When I look down at my hands, I try to talk myself into acknowledging that I am sliding rather rapidly into an old lady. Usually, it doesn’t work. Especially since I know I don’t haul around a bunch of bags (quintessential bag lady) ...but then, I've never liked carrying even one purse, so much as I might pretend otherwise, that won't apply to me. I still feel like I’m, ummm, let’s see…maybe 30…or 40. The age I feel in my mind is starting to get older as I can no longer ignore the beating-up aging is doing to me; but emotionally, lots of times, I still feel that 20 to 25-year-old I once was.
[Definition break: beat up: (of a thing) worn out by overuse; in a state of disrepair.]
Back to the hands though. They don’t look too weathered yet, but one day when I was looking down at them to see just how old they are getting and how old I should be feeling but not feeling, and I think, “They belong to the older lady sitting next to me.” (Note that no one is sitting next to me as I try to pull the wool over my eyes.)
I instantly get a picture in my head of Eustace in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia) when he wakes up from a nap and realizes the dragon that lives on the island they landed on is sitting right next to him!!! (I’m not sure I should give it away for anyone who hasn’t read the book…close your eyes as you scan the next line if you haven’t read it and you think you might and/or skip to the next paragraph.) Eventually, terrified, Eustace realizes that he is the dragon. Somehow, he had turned into a dragon while he slept! (Kind of how I’m feeling – but not feeling.)
Back to my hands… They don’t look too bad as yet, but what a laugh I gave myself as I thought of Eustace and the dragon arms. And the realization that no matter how our minds try to fool us, we just can’t stop the sands of time. Someday I could be like Eustace and see a dragon laying its arms across the table in front of me.
Happy aging!
(Yes, the tree roots are supposed to look like a dragon's feet - pretty cool, right?)
Love this essay. I haven’t thought about Eustace in many many decades, which gives a hint about how old I am! Nice to think about him. I met a lady a long time ago who told me about moving into the house she still lived in, on her wedding day when she was 17 years old, 70 years before. She told me that when she walked through her front hallway and passed the large mirror there, she often had a split second of alarm or surprise. Who is that stranger in her house? Then she would laugh to remember the old lady was her. In her minds eye she was still that 17 year old bride.