Created April, 2013 My Hand is 60 Years Old

I remember once driving under Wacker Drive in the City - which to me meant Chicago - on my way to one of the many corporate jobs I held as a lawyer. I looked at my hand. There it was. My mother's hand sticking out of my sleeve. I was astonished and disturbed. I had never thought of myself as ever growing older; I would always be what I was then - about 30, maybe a little younger, with skin to match.

Today, in 2013, almost 30 years later, I again looked at my hand. And my mother's hand was still there. Only now it was hers at 60. I am almost 60. How did that happen? For prior generations, it was a given that they would grow old and die. For the "boomers", of which I was one of the last so initiated, it was a shock. We were never to grow old. When we did, which was inevitable - though not to our eyes - we discovered that we did not want to be our parents - growing old with the person we cherished as comparative youngsters. We went on to younger partners, to stave off the ravages of time.

Of course, some of us got left behind in this mad rush to save ourselves from time's immortal grasp. We are the women who are left to fend for ourselves - the fastest-growing demographic in America. Single women over 50 years old. Destined to live the remainder of our lives alone. The ones whose hands turned 60, before a more befitting time for that to occur, at least for us. We now embrace plastic surgery and anti-aging creams, promising the glow of youth. That cannot be had, except by the young, of course, but that does not stop the billions of dollars pouring into the new corporate paradigm of cosmetic institutions, including both doctors and scam artists. Those of us women who retain some semblance of sanity, after having become invisible to society on account of our age, find other venues for life to go forward.

But those venues left to us! We become what we believe we are not: old. I cannot entirely accept the venues available - service societies and religious groups - although some I attend. I feel so young in comparison to those in attendance! I am not, of course, but I still believe I can paddle the capricious rivers, climb the mountains, ride the wild horse, traverse the living room or step into the bath without risking a fall that would break brittle bones. How did this happen? We are still young, right? We go "on-line" to find a new love, only to find men whose hair is falling out, who cannot sit upright, who cannot ride, or walk, or have sex without drugs, or even dream of the life that once was theirs or could have been theirs, if they had only realized they would be next on age's hit list.

So, what is left? To actually grow old? I, for one, cannot accept it. I will ride the wild horse, and I will dream of creation and make it happen. Not the dream-creations of my younger years - children and family and friends who gather to celebrate life and to share camaraderie (which for me did not entirely materialize for many reasons) - but my own private creations. Those that are truly mine and for my own selfish pleasure. What guilt that arouses! To create only for oneself! How can one bear it? That is not what we women are meant to be all about, right? But to create just for ourselves, and to feel no remorse at having such selfish desires is all that is left to us - if we are strong enough to do so. What loneliness it is! But perhaps not loneliness, but aloneness. Such a difference! If we can tolerate being alone without being lonely, that would surely be a gift from the gods.