What "Nice Old Ladies" Don't Talk About

 I was raised in the Old School configuration of manners.  Children should be seen and not heard.  Never correct your elders in public.  No elbows or singing at the table.  You know the drill!  Sometimes, manners took precedence over common sense, but we did what we did because it was accepted in polite company, and our parents demanded that we conform.

Well, "polite company" has changed quite a bit since those days; yet, some of us older geezers still carry with us the remnants of the way we were raised, sensible or not.  All my life, I haven't talked publicly about body functions, and never used what my family deemed "crass" terms.  We didn't pee; we piddled.  We didn't have asses; we had bottoms.  We didn't fart; we tooted.  (Actually, any reference to passing gas didn't happen at all.  Nice people didn't pass gas in public--or refer to it.  It wasn't a big funny deal in our family.)  

I am 100% certain that every other aging woman on the planet--and maybe some men--can understand why we don't talk about the indignities of growing old.  It happens to all of us females, eventually, if we are lucky enough to live that long. 

1.  Old ladies give up wearing a bra.  It isn't so much that the "girls" are out of control, but that we can't find the right foundation that is comfortable.  When you are old and everything hurts, why do you need something else to make you hurt??  If we are honest, even young women will confess that the first thing they do when they get home after a long day is remove the brassiere.  Those of us with some long years behind us just give up that step by not wearing one in the first place.

2.  The hair on your head thins out, sometimes embarrassingly.  You can do everything in your power to cover the bald spots, but the reality is there.  This is a point of vanity.  I wouldn't mind having stark white hair if I just had enough of it.  My hair is extremely fine, which makes it even more difficult to have female combovers.  I finally decided to give up and wear a wig.  Then, of course, I had to decide how to deal with that in public.  Honesty is the best policy.  I introduced my wig to people I know as "Jeannie" (which is the actual model name of the wig), and openly admitted to everyone, if it came up, that Jeannie was only my hair because it had been purchased for me.  I don't even try to pretend that Jeannie is my own hair, but I don't bring it up in polite conversation.    

3.  The hair on your legs grows in spite of the fact that you can no longer reach it.  Shaving--at least shaving in the tub or shower--goes bye-bye.  Ugh!  This, and spider veins, is the reason most nice old ladies wear slacks.

4.  The hair on your face becomes empowered.  Even though you can't get it to grow on your head, it will grow on your lip and chin.  Stiff and dark.  Even worse are the white ones you can't really see.  You can pluck and pluck and pluck, and then use a razor to smooth the rest, but it doesn't matter.  Skin wrinkles hide whiskers.  The ones left behind will show up in the light of day.  Society isn't nice to ladies with whiskers, but I am here to tell you: if you are female, you too will be bewhiskered in your older years.  Your mama just didn't tell you about that because nice old ladies don't talk about those indignities.  

5.  Laugh, sneeze, or cough, and you are subject to urinary dribbling.  It happens to every female.  Nuff sed.  I haven't looked at the research.  Maybe it only happens to women who have borne children, but I doubt it.  It's only funny if you it hasn't happened to you, yet.

6.  Thingies begin to appear all over your body.  Skin tags, moles of every kind...things that just take away your femininity.  Naturally, many of them appear in places that are visible to others.  Keep a close relationship with your dermatologist! 

7.  Intestinal gas is a fact of life.  Yes, women toot.  They won't talk about it or brag about it the way men do, but it happens.  My fondest memory of the "cloud" my father left behind in a chair is when my grandmother sat in it directly after he left it.  She said, "OH, FLOYD!!"  No other words were needed...

8.  Wrinkles can be "helped" with cosmetic surgeries, expensive creams, etc., but how can they be fixed over one's whole body?  I now wear long-sleeved shirts all year round because the skin on my arms is so horribly crepey that it is embarrassing.  Every time I have to uncover my arm to get a blood test--which is often these days--I grieve my lost skin tone.  There isn't enough money in the world to fix it.  I'm not a rich person, and I have greater priorities...but still...

9. Keeping clean is a major problem for some, if not all, of us senior citizens.  I was always a bath person.  I would soak in a tub laced with bath oil.  The bath would warm up my cold feet, keep my "nether regions" clean, and moisturize my skin.  And then the day came that I dared not attempt baths any more.  I could get in but not out.  Or I couldn't get in or out without major risks to myself.  (Having a person help was unacceptable.  I don't even like seeing myself naked.  Having someone else see that?  No...the world isn't ready to see my naked body!)  I had to start resorting to showers only, which meant putting a shower seat in my little tub, and holding the shower head in my hand, giving me only one hand to do the rest of the work.  When I'm done, I'm clean, but my skin has been stripped of what little oil it had left in it and becomes dry, flaky, and...well...more wrinkly and crepey than ever.  Getting in and out of the tub, even for only a shower, is still a major undertaking.  Long story short: keeping clean is such an exhausting production that it is often easier just to put it off.  I would kill for a bath now.  Calgon, take me away!

10.  As I age, I understand that keeping me comfortable is more and more of an issue.  That makes me not a very good guest...or a very good hostess.  I have always changed me to adjust to every new situation in my life, but no one really prepared me for old age, except (as my mother would say) getting old is hell.  I might have done my life differently had I known.  (Yeah...but don't count on it.)  Do I have regrets?  Of course.  Do I wish things were different now?  Of course.  Can I change course?  Maybe a little, and I'm gonna try.  We need to plan for old age when we are young, but nobody ever thinks things will happen to them.  Guess again!

Guess I'm not a nice old lady because I just talked about things that nice old ladies don't talk about.  Maybe nice old men also have things they don't talk about.  I don't know.  All I DO know is that we can live to be 100 without talking about reality.  God bless our old people.  (Wait!  I'm an "old person".  When did this happen to me????)  Don't blink, folks.  Don't blink...