream, just get out Dad’s paint scraper! I can still see him scraping barnacles off his very old fishing boat that he named The ☘️ Leprechaun. (I think that boat with its barnacles disintegrated in the woods near our house. No lie.) 2ndly) Brittle nails. Anybody else google thin lines through fingernails?? I have. I guess I’m ok, not gonna kill me. But if they’d stop cracking, that’s be nice. 3rdly) Thinning hair,,, although I pretty sure Joe unfortunately wins that race. We might, however, have a tie for the race of hair growing in places that’s JUST NOT RIGHT! If you knew how many times I’ve looked in the mirror lately, only to have my father looking back at me, you’d be rich! Cue: my own personal nose hair clipper…5th) and lastly, for now anyway, my widening waistline!! Now in Low E’s defense, I’ve never had a waistline, seriously, straight up and down, no hourglass shape here! Now that shape is a sphere, globe, beachball, round, round, round…you get it!! I’ve finally reached that age where I’m finally thanking God for my two new best friends, Polly and Ester!

64?!! Bring it on, you don’t scare me!! (Ok, only if I stop looking in mirrors!)

8/17/23

My MIL, aka, red haired ☘️ Reggae Mama, would’ve been 100 TODAY!! Hope she’s singing, smiling and celebrating in Heaven!

XO, Katie McCrusty ☘️