The Things Nobody Tells You

Aging sucks! Nobody will tell you that. You hear people say, "It's better than the alternative" and "Sixty is the new forty" and other bullshit aphorisms. But no one will tell you the down-and-dirty.

I noticed about eight years ago that when I clasped my hands (as to pray, in an earlier life), my fingers felt different than they had in earlier years. It was as if in my 40s, when I clasped my hands, I could feel the fat or fiber (Okay, I never took anatomy and physiology. Get over it.) around the bones. But suddenly, all I could feel was the bones. My hands felt very bony.

And my beautiful skin was gone. I've always been complemented on my skin, and I would attribute it to the amount of water I drink daily. But now all my skin has turned to crepe.

One of my favorite fabrics is satin-backed crepe. It's pebbly on one side and satin on the other. My skin is no longer satin. It's just crepe—ugly pebbly old crepe.

The backs of my hands: crepe. My neck: crepe. My décolleté: crepe crepe crepity crepe!

It's an evil trick of nature. Isn't it bad enough that we start losing our memory, that we have to walk from room to room trying to remember what the hell we were looking for? Isn't it bad enough that menopausal women are prone to put on weight no matter how active they are or how carefully they eat? Isn't it bad enough that our once-milk-filled breasts now level out at our waists?

My beautiful hands are a thing of the past. Now they're marked by bulging veins, what my mama called "liver spots", and crepey skin.

I think this is just another indicator that supports my son's belief that there's no God. A benevolent, caring God would not have done this to all of us big-hearted, caring, nurturing women who carry the world on our shoulders.

It's a cruel joke, and I'm not laughing!