Happy Birthday indeed

Today I feel older than I did yesterday. A whole year older to be exact.

This sudden aging could be put down to the last few stressful months. First there were the 5 weeks without my vision, followed by a rather painful broken toe, followed by a rather yucky dose of the Winter Vomiting Virus. They’ve all come in quick succession and have left me longing for the day when every part of my body does what it should and no part of me hurts like it shouldn’t.

Of course the overnight aging could also be put down to my turning another year older. Yes, it’s my birthday and I’m now officially on the wrong side of 35.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t usually have an issue with getting older, but right this second I’m looking every inch my age, and to top it off, I’m also feeling like I’ve been flattened by a hay bale. One of those large, round ones that you see scattered precariously around the countryside, just waiting to roll down the hill and squash you. It can happen you know.

So why do I feel like Flat Stanley on my birthday you might wonder? That would be the revolting flu symptoms that have hijacked my body today. Oh did I forget to mention that 2 days after one lot of family came and went – with vomiting virus in tow – my mother then arrived by Ryan Air with a rather nasty Italian strain of flu. And that would be the full on, shaking, sweating, incredibly painful variety, not the ‘Oh, I’m sniffing and sneezing, I must have flu’ type of flu. Or the ‘man’ type either for that matter.

I knew things were amiss before I even woke up this morning. Every time I laid on my back it hurt so much I had to roll over. Whilst I was still asleep and dreaming the pain didn’t make a whole lot of sense, but when the alarm went off it all fell into place. I came to with every joint aching, my skin feeling like it was covered with exposed nerve endings and my bones feeling like they’d been treated to several rounds in the ring with Mike Tyson. On the upside at least both my ears lobes were still attached.

Now I get that the above may sound a tad dramatic in description, but would you believe that for once I’m actually not exaggerating. Honest.

Getting both kids up, dressed and ready for school was definitely something of a painful mission. Trying to be excited about my birthday for their benefit required acting skills I never even knew I had. Having to melt the ice off the car windows,  negotiate the school run and make it home in one piece used up my very last ounce of energy.

By the time I limped into the nearest Boots pharmacy, draped myself across the counter and pointed with a rather pathetic finger at the excessively large selection of cold and flu tablets on offer, I was definitely on my last leg.

I say ‘leg’ not ‘legs’, as by this stage one of them had already started to buckle under me slightly as I walked. God knows why, but something somewhere in my lower limb was twinging and there was bugger all I could do to stop it. Had I not already reached the ‘feeling like hell’ stage, and therefore been completely oblivious to everyone around me, I might have been more than a little embarrassed about how ridiculous (and incredibly rough) I looked.

No doubt as I wobbled through the doors I resembled an alcoholic Mr Jelly with a mild dose of epilepsy – never a good look to be sporting out in public, especially when entering the hallowed aisles of Waitrose. Of course if I’d been in Tesco I might just have got away with it. If I’d been in ASDA I’d probably have fitted right in. If I’d been In Lidl I might even have been offered a job.

So here I am at the end of a very strange day, waiting for the ‘Night’ Benylin pills to kick in. My normally comfortable memory foam mattress feels like concrete, my bones feel bruised and my chest feels like it’s wrapped up in a boa constrictor. I’m restless, over-tired and achy. My nose won’t stop dripping and I sound like I’ve got a nasty dose of Kennel Cough. Even the dog is eyeing me up in alarm, covering his nose and keeping his distance. Not that I really blame him of course, he’s seen all the humans in the house drop like skittles in the last few weeks and he’s probably worried he’s next.

I admit I’m probably feeling slightly sorry for myself right now, but it’s not because I’m particually bothered about having slept through my birthday. I’ve already reached the age when you realise that your birthday – like Christmas – is more about watching your kids get excited about handing over their homemade gifts and cards, not worrying about doing anything exciting yourself.

In fact the highlight of the day for my daughter was bringing in The Cake. A cake that had naturally involved a three act drama all of it’s own yesterday when being made.

As I stood behind both children as they broke the eggs, sifted the flour across the kitchen surfaces and beat the butter to within an inch of it’s life I’d congratulated myself on how well it was all going. Then the cake emerged from the oven and I noted that the sponge had risen to the impressive thickness of a rich tea biscuit and was still raw in the centre.

How that was even possible I’m not sure, but there you go. We had somehow managed to bake a Victoria Sponge cake in exactly the same shape as a frisbee. That takes skill you know. Needless to say it ended up in the bin and we ended up trotting down the hill in the rain to buy a replacement from Waitrose.

All in all, not the best birthday I think I’ve ever had but at least my kids thought it went well.  I’m also the proud owner of a hand woven something from my daughter and a highly creative ‘monster’ card from my son.

Any mother knows you really can’t ask for more than that.

Age ain’t nothing but a number

I often wonder what it is about getting old that is so scary? Is it the fear of not being able to still do the things that you once could or the fear of running out of time to do the things you haven’t? Is it feeling sad that your memories are now just only that, or remorse that you didn’t create more when you had a chance?

Or is the fear of aging simply down to having to accept that you no longer look as young as you feel inside? Of course we all choose to remember ourselves at our best, when we were flexible enough to reach our toes, when we were taut, toned and wobble free and our arms didn’t have wings to rival a 747. So we look in the mirror, scrutinising and criticising, pulling ourselves apart and becoming pre-occupied with those bits of us that have grown, stretched, bagged and sagged.

Determined not to let our bodies reflect where we really are in our life, we strap ourselves onto treadmills and wrap ourselves in seaweed. We nip and tuck, implant curves and suck out fat, inject paralysing toxins and religiously apply a cream to cover every inch and pore of our skin. Creams for the day and for the night, for the stretch marks and the cellulite, for the eye bags, crows feet and the laughter lines.

As the years progress we choose to become drawn in by the advertising hype, promising us the small pot and shiny box really does equate to the holy grail of eternal good looks. Of course we’re not stupid, we know that the actress whose forehead hasn’t moved since snagging Hugh Grant in ’94 looks that way because of some clever digital enhancing, and not the expensive Dermo-Peptides she promotes. But hey, if she’s worth it, then surely so are we.

For those whose looks are reflected in their pay cheque the pressure must be even worse. Take Madonna, a perfect example of someone fighting the inevitable. ‘Time is waiting…Tick tock tick tock tick tock’ are the words of her latest song, and how true they are. About to turn 50, she’s undoubtedly still fabulous, fit and flexible, and wears a leotard to prove it. Botox-ed, lifted and tightened to a T, she looks better than she did 20 years ago. But at the end of the day, when the stylist has gone home and red carpet is rolled up, she can’t get away from the fact that she’s still nearly 50.

Of course time can’t stand still, but who would want it to. At least with the benefit of age (in theory), we have the chance to learn from and redeem ourselves from those horrendous mistakes made back in a time when we thought we had a clue. That Mickey Mouse fleece, tent sized denim jacket and the clod hopping Doc Martins, the appalling poodle perm and the pearly pink lipstick from the bargain bin at the local chemist. The memory alone is enough to make you want to rewrite your youth and shred your entire photographic history.

So how can you stay ahead in this complicated aging game? One way is to make sure the contents of your wardrobe stay in line with the numbers on your birth certificate. So if you can stop yourself trawling through the back of your closet and digging out clothing that haven’t seen the light of day in a decade, or resist the urge to buy new clothes in a shop that plays music by artists you have never heard of, then there is far less chance you will be hunted down for crimes against fashion, sheared and served up with a helping of mint sauce.

Rule of thumb – if you can remember a fashion from the first time it hit the shops, be it the mini of the 60′s, flares of the 70′s or that hideous puff ball of the 80′s, then quite possibly by the time it makes its revival and appears back on the catwalk, it’s probably not something you should be wearing again.

There’s no point beating ourselves up for looking the very age that we actually are, and wasting valuable time and money trying to look how we once did. That time could be put to much better use, and the money saved could be used to make even more memories..

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