You Are Only as Old as Your Self Delusion.

Time can be SUCH a bitch.
Ask anyone over the age of, say....30, and they will tell you that the years that used to last at least 365 days have sped up every year since the candles started completely covering the top of the cake.
Which is not to say that aging should be feared....oh no no no, but it must be acknowledged and it must be treated with the respect it deserves.
Personally, I love aging.
I may be odd that way.
I have ZERO desire to be back in my twenties, or even my thirties, other than to relive those precious moments when my children were younger.
The thought of going back to a time when I knew so little, but I thought I knew everything fills me with horror.
Ignorance is not bliss, as I have often said. It is ignorance.
Not knowing what you do not know does give rise to some amazing leaps in progress, it's true.
There is a terrific amount of confidence in assuming you are right simply because you do not know the ways in which you are wrong.
I am all about taking the mighty leap of faith.
But what I know now is so life affirming, and I simply didn't have those tools when I was younger.
For example.
When I was younger, I used to think that in order to be taken seriously as an adult I needed to be the loudest.
I am not sure WHY I started thinking that, but I did.
It may have come about by never feeling that I was the prettiest. Most certainly I was not the tallest. I had hoped to be seen as clever but I knew, even then, that I was not the cleverEST.
So I endeavoured to be the NOISIEST.
OUTGOING.
That was the word that was used.
It's a nice word, outgoing, and even now I would describe myself as such.
But the difference between the THEN outgoing and the NOW outgoing is that NOW I am outgoing in a friendly, attentive and open way.
THEN is was outgoing in the sense that I was completely fucking obnoxious.
At least, that's what I think of it as NOW.
In the past few years I have come across a number of men and woman who are quite a lot like me.
We are a 'type'.
Bossy and confident, and hopelessly fragile.
A dichotomy, but an entertaining blend.
Unless we have very little self awareness, in which case we turn into a parody of ourselves.
I know women, way too old to be as out of touch with themselves as they are, who are so SHOUTY and NOISEY that they emotionally enter the room before they have walked into the house.
They shriek CLASS with a capital C.U.T.G.L.A.S.S.
"LOOK" they shout "I AM STILL YOUNG AND SEXY AND RELEVANT AND IF YOU DON'T BELIEVE ME, HERE ARE MY TITS".
These woman always have big tits.
It's like nature gave them superboobies in order to attract men who have mummy issues.
I have big tits, but since getting older, I do not use them as a conversation starter (well, after a few dozen glasses of Pinot Grisio, but by then all bets are off).
There are in existence, I know, HUNDREDS of pics of my cleavage floating around in cupboards taken at such appropriate occasions such as 3 years olds parties , house warmings and funerals.
This is why aging has been good to me.
I may still not be the prettiest, tallest, or smartest, but I now know I have more to give than free hilarious outrage and a bra full of party tricks.
When I entertain these days, it's for an invoice.
Woman in their 40s and 50s who still try to hide behind the role of NOISIEST and MOST FUN EVER at a party should see a therapist, or at least buy a full length mirror.
Leopard print on anything much larger than a scarf makes the mature woman look like mutton dressed as dead leopard.
Not a good look.
Of course, what we are talking about here IS maturity.
Not getting old.
I hardly think I am the type to settle into the rut of a social norm.
But knowing when to remove some of the brass and add some grace is certainly the trick to staying ahead of the game.
We have all seen men in their 60s who swagger through life with their wispy hair wrapped across their balding pates dressed in slightly too tight pants with a 20 something bimbo on their arm.
"Good grief," we wonder "who does he think he is kidding?"
Um, the same people YOU think YOU are if you insist upon being taken seriously in the workplace whilst signing up to face book with the screen name barbiegrlluvs69.
At 20, that's hilarious.
At 50, that's tragic.
And so you see, time IS a bitch.
Because if she just stood still and allowed us our arrested development, everything would be rainbows and lollipops.
Unfortunately it doesn't work that way, and the painful truth is that if you are still seeking that kind of attention 30 years after leaving home you will simple never find it.
Not in the way you truly need.
What you actually need, more than the eyes of the room and the title of ' woman most likely to sing an ABBA medley after two tequilas' is love.
Self love.
And by that I mean love from within.
This is what time, and maturity, has taught me.
A bitch she may be, old mother time, but any good parent knows that the lessons we learn the hard way are the ones we never forget.
One day age will take away our memories as well, and as painful as that will be for those around us, for us, it will be just in the nic Time.