AUTHOR'S CORNER;

WE'RE AGEING BEAUTIFULLY DARLINGS!

I am either deluded or suffering from what I like to call Time Warp Entrapment Syndrome!  For it fills me with great shock and insurmountable horror whenever I happen to be brave enough to try on an outfit in 'modern' clothes shops!  The image that looks back at me reminds me acutely of a certain aunt from my childhood, only dressed inappropriately in brightly coloured tight attire, she stares back at me through my own eyes, mocking me with a haggard smile and a slightly overweight body.  And yet I find myself, on many a deluded shopping trip, doing just that!  I have an image of myself in my mind's eye which is somehow stuck in my teenage years and regardless of what my many mirrors are telling me, I seem to miss the point!  

Not old, by far, but one must admit that whilst youth has not yet left me, it is certainly sparing and beginning to be thin on the ground when it comes to bestowing itself upon me.  I suppose I am in that middle period of my life, where I can still remember with great clarity my teenage years, and yet can see my own children enacting them.  It seems mismatched somehow to feel like a teenager yourself and yet have to deal with teenage offspring. Reality hits you and you can no longer delude yourself when your own children are in turning twenty (no matter how young you've had them) and remind you of you!

So I put this concern to my friends over a coffee morning and hoped for some confirmation as to how I was feeling.  Hoping to share my concerns and get some reassurance that I was not the only one, proved to be a harder task than I had imagined.  For once again, I had given them all a platform on which to try and outwit and outshine and out-youth me!  

Fashion Editor kicked off the discussion as she smirked at me and flicked her bobbed hair from side to side, 'Huh, I don't feel old at all,' she said.  'I am young and vibrant and very much active!' she looked at me and grinned like a Cheshire cat.  'I guess you're feeling your age Sam?' she asked.  My age?  Hang on, she's older than me, I know this, because she once told me so!   

Before I had a chance to answer Gym Instructor jumped in, 'Well, I guess Sam would feel it more, all she does is sit on her bum all day at that desk of hers!' she said.  'Youth only stays for those who cherish it!' she smirked.  

'I guess lack of exercise is beginning to show on you Sam, why don't you join the gym, we have a special class for people like you!'  Cheeky mare! I gave her a frosty smile that could curdle milk and turned my face away from her swiftly, cranking my neck in the process, which I may add, did not work in my favour, it only served to make Gym Instructor smirk.

'Well,' said Teacher, as she entered the room with a tray of tea,(no doubt she has been listening from the kitchen and eager to get in on the fun. 'it's all about keeping a young agile mind, Sam, if you think old, you will be old!'  She handed me a poisoned cup of tea and stared hard into my eyes.  'I guess all that writing has grounded you right down!' she looked at the others for support.  'I keep young because I am always around young people, they keep me young.  You on the other hand, stuck at home, writing!'  

'My kids keep me young,' chimed Housewife.  Kids?  They are as old as my kids; she mothers them like babies!!  'I love running around after them, preparing their meals, tidying their rooms, running their baths!'  OMG!  They are grown men!!!   'And I love to pay attention to my husband, which is what you're neglecting Sam, your relationship, of course you feel old; what is life without a happy relationship? If only you stop this silliness about writing and concentrate more on them, perhaps your youth might be restored,' she said as she hammered in yet another nail in the coffin, 'You've made yourself old with worrying about silly things like writing!' she declared. 

'And keeping active, Sam, and I don't mean sport, I mean doing something worthwhile,' said Nurse in motherly tones.  'Look at me, ever since I have retrained and become a nurse, the life force has come back to me, it is so refreshing helping others!'

She looked me up and down and laughed (cackled) 'Honestly Sam,' she said.  'You should have retrained after your kids went to school, you could have been something worthwhile!'  I think I am going to have to assess my friendship with Nurse spiteful!

 'May I remind you,' I finally said (spitting venom and hot tea) 'I am actually only older than on of you, younger than three of you and the same age as the other!  I have four children, two of them are grown up, and have not done so badly on the relationship front, thank you very much!  I married young, and had them young and I am not that old!!'

They looked at me in dismay for a few moments; it was make or break for our friendship, and I had a feeling there was a small crack running through the core of the base of our union.  I stared back in defiance and waited for some sort of apology.  If I was old, so were they!

Teacher held out her hand and I found myself taking it, 'You are so lovely and inspiring,' she said.  'You know we all think so?'

'I don't know why you worry so,' said Fashion Editor.  'Everyone gets on a bit!' 

'And you have done so well for yourself,' said Housewife.  'You've raised a family and you've become a writer!  I envy you,' she sniffed.

'And it is easy to keep yourself fit, why don't you join the gym?' asked Gym Instructor.  'We have beginner Zumba 

classes, and I'm sure you'll enjoy them!'

'Sam, Sam,' reassured Nurse.  'Oh Sam, honey, we all feel it, but it's a part of life.  Now do cheer up, you are still lovely, and you know it!'

I sniffed back my threatening tears and looked at all my lovely, clever, youthful friends and smiled.  As long as they are in my life, I don't have to worry about a thing, or even prove anything; for they all love and cherish me, if if they are a little catty, a bit vicious and a tad spiteful when it comes to showing it!  And age is only a number, and numbers are a none existent in an infinite universe!