Age obsession spurs family wrinkle
/St. Petersburg Times (Florida)
BEVERLY BECKHAM
For a month, I drove everyone crazy.
I'd be at a restaurant with my 15-year-old daughter listening to her talk about school and boys, TV and boys, cheering and boys - the usual discourse of 15-year-olds. And in the middle of a story I'd suddenly find that I wasn't listening to her anymore.
"How old do you think she is?" I'd say, nodding at a woman way across the room.
"I don't know, Mom. Thirty-nine. Forty." And she'd continue with her tale.
"Do you think I look older or younger than that woman?" I'd ask, and she'd look again and sigh and say, "I don't know. Younger. Older. Maybe the same. Why are you asking me this?"
The same? I look the same? That woman is old. She has an old face. She has old eyes. She looks tired. Do I look tired?
"You think I look like that woman?" I'd groan, and my daughter would bite her lip and through gritted teeth recite, "I-did-not-say-that, Mother. You-do-not-look-like-that-woman.
You-look-fine. You-look-great." But I didn't believe her. She was patronizing me. I was tired. I was over the hill. I was old.
"I'm old. I'm going to be an old person by the time I get my book published," I moaned to my husband.
"You're not old," he said, looking up from the sports section.
"Yes I am. I'm never going to be in Redbook. I'll probably never even make it to Modern Maturity."
I sulked while he continued to read.
"I know you think I'm old."
He didn't answer.
"I mean, why shouldn't you? I am old."
"No matter what I say I'm going to get in trouble," he said. "So can we please end this conversation now?"
Then there were the movie stars. "So how old do you think Farrah Fawcett is? What about Sally Field? And Goldie Hawn? Do you think they're old? They're all 40, you know. Do you think they look 40? Do you think I look 40?"
And there were the writers. "When Shelley was 40, he was already dead 10 years." (Who's Shelley? Do we know her?) "Byron died at 36.
Poe died at 40. If I died at 40, who would remember me?" (We would, Mom Can I have your gold necklace?)
I recognized my obsession, of course, but was unable to control it the way, years before, I had been unable to control my eyes from seeking out roofs. We had put a new one on our house and from the minute we picked out the shingles, roofs were all I could see: white ones, brown ones, speckled ones, slate ones. Thirty years you live without giving a thought to a roof and, wham, you look at a few shingles and all at once the world is full of roofs.
Which is what happened with me and 40-year-olds.
When my sister-in-law turned 40 a few years ago, she told everyone she was "thirty-ten," which was cute but silly, I thought. What's the big deal? Age is just a state of mind. You're only as old as you feel, I declared from the safe side of 40.
And then it was my turn. "How old do you think Ann Margaret is? Doesn't Valerie Harper look great? Boy, that Linda Evans certainly doesn't look her age."
Then, as suddenly as the affliction came, the affliction went.. In the exact way I stopped noticing roofs, I stopped noticing age. One day I woke up and my obsession was over. I was cured I was saved Finally, I could get back to more important, more significant matters.
"Harriet Beecher Stowe was 40 when she published Uncle Tom's Cabin," I announced at breakfast this morning.
The announcement was greeted by silence.
"Don't you think that's significant?"
More silence.
"Don't you think it's important?"
"I thought you were cured, Mom. I thought you said you weren't going to talk about age anymore," my daughter said.
"Age? You think I'm talking about age? I bring up Harriet Beecher Stowe and you somehow relate it to my turning 40. You actually think I'm still upset about that? God, you people certainly see just what you want to see. I try to discuss the Civil War and you look for hidden meanings. And you think I have the problem.
"Now look. Take a look here at the back of this book. That's Harriet when she was 40. What do you think? Do I look older? Or younger? Or the same?"
