50 Shades of Grey… Hair

Summer 2013 is barreling down on me fast.  Beyond the usual “How in God’s name am I going to fill TWO WHOLE MONTHS with my kids?”, I’m consumed this year by a far greater lament.  On July 30^th, I will turn fifty years old.  F-I-F-T-Y years old.

I’m not sure who coined the phrase “fifty is the new thirty”, but chances are they were pretty hopped up on Botox when they said it.  Believe me, I’m happy to have reached this milestone in one piece, but my chassis could sure use an oil n’ lube at this point.

When I look back on my mother at this age, she was squeezing herself into a latex girdle and shellacking her beige hair into a carbon fiber dome every morning, so I guess by comparison, I’m keepin’ it real.  Of course, I have been known to use a little hairspray from time to time…

Oh, God.

In any event, just like my mother, I had my two kids rather late in the parenting game.  So while most of my peers are now living in iHell with their teens, I’m still baking cupcakes for grades 3 and 5 class parties.  Yes, with my coffee maker set to torque-brew, I face each parenting day with a smile on my ever aging visage.  After all, it’s my kids that are unwittingly keeping me young at heart, so they deserve the best maternal effort this half centurion can muster.

So come on fifty, bring it on!  I no longer feel part of the youth culture anyway, a fact my kids’ taste in music drives home almost daily, and the only thrill seeking rush I need nowadays is from farming both kids out for sleepovers on the same night.  Besides, menopausal mothering seems enough of an extreme sport for me.

Waterfall rappelling?  Really, I’m good.

I’ll probably just hang at a Funfair this weekend myself.