Not ready yet for boomer work
Because you feel all right
And not considering a problem
With shortening of your sight?

No question of a cataract
Presenting a bit of blight
Or of a needed knee replacement
For climbing just one flight?

No thought of replacing a rusty hip
–Hardly a delight–
Or ordering a new pacemaker
To fight off breathless fright?

Nor any view of a heart bypass
For coronary slight
Nor any other surgery
That aging might invite?

Then take a page from a car device
That gets you through the night
And have a mechanic fit you up
With a Check Engine Light.

The fabled golden years
Exist in legend solely
And even then are bestowed
Solely on the holy.

Despite misguided rants
Emitted by some dunce,
Embrace the summit years–
You’re middle-aged just once.

The prime time peak of 40
Will never be outdone
So hug it fast before
You stumble to 41.

(It struck me though that a comment from the other distaff side might be appropriate concerning older men not wanting to be seen with “older” women.

My focus group has reached this consensus: Whenever a snow-roofed gentleman seems unwilling to en-arm a woman who is his contemporary, it is NOT about the woman or her attractiveness.

NOR is it about the man wanting to have a trophy-companion to “veracify” his continuing attractiveness (I think here of Henry Kissinger, who, to my collection of litmus paper, is physically repellant, morally repellant and is apparently so stupid that he has been unable to learn unaccented English in the few-score years he’s lived in the United States).

So, what is the male geront’s reticence all about? Our agreement is this: Men cannot countenance, on any continuing basis, the fact of their own senescence, and looking at women of correlative or congruent chronology is like looking into a mirror at yourself. Double-plus un-good.

On the other hand, living with, being with a woman with whom you have aged is completely different, because she is an amalgamation of all of the recollections the old guy has of their lives together.

bw

My pet peeve, as a woman over 50, is that the products at the make-up counter do not come with warning labels:”Warning! Yellow, green and purple eyeshadow is not appropriate for anyone over the age of twenty!” On youngsters these colours are a fashion statement, on old ladies, however you appear to be the victim of a mugging.

Sparkles are not for aging skin. The diamond dust lipstick that looks so good on the model will smear and move about throughout the day and settle into your creases making you look like a kindergarten art project gone bad.

Super-privileged, self-obsessed, appearance-fixated ’sharing of yuks’ about the full time job of it all for this writer doesn’t offer much more than an occasional weak smile and a wondering if she has more money than sense, from me. Boy-o. If this is the everywoman experience I reckon I live on another planet ($100 jars of face cream?). Of course there’s plenty to laugh about and dislike about the shared experiences of aging but this stuff is facile- and well – pretty lame.

I am a woman who has to be in the “looking for a job mode – interviewing” of late. I am 30 something but I am EXPECTED to be all made up, with make up and not a gray hair in sight, no hair on my stockinged legs, no wrinkles and gorgeous for my job interviews in the technology field!!!

It is my brain and knowledge I am selling not my looks and I have to interview with these guys in the field and all they do is look at my looks and in that classic guy thing … they are all looking to have that cute girl in the office as opposed to someone with good skills and some knowledge in her repertoire.

How do I cope with this barrier to entry when it shouldn’t be like that?

At eighteen, I found my first white hair and and left it taped to the bathroom mirror for months. At twenty-three, I am gleefully discovering where my wrinkles will be. I hope that I am not alone in my belief that aging is beautiful and something to be looked forward to.