Vintage

I walked past a man with a microphone in town last week. He stopped two women and asked them who aged better – men or women? I heard the women (at least one of them wore too much make up, not what you’d call subtle - I didn’t see her friend) answer that they thought women did, because ‘they make more effort, take more care of themselves’

Carrying on with my shopping, I continued to think about this (and I’ve been thinking about it on and off ever since) I don’t think this statement is true in any way. I think men and women age. That’s all. I think the only difference is that men are allowed to grey, men are allowed to wrinkle. They certainly do not seem to be judged as women are, for ‘letting themselves go’.

I believe that some women do make more of an effort to take care of themselves, and it’s good, surely, to work with what you have and to look after it. But there is a limit, isn’t there? You only have to look in the magazines.

As much as I can, I avoid them – OK, I might have a glance at the odd front cover from time to time in the supermarket, but I don’t read or buy them. They just convince you that you can have it all, and really you can’t. You still have to choose. Magazines make me unhappy. I’m sure I’m not alone. But even though I don’t read them, or look at their unrealistic, airbrushed, digitally enhanced pictures, I still feel that I want to look younger, or want, at least, not to look my age.

Falling into the trap, I scrutinise the mirror – looking (I don’t have to look hard) for new wrinkles, wondering about fillers – wondering if it’s wrong to save up child benefit to pay for it? I search for grey hairs, tweezers in hand, ready to pluck out what offends me (so far only one found, though there’s bound to be more).

It makes me laugh (but really I’m sobbing inside) when I shop for wine in Waitrose. The young things on the tills buzzing their managers (they are too young to serve alcohol themselves) to authorise the sale. All it takes, these days, is a quick glance to know that I am most definitely old enough to buy alcohol. It seems like only yesterday when just the opposite was happening – desperate to buy alcohol, we would send the oldest looking of our friends into the off licence while we waited to see if she would be served. Really, it’s been hardly any time at all and now, here I am, speeding towards 40 at an alarming rate.

But this is good isn’t it? I keep trying to convince myself that ageing is OK. It’s a sign that, as a human being, I’m a success. I’ve survived and I’ve aged.

Only, it doesn’t really make me feel better.