One of the unsettling aspects of being an older mother is my body’s stubborn insistence on reminding me of my age. 

Forty-seven is staring me in the face, and I’m staring back with wonder.  Where did the last 20 years go, I ask the mirror?  What happened between 27 and 47?  Lots, of course, but it all happened so fast.  I have no desire to cling to the past, but I do want to retrieve the energy that once was mine:  the bubbling enthusiasm that would lead me to volunteer with the wave of a hand, to initiate new friendships, to dig into work with verve, to dance.

For quite awhile I’ve been dragging myself out of bed in the morning with a silent sigh.  I check to make sure the kids are watching  PBS and Sesame Street, then I pour myself a cup of coffee and wish the dishes would wash themselves — in that order. I look blearily at the world because my eyesight is blurring in the cliché way that happens to most everyone in their forties.  My husband has lately had to read phone numbers to me from the city directory, because no matter how I squint, I can’t distinguish an 8 from a 3 or a 6.  If I’m this decrepit now, I wonder, what will I be like at 61, when my youngest hopefully graduates from high school?

Part of my sense of debilitation is my own fault.  Exercise is an anti-aging elixir I have been told, and I rarely darken the door of a gym or spin the wheels of a bike.  “The girls wear me out,” I tell my health-conscious husband.  “I do the equivalent of 100 toe-touches a day just bending over to pick up toys and dirty clothes.  Don’t ask me to go to a gym,” I tell him, “I’m too bushed to floss my teeth.”

But this weekend, I found out there’s still life in this evolving body.  I went to a conference where 5,000 women gathered to celebrate all sorts of things — friendship, business acumen, creativity, beauty.  And a party held on the last night of the meeting featured an all-woman rock and roll band with a lead-singer who had a great physique, long gorgeous hair, a Tina Turner voice, and a double chin.  It wasn’t a double chin that comes with weight. . .just the chin that all women get as our skin starts to sag that little bit around our face.  Truly, she rocked my world.

In a rusty sort of way, I descended to the dance floor and found myself shifting from first, to second, to third, to fourth, and then over-drive.  I lurched and twirled about with other hardworking women, our preoccupied selves slip-sliding away.  As one mighty mass, we sang together, pumped our hands in the air, channeled the Bangles, belted Journey lyrics.

Exhilarated, I realized there’s still some rock n’ roll in this on-the-go mom.  I realized that as old as I sometimes feel, those feelings aren’t the only real feelings I have.  My body still knows how to move.  My mouth still knows how to sing.  I still know how to have fun, on my own, sans family.  Did I miss my husband and kids?  Yes.  Every day when I called, the sound of my girl’s lilting voices made my heart twist a bittersweet bit.  But at the closing party, when I danced without stopping, when I disregarded the clock and the midnight hour, I knew I still have some steam building in this engine.  Forty-seven is not a yellow light warning me to slow down.  The road ahead is not a dead-end. 

I bet at my upcoming appointment, my optometrist will pronounce me far-sighted.  She will write me a prescription for eye-glasses and probably expect me to get something dignified, suiting my age.  No way.  I want something that hints at a spirit in motion, that reminds me to dance when I look in the mirror. 

Susan Lewis is a mom of two adopted daughters, who tries to balance staying at home with staying sane and writing on the side.  She contributes to this blog as a way of recording some of the funnier, poignant moments of parenting young children as an older mom (late forties and holding).  She has changed her children’s names and her own name for confidentiality’s sake. (What kid would want complete strangers to know these stories?)  April, now six, was adopted from
China.  Bee, now four, was adopted from Ethiopia.  And Charming, her husband, is an introverted Norwegian-American, who most definitely wants to remain anonymous.  You can contact Susan Lewis at SuLew4blog@gmail.com.