At Least They're Committed

I change the pillow cases, at first tossing aside two allegedly clean ones that are yellowed by time because they look bad. But then I smell one and it smells like my Grandma Bland’s sheets and it’s been so very long since I’ve smelled that and then so does the other and I feverishly stuff the pillows into the cases because for as long as that smell lasts, a scent that I can’t explain, I will sleep like a little girl.

A beautiful young woman was in my office this morning and we talked about content. Sitting beside me, she had a lovely smile and although I’d not talked to her much before, I’d seen her enough to appreciate that she uses it a lot. But near the end of our chat, as we were closing out the copy, I saw her looking at me, her smile more forced and puzzled, her eyes focused on the area around my nose and mouth, polite. I quickly said thank you and goodbye, and as soon as she stepped out of the door I snatched my compact mirror and looked. An errant nose hair? I had one of those a couple of weeks ago and was caught twice (by my boss, both times, but he’s far too busy to take any notice of me, so it would have been a stretch to even be embarrassed) trying to remedy it. Worse yet, was it something hanging out of my nose? In my teeth? . . . . Hmmmm . . . Nothing. 

I then moved the mirror to the angle at which the young woman would have seen me. (All right maybe I am a bit overly concerned about my appearance, but no apologies.) Ah. Ah, yes. I never sat near this gal before; never really chatted or seen her except from several feet away. Which means she’d never seen me close up either. You can’t call it bad lighting, really, because it’s not as if it’s not telling the truth. And the truth is from a few feet away, I  come across as fairly young. I have a youthful energy and a geeky smile and no gray hair, even without having to dye it. But I am 51 years old and every one of those years is etched on my face and in my bones. So it is that people who ‘see me’ for the first time are taken aback, like the scene with Mordred and Morgana in Excalibur, the movie. Or the part in Avenged Sevenfold’s Almost Easy video when they’re reaching the mouth of Hell and their true, evil souls are revealed. It’s like in The Lord of the Rings when Bilbo turns on Frodo, or Raider’s of the Lost Ark when their faces melt . . . OK, heh, maybe it’s not quite as bad as that, but you get the picture. Something perceived is not what it seems and that’s confusing and frightening.

I had a great workout again tonight, and even though I’m not as slender as I’d like to be I take comfort in being healthy and fit. But, yes, my left groin and both hips ache and there are times when my knee takes an entire hour to stop ‘talking to me’ now as opposed to a couple of minutes. And all of that is OK, I guess, really. I mean, I hate aging, but it’s a part of things and I guess it would be worse if people weren’t shocked by how old I am until they got close to me, so, yeah, sure, it’s OK. But as I was belting out songs, badly, with headphones on, while walking on the treadmill tonight, the one came on and at 4:58 the Earth shook and I threw my hands up in the air and the shock wave resonated like a deadly white mist, upending all in its path and I wondered, wondered, wondered when it’s going to be 4:58 and it’s not about anyone else, just me.

Having gotten all that out, it’s time to snuggle into the smell of grandma’s pillow cases and sleep like the little girl I’ll always be.