Maintenance

There are many types of maintenance required for a middle aged woman.  I had no idea the amount of work that was involved, until I became one.

Of course, you have to look after the physical body.  As I've mentioned before, I'm doing pilates and weightlifting in order to keep my core strong and my body working.  There is also an element of mental work, as we quite often have to orchestrate moving our right arms and left legs in opposite directions, while balancing on something that is protesting about our weight.  I'm also trying (and generally failing during this cloudy spell) to get myself outside and walking for about 30 minutes per day.  Hopefully as the days get longer, and the sun reappears, this will become easier.

Then there's the face.  It's not easy to coordinate moustache waxing, eyebrow shaping, and general complexion care.  Why is it that when you reach the age when you have to spend a lot of time peering at your face for unruly hair, your eyesight becomes unreliable and you have to wear reading glasses just to find your nose?  Then, of course, there's the application of makeup.  I have much more sympathy for elderly ladies whose lipstick extends past their lips, and rouge that forms perfect circles in the middle of their cheeks now that I'm middle aged.  I haven't quite reached that stage yet, but I see it galloping towards me on the horizon.  My lips are much thinner than they used to be, and there really isn't enough room for lip liner and lipstick any more.

As if there wasn't enough to do, there's the work of keeping our hair not-gray.  I had to re-purple my hair on Monday, because the colour had faded to a pale lavender with pure white streaks.  Very attractive in a pastel way, but I am not a lavender hair lady.  Now instead of royal purple my hair is more of a magenta, but at least its vibrant again.  I promise I'll try to get my niece Alicia to take a picture of me this weekend so you can see what I'm talking about.  However, even if your hair isn't purple, women our age spend a lot of time staying blonde or beige.  If you're a fanatic, you probably could go to the hairdressers at least every 10 days to keep the dreaded gray roots in check.

Now lets discuss the rest of the mental exercises that we have to perform, just to get through our day.  Last Friday I had 3 strikes against me before noon, and yet I had felt totally with the program when I woke up.  In case you're wondering, my knee brace showed up in the clean laundry on Sunday, and I haven't lost my cellphone recently.  I do crosswords, play video games, and read both books and newspapers voraciously.  Its not my grasp of current events that is fading, its my to-do list that seems to be out of control (and I don't have a very fast paced life).

I spent a very enjoyable morning having coffee with a girlfriend.  This is one of the most important forms of maintenance I practice.  We have been friends for 25 years, and we know each other, our in-laws, children, and husbands.   So we don't have to spend a lot of time explaining situations to each other.  We know what drives both of us crazy.  We know what subjects to avoid, and when to just nod wisely and sympathize.  We even know where we'd hide the body, if it comes down to that.  As my friend explained to her husband a few years ago "either I meet Susan for coffee regularly, or you spend $50 per hour for a shrink".