The Once and Future Me (or Never Say Never)

I'm not sure - maybe you can tell me - if children spend as much time contemplating growing old as I did.  I hope not actually.  For me, it was more or less inevitable. I grew up with older parents who had friends that were their age or even older. All my peers had parents who grew up during the dawn of rock and roll. I remember being dazzled by one mom because she'd seen Elvis in concert. Another dad introduced me to The Moody Blues, which would be a powerful force in my life until many years later Rush knocked them out of first place in my heart. My parents danced to Guy Lombardo. Of course times post-war changed quickly so in reality, as I look back, not that many years separated my parents and those of my friends, but to me it seemed like a lifetime.

I spent a lot of time around adults who seemed worldly wise. Some I did consider old, and a few were retired already, although at least once such was wealthy so I don't think that was as much age as circumstance. Almost all of my parent's friends had grown children so I would tag along their social circle and soak up their conversations. Many of them were so kind to come and talk to me like I was a small adult. The wealthy gentleman would read Edgar Allan Poe to me. He gave me the volume of Poe's stories and poems on the shelf right outside this room. I remember another couple who were attending one of my mother's dinner parties coming into my room after I'd been relegated there for "bedtime" and sitting with me to tell me about seeing Camelot on Broadway.  I thought adulthood was a magical place that I very much wanted to be a part of.  In that, I'm sure I'm not alone.

(The magic crashed one year when I watched as my dad had the dining table full of paperwork working to organize it for his tax accountant.  I remember very clearly telling him that I thought remaining a child was preferable and I wasn't in a hurry to grow up and have to do that kind of work.  He looked up from the papers he was holding, a small amused smile on his face and nodded.)

But my mother, who will loom large over many entries in this blog, was the most influential person who caused me to both think about growing older and forming opinions about it.  Dad? Dad would bow to his age eventually, but for the time I lived at home, he just was. Sort of eternal and never changing. If he thought about growing old he kept it to himself.  The only time there was any mention of aging in relation to my dad was when people would unwisely accuse him of dying his hair, which remained a deep black nearly all his life. That he would bow to an egotistical act such as that enraged him. 

Mom on the other hand did think a lot about getting older and had some very strong opinions on the subject. I would listen and, also being an opinionated little thing, formed a list of things I would never do as I grew older:

I would never wear my hair in a pinwheel or bouffant style. 

Geddy Images

I noticed all my mother's friends wore the exact same hairstyle, and I knew, from watching my mother, it was high maintenance. I never wanted to be a cookie cutter version of anyone else, and I definitely didn't want to be a slave to curlers.

L'Oréal Paris

 

Now, completely immune to any sense of irony, I very much wanted to wear my hair in a "flip up" style and cajoled Mother into trying all kinds of things to make it work, but my hair was too heavy and wavy and that never was a dream realized.

I would wear my hair long to my grave.

Sort of related to the first point, but more a reaction to my mother's rants every time a specific L'Oréal commercial came on as she watched General Hospital I decided I'd never be anything but a natural when it came to my hair. The offensive commercial featured an "older" model (I read an article about her, she was in her 40's at the time and yes, sadly, that was considered over the hill for a model and she was one of very few who was still working consistently at her age) with stunning shoulder length hair and the famous tagline "because I'm worth it". My mother never failed to say, "She's too old to wear her hair that long." I wore hair past my waist much of my young life, so I decided right then and there I'd show my mother, never cut it, and just wear it up in a bun when I was older.  I just got my hair cut well above my shoulders.

I would never dye my hair.

Farrah Fawcett

Despite thinking that the L'Oréal model had a shock of gorgeous hair, I was very determined never to dye mine.  We all know from my inaugural post what became of that lofty goal.  But this determination, which was a total judgy one I fully admit, was because I had a chip on my shoulder about being a brunette. In the 60's and into the 70's blonde was the super power color. There was Twiggy and Goldie Hawn, giving way to Cheryl Ladd and the most powerful of all: Farrah Fawcett. Sure there was a brunette Charlie's Angel, but she was the "smart" one, not the beautiful one. I was very protective of being a brunette and the Celtic legacy it represented as a result.  Blondes may have more fun, as the saying went, and gentlemen might prefer them, but I was proud to be a Celt with my red-tinted brown hair.  Take that, Marilyn Monroe.

So when my mother pulled out the old photos albums one day and I saw her as a younger woman with dark hair, I was sure she was a traitor to that cause. I never remember my mother as a brunette. To my memory she was always a blonde. Ash Blonde by none other than L'Oréal to be precise. I'm quite sure she'd started coloring it to avoid the gray, but to my young mind she was trying to conform to society's declaration that blonde was better, and I wasn't having it. Of all my lofty opinions about how I would live my life, that was number one with a bullet. Like I said, we all know how that turned out.

There were plenty of others: I would never drive a big car.  I added that to the list when a widowed friend of my parents drove up to where we were camping to show us her new car, which was a boat of a thing for that little woman. Everyone ooh'ed and aw'ed over it, and I just wondered why anyone needed a car that huge. That one's pretty much stuck. I drive a Forester, which is suited to hauling dogs. I'll never change other than to upgrade to an Outback to haul more dogs.

I scoffed at plastic surgery, which I still am leery of but with enough money probably would do.

I said I'd never be stuck in my opinions about music and be open to new music always. Yeah, well, my radio dial stopped at 2012, the year the last Rush album came out.

In short, if faced with my younger self and able to tell her anything about life, one thing that would be on the list is never say never. Accept who you are but accept that who you become will probably be different. And that's okay. But more to the point, don't cast aspersions on what others choose to do because you might very well find you'll be choosing to do the same things some 40 years down the road too, and that road is shorter than it looks.