Grandmas don't wear holey jeans
On turning forty-nine, resisting some tropes, and leaning in to others
A few weeks ago I turned forty-nine. I haven’t felt like I needed to process that much—I have let my hair go gray, but I also use the wrinkle creams and lift the weights and take the supplements that are supposed to help me age better. I’m okay with my age but I don’t intend to give nature its full and untouched run of things. You could sell me youth in a bottle. You could especially sell me youthful energy in a bottle, or a bucket please. I’ll take the Costco size.
But I am intending to replace my holey jeans with something more appropriate for a grandma1, because I am happily a grandmother and I feel a little weird sometimes when my toddler grandsons run a chubby finger over the holes in my pants. It feels like that shouldn’t be a core memory for them. I remember my grandma smoking cigarettes, her kitchen drawer full of different chewing gums, and the way she always seemed to have an outfit on. “I remember the way grandma’s skin squished through her holey jeans,” doesn’t have quite the same nostalgia.
Maybe I think too much about how I will be remembered. Maybe that’s the part of turning forty-nine that I need to work through. I was packing boxes the other day and got sideswiped by a box of photos, the way nostalgia will creep in and steal hours of your day, and I saw my redheaded self from twenty-plus years ago. “Grandma had red hair?” they’ll say some day. She looked like the same person, to me, from inside forty-nine. The same person inside.
I don’t feel old. I feel scared of being naive, of not knowing what I should, of not seeing myself clearly. But at the same time I feel pretty certain about a lot of things and even my doubts feel like they’ve earned the right to be spoken aloud, and that is different from the redhead in the photos. Is this what getting old means?
I’m pretty sure I just defined midlife women but don’t box us in, please. We are even more.
Since the first grandbaby was born, I’ve said I’m in my Funky Grandma era. I am young; I feel young, for a grandma. I had kids young and now I have grandkids young, and becoming a grandmother is the same kind of blessing that actually being able to grow old is—not everyone gets the chance (cliches are cliches because they are true). Funky Grandma is not fighting any titles or numbers. She is living it up and loving the heck out of this stage. Funky Grandma wants to be remembered for quirk and spice and whimsy2.
But maybe not holey jeans.
Another aspect of forty-nine is this feeling that I need to set some kind of significant goal for this last year of my forties, because next year is the Big 5-0. I can’t really think that way, though. I don’t do good with goals that require a stiff consistency to something outside my regular routine. “Fifty Things Before Fifty” sounds fun, and I am enticed by challenges, but I would need someone else to come up with the Things and keep me accountable…Fifty is a lot. I’m playing the long game with life and I have to pace myself.
I would love to take fifty walks before turning fifty. That feels like a pace I could keep through the seasons—the weather, the move, the life, the unknowns (all those nouns were synonyms). Fifty walks is about one a week, and I am trying to get in at least two right now. That seems pretty puny and doable. Here is one:
This is May in Oregon.
I am in love with this walk and this gravel road and all the memories. I pushed my babies in the jogger stroller on this road. I took them off road for picnics and nature walks here. I ran on this road with my husband and our son’s beloved dog, Lacy. I have walked or run hundreds of miles and hours on this road, talked with friends here, solved problems, prayed prayers of joy and lament, listened to some great books, had long phone calls, and taken a bajillion pictures on this gravel road and its offshoots. I walk with my grandsons here. My dad walked here when he visited. My adult kids walk with me here.
I love this walk in May, with everything greening-in close and tropical, reminding me this earth will be made new.
Getting older makes some people grouchy, as the trope goes. Or maybe getting older makes some people feel they have a license to air their grouchy grievances? But Anne Helen Petersen wrote a great essay about our propensity to complain about dumb things, in general—regardless of age.
As a business owner I know the highs and lows of Google and Yelp reviews. On good days we marvel that kind and gracious people take the time and effort to leave us great reviews, and that has encouraged me to do the same for other small businesses. But when we’re feeling snarky at the deli, our favorite is the one that complained there was “nothing under a dollar” on our menu3.
This was a really good analysis (with a few f-bombs) of why we feel entitled to our complaints, and how online consumerism has paved the way for us.
One last word about turning forty-nine—and again, this is a cliche of midlife but here I am: I am purposing to spend way less time overthinking what I share here. I’m writing what I would tell you for reals, over coffee, imperfectly. The typos are mine, the run-ons and the made up words are all my own, and I’ve been a fan of the em-dash long before AI thought it was cool.
I’m glad you’re here : )
This just means “without holes”. Rest assured, there are no elastic waistbands in my grandma jeans yet. I have joggers and sweat pants for that.
In my heart I am Iris Apfel, but in reality I am pretty beige and sedate.
Remember that I never wanted this to be a restaurant?
"The typos are mine, the run-ons and the made up words are all my own, and I’ve been a fan of the em-dash long before AI thought it was cool." hard same.
I love the 50 walks for 50 years idea! Happy belated birthday!