Now
that summer has finally come out of the closet, so have the summer clothes.
With those clothes come the perennial questions like: “How does a busty woman
hide her bra straps under a sleeveless dress?” or “When do shorts become
too-shorts?”
I
practice being non-judgmental at the bus stop, but one must wonder what the
plaid shorts/tropical print shirt combo was thinking, and I genuinely lament
the days of the plain ponytail during the ongoing parade of modern-day “manbuns”.
Mostly, though, I admire the sleek young women in flippy dresses and wispy
sandals, their bare legs impossibly tanned. When in my 20s, despite the
arthritis, my legs were long and straight, and looked pretty darned good in a
short skirt. Nowadays, I have knobbly Grinch knees that make it comically
ill-advised even to wear leggings, let alone dare a raised hem.
Fortunately,
mid-calf still works on me, even if my ankles are a bit thicker and less
flexible than they were 30 years ago.
Make
no mistake—I don’t envy the gazelles in Gap garb; I had my time in miniskirts
and heels. And I’ve grown fond of my crooked knees. After all, they’ve got a
ton of mileage on them. My whole body is like that, actually: mid-century
modern that’s held up pretty well, all things considered.
For
someone who has spent decades at war with her compostable container, this is an
impressively mature attitude. I used to fear the ravages of age, blithely
unaware that those ravages were happening well in advance of my dotage via the
aforementioned arthritis. Perhaps I sensed my golden years might be worse as a
result; though I naively imagined that when the RA burned out, my bones would
be magically restored to mint condition, I was purely bitter that no one
thought to warn me I’d later have to deal with the damage done in my teens.
Then there was my well-meaning but misguided notion that all the pre-emptive
therapies I could foist upon myself would pre-empt more pain. So much for that.
I’ve
always said that I don’t care what it looks like so long as it works, and while
I may have been deceiving myself in my youth, this has become my truth in
middle age. My recent quest to heal—or at least subdue—the angst of last winter
has led me to a more compassionate view of my physical self. Now I can regard
my wonky knees and gnarled knuckles with affection. My body has been to war and
come out alive. Her swollen joints are a testament to survival, to a challenge
met and ultimately defeated. Every day, she gets me from point A to B and
beyond, sometimes with a side order of arg
and sometimes nary a whimper, but the point is, she gets me where I want to go and
will, I hope, continue doing so for as long as she has breath.
Gone
are the days of mid-thigh skirts and silly shoes, but that’s okay. I own my scars.
I’ve earned them.
