May you live long enough.
Long enough to feel the slow, permanent betrayal of your own body, evidenced most painfully by the gradual downward slide of your once perfect breasts.
May you one day lose your reading glasses and search the entire house, only to find them in the freezer. And then realize with the worst kind of dawning horror (think Halle Berry in any of the X-Men films) that this is the beginning of the end.
In the distant future, may you keep telling yourself that you’re the “cool granny”, only to catch one of your ungrateful brood rolling his eyes at you as he opens up your Christmas present (another stupid sweater).
May you one day realize, shockingly and suddenly, that you are no longer relevant. And that you don’t recognize anyone on the radio anymore.
And that no one listens to the radio anymore.
In fact, there is no more radio. Instead, it’s a digital devise planted under the skin that receives a signal from a satellite. Which you don’t have, because the numbers are too damn small and frankly, you’re scared of the new technology.
May you live long enough to realize that smart lasts longer than cute. Sadly, because you never really read anything of substance, and only bought a lot of clothes and shoes that you can no longer wear, you won’t even be able to impress anyone with your brains.
May you live long enough to repeat the same damn story every Thanksgiving to your grandkids about how cute you used to be, and be ignored every time.
May you one day hold your grandchild’s tiny hand and marvel at how helpless you both are. And by that time, may you have lost enough of your sense of humor to be able to laugh at the fact that neither of you can control your bladder worth a damn.
May you one day be shocked into reality by the young, attractive man who calls you “Ma’am” instead of asks for your number.
May you be laughed out of a club by the same type of young, attractive woman you used to be.
Meanwhile…
Watch as others, elderly like yourself, are surrounded by the adoration of family members and friends, old and new.
Watch as other women embrace the passing years with humor and grace, their limbs and joints straight and fluid, as yours curl and bulge from the pressure of holding it back with rigid denial.
May they float past you, these women, lustrous and shining, their regal natures in sharp contrast to your shrunken, crone-ish existence.
One day soon, I pray you will begin to cultivate your kinder nature. I pray that you will soon recognize that nature in others, and gravitate towards it.
I pray that one day you will no longer see an older woman as a symbol of a lost fight, a decline into darkness.
But instead, as a sign of survival and wisdom, and God’s Grace.
