I often wonder when I will get old. Will I wake-up one morning and be old. Am I old now? I recently decided, yes, decided to get and wear bi-focals.  People who are nice, call them progressives. Maybe because you are getting progressively older, progressively blind, progressing your way to cataract surgery.  I have these glasses that hurt my eyes as much as my pride, by wearing them and I hate them. But am I old? I have worn these glasses for a week and in that week, I have fallen down the stairs, fallen outside, and fallen in my room, trying to go to the bathroom. Falling, for me is not an indication that I am old. I have fallen or tripped or stumbled at least once a week since I was born, I am used to falling. Apparently, wearing a certain type of glasses doesn’t make me old.

With my new glasses properly installed on my face, I can now see all my wrinkles. My next step to combat my age is Botox. I am not sure what Botox will do but I plop down the money and get poison injected into my face, I tell myself it is a wise decision since she is also going to inject my jaw for TMJ. But does getting Botox make me old? Twenty-year-olds are getting Botox, so that makes me young, right?

I don’t know if I am afraid of getting old or appearing old. After my Botox, I decide I want to color my gray hair, so the answer is I am afraid to appear old. In coloring my grays, I also decide I need to change up my wardrobe, something younger and fresh, but not too young. I do not want to look like my college age daughter. A few weeks after my “Tox” session, I color my hair. As I sit in my stylist’s chair, praying that I will look younger, I feel the excitement of being younger, feeling younger.

I walk out of the salon, feeling fresh but frumpy. This is it; I say to myself, it must be how I am dressing that makes me feel old. I spend the hour-long drive home, desperate to find out why I feel so old. I have done all the things that I am supposed to do, Botox, hair color, contemplative clothing changes but still no answers.  When I walk through my door and see my grown-ass son walk toward me to greet me, my realization hits me like a ton of old lady bricks. The reason that I feel so fucking old is because I am fucking old. No matter what I do, where I go and what body part I get injected, I am old and I will only get older, until I take my last breath and when I do take my last breath, my face will be so frozen from plastic surgery that no one will know I am dead.