You're only as old as you feel.
Who said that?
To her I reply-
Pfftt.
I don't know about you, but usually when I dream I am some sort of neutral age that allows me to enter any dream portal necessary to perform extraordinary things. I can still run, swim, and even fly with no subsequent aching muscles. When I look in the mirror, I often have blonde flowing hair and look rather like my college self. If my children are in the dream, they are always two and four years old which, when I reflect on it although I hadn't until this moment, is when I was a domestic goddess, at the peak of my powers and abilities in my little world.
So ok, I am in some kind of denial about reality.
Last night I had what started out to be a really great dream. I was at a swimming pool with my friend and her daughter, Zane, when for inexplicable reasons (since dreams don't require logic you will just have to suspend disbelief for the rest of this), Zane jumped into the pool and sank. My friend, who doesn't swim but is a devoted mother, jumped in to save her. She sank. At the same moment, the very handsome sexy lifeguard saw me prepared to jump in and our eyes met. He was very, very handsome. Something passed between us! He nodded and smiled. We both dove in, he to save my friend, I to save Zane. We got them to safety, but I can't report if they were alive or dead because the dream is about me and at this point the lifeguard turned to me and said, "You're amazing. Would you pose with me in a calendar I am modeling for. You're perfect!"
You are green with envy at my dream expertise and accomplishment, aren't you?
Well, don't be.
The calendar shoot was for lifeguards and their grandmothers.
Even in my dream, I was insulted. But after he said he was the head lifeguard and his picture would grace the December page and we would wear Santa hats, I said ok. Optimistic even in my dreams, I hoped that people would see me and say, "Oh, there's some mistake. SHE isn't old enough to be a grandmother!"
(Of course, I AM old enough, but my sons aren't cooperating and if they read this, I hope they realize I will soon be unable to babysit because I will be in a nursing home and senile, unable to recognize them or their delayed offspring.)
A more apt quote would be from my favorite writer, Erma Bombeck, who said.
"The fact is I didn't want to look my age, but I didn't want to act the age I wanted to look either. I also wanted to grow old enough to understand that sentence."
I DID do the shoot, and my friend must have survived since she did my hair, and I looked like Dolly Parton in the pictures. If you find a calendar of lifeguards for 2011, look for December. The lifeguard's name is Ian and that gorgeous, too-young-to-be-a-grandmother Dolly Parton lookalike with him is MOI.
As for that opening quote? Do you know who said it? Elizabeth Arden. Hello? She developed modern cosmetics. She knew darn well it isn't just about feeling young, but looking good. I need to buy some of her makeup before my next dream. Preferably waterproof.
