I’ve been blessed with great genes and a presence which often appears years younger than I really am.
I’ve also been blessed with a daughter (like so many others) whose mouth regurgitates and replays recently heard tidbits. Anywhere. Everywhere. Anytime. All-the-time.
With this in mind, I’ve chosen not to tell her my chronological age. Not yet.
For an extremely genuine and honest person who espouses truth and transparency on a daily basis, this is a huge deal. The problem is that I’d swear she already knows.
The matter is even greater: until recently (and unlike my younger self), in fact, I’ve ceased telling anyone my real age.
In my 40’s, I played the biological clock theory as if it was mere hyperbole. In this game, I lost. My youngest daughter was adopted at age 46; my son followed two years later.
I remember a few things which brought me to this current conundrum: while first hugging my daughter in the Moscow Marriott, I called my mother to express my sheer joy, coupled with utter amazement that I was, well, in fact, 46, not 36…Her response? “You shoulda thought about this before.” And, then there was that initial (ok, long-lasting) shock at seeing the other (often much-younger) mothers on the playground, and then daily, at public school.
Finally, my passage into menopause has given me more pause for thought, and the undeniable experience that passing through the “invisible veil” often gives you – you are no longer one of “them,” but rather one of that group of “other them.” It’s sobering, matter-of-fact, and unchangeable. Which again leads me to the dilemma about my age.
I think that in all of my wondrous personal growth, a tiny vestige remains of denial or of the starkness of the following reality – that given my daughter’s tenuous start, coupled with so many of her internal struggles, (in not revealing my age) I don’t wish in any way to alienate her from her peers. Or maybe it’s this: I just don’t wish to be alienated by mine…