I Thought I Was Tired But It’s Been Five Years So I Guess This Is How I Look

I was looking in the mirror the other day - really looking. Not that half-a$$ed thing where I only look at the parts of me that I kind of like - such as my hair on a rare good day or my recently Radiessed jowls or the top layer of my skin that's been mostly lasered off to minimize wrinkles - and I wasn't doing that thing where I shut my right eye and looked at myself with my left eye which is officially legally blind and makes everything look like a soft blur of color.

This time, I REALLY looked. 

I noted my apron belly and the larger-than-I'd-like lumpy thighs. I saw the crepy skin on my legs and arms and didn't miss the flappy thing on both upper arms near my armpits. What do they call those? Bat wings? Bingo wings? 

I even started counting the few hairs on my head that still had color, but since they were all pretty much white, I stopped because what was the point?

I am annoyed that I'm aging, but I should start accepting it.

I must accept that there is no more jumping out of bed or jumping period. I need to accept that jumping jacks will forever be alternating toe taps with low-flapping arms in exercise classes. What should we call them now? Tapping Jacks? 

I must accept that I now crawl out of bed and how stiffness is the new normal. I also need to remember that missing a workout means I won't be able to throw myself into it a week later, never missing a beat, like I could in the days of yore.

Oh, and those days of losing five pounds by not eating donuts for a week? Over.

Now my body never stops hurting and lives in a perpetually creaky, wrinkly state, with white hair and wrinkles.

Will there be a magical moment when I admit I am no longer a spring chicken, accept that this is the natural way of things, and roll with it? 

I mean, what's the point in stressing over the fact that my 35-year-old self is gone forever?  Doesn't it make more sense to focus on what I've gained? 

I'm talking about the wisdom, not the weight, by the way, and listen to me trying to bright-side being eligible for a senior citizen discount.

Sometimes I wish my aging acceptance would hit me in a lightning bolt moment where I rise from the ashes...or empty containers of various ineffective anti-aging products...and chuck my last vanity-related worry into an imaginary f*uck bucket.

COME AND GET ME OLD AGE.

I DON'T CARE ANYMORE! 

(Sung to the tune of Phil Collins - I Don't Care Anymore.)

I'll sing off-key and dance around our house while my thighs dimple, white hairs explode from my chin and my boobs, freed from decades of a sizeable binding bra, drop appreciately to the ground.

Yes, I know it won't happen like that but it's fun to pretend it could.