By Patricia McClellan
I broke a mirror the other day. Not being a superstitious person, I wasn’t overly concerned about the seven years of bad luck supposedly attached to such a calamity.
What stressed me was the fact that it was my 1x magnification makeup mirror. I depended on that magnification the way a blind man depends on his dog.
While shopping for a replacement, I was absolutely flabbergasted to discover that 1x magnification was no longer sufficient.
Apparently my face now required a 7x magnification mirror.
Let me explain something about a 7x magnification mirror. Seeing your reflection blown up like you’re under observation by the Hubble Telescope will humble you right down to the dust.
You become so downright homely your own mama would deny knowing you in public.
Wrinkles resemble the Grand Canyon, pores look like lunar craters, and age spots appear large enough to qualify for their own zip code.
You realize makeup must now be applied with the consistency of wood putty and spread with a trowel.
That mirror left me with one burning question: When did I get so old?
Wasn’t it just yesterday that my body contradicted the age printed on my driver’s license?
There was a time when somebody asked my age and I had to stop and think about it. Now reminders show up daily like unpaid bills.
AARP floods my mailbox with offers for dentures and life insurance.
The people who manufacture those little scooters seem deeply concerned about my mobility. I now hold books at distances measurable only by NASA. I have chin hair and a mustache capable of embarrassing a teenage boy, and when I lie down in the quiet of the night, I’m fairly certain I can hear my face wrinkling.
Sleep now comes in stages because I apparently have the bladder capacity of a mustard seed.
Sitting on the floor requires an act of Congress and heavy machinery to get me back upright. I have underwear older than this year’s graduating class.
And my body has betrayed me in ways I never imagined. My estrogen has dropped so low that airport security now counts as a cheap thrill.
My knees creak like an old screen door in a tornado, my arms bruise if somebody looks at me too hard, and honestly, young people and putting on deodorant wear me slap out.
The thing is, I have no idea when this metamorphosis hadoccurred. I went to bed one night full of energy and poor judgement and I woke up the next morning full of things only a laxative could move.
But perhaps the cruelest part of aging is this: inside my head I am still thirty-five years old. I still think I can wear cute shoes, stay up late, and spring gracefully off the couch.
Then I catch my reflection in a 7x magnification mirror and realize my body and my spirit are no longer even on speaking terms.
Still, I suppose getting older beats the alternative.
Even if I now need brighter lights, stronger readers, orthopedic shoes, and a recovery period after sneezing too hard.
And honestly? If the good Lord lets me keep laughing about it, I reckon I’ll survive growing old — one chin hair at a time.
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