In which I realized yesterday that I’ll be 60 in five years.

On Wednesday mornings, I attend a 2-hour class, via Zoom, for ACS CCP exam prep. Right now we’re covering milk, specifically acidulants used in cheesemaking, and even more specifically the difference between acids like lemon juice and acidity caused by the addition of cultures. I have my camera on but with a piece of tape over it, and I’ve just sat here in front of my computer and put on my makeup.

Not only is my entire face continuing to melt right the fuck off my skull; not only is my face’s already pronounced asymmetry getting much, much worse due to this process; not only do I now have two tiny, fine eyelashes growing out of the inner corner of my left eye for no goddamned reason; but it’s hard—so hard it verges on literally impossible—for me to use my own fingers to open compacts. My nails are now so thin and fine they break rather than grow, my fingers are weak compared to a decade ago, and a lot of my makeup products are samples, so they’re particularly small.

So, in order to open a tiny eyeshadow compact, for example, I have to use a tool. Specifically, a pair of tweezers. I can’t open tiny compacts without an auxilliary tool now. That’s how fucking old I am.

I keep expecting my body to still be 35. Whenever I witness some new process I’ve developed to accomplish something, like using a pair of tweezers to open a compact my fingers aren’t strong enough to open, I feel like I’m somehow failing. I should be stronger, I should be in better shape, this is all my fault.

But then I remember I’m literally pushing 60. That’s a really important data point. I’m much closer to 60 than I am to 43, let alone 35. Of course I have a weird method of getting out of bed; I’m old, and our mattress is still on the floor! Of course I need one of those sticky round things to open jars; I’m old and my hands were already tiny and comparatively weak to begin with! Of course I’m stiff for several minutes after getting up from sitting on the floor during an entire episode of ‘Picard’; I’m old and Westerners my age typically don’t sit cross-legged on floors for an hour and half at a time. (I’ve been a floor sitter my whole adult life, but it’s no longer easy as it once was now that I have no ass. Hormonal changes rearrange fat deposits, and collagen loss means one’s sit bones are virtually unprotected, so now I really need a folded-up blanket to sit comfortably.)

Although I no longer have Facebook or Twitter accounts, I do still use Instagram, and it keeps feeding me the Tiktok videos of some woman doing Gen X content. And every time I see her (which is more than once per session, alcorithms being the way they are), I think, “Gen X? I’m Gen X. That lady’s old.” And a split second later, I realize she’s probably a year or two younger than I am myself.

I’m old. I’ve finally aged into the dumb way I dress, with all the long skirts and flowy tunics and shit. My general shape and amount of remaining post-menopausal collagen are the result of genetics, not a personality flaw! It’s fine! I am worth more than the way I look!

Well, to myself, at least, if not to a society driven by an obsession with youth and sex. But that’s another rant.

And there have been compensations: I have a man who loves me anyway, an interesting job that’s also part-time, and we have a house I think is really cool-looking and wonderful and comfortable. I can buy groceries without checking my balance first. I have a vase full of red tulips from the yard sitting on the kitchen table. We just had the HVAC serviced, and the new capacitors have made an obvious difference. Birds are singing in my yard right this very moment, and I can hear them because it’s fine enough out to have some windows open! Life is good, even if I’m slower and weaker than I once was. I just have to remember that I’m not 43, I’m pushing 60, and that’s okay!

But Christ I’m old. Honestly. It’s so weird.