When did you realise that time was no longer by your side as woman?!

When did you realise that time was no longer by your side as woman?!

Did you just suddenly wake up one day, look at yourself in the mirror and say: “My God! I’m getting old!” Or did the realisation creep in on you until you just can’t ignore it? Roli, now in her late 50s used to be a model and now runs her own modelling agency. She told me: “I’ll never forget that incident as long as I live.  I was crossing the road to enter a trendy spa a close friend had just opened in a high-brow shopping mall, when I caught a glimpse of a tubby woman reflected in the spa’s huge windows. When her strides started to mirror mine, it hit me: she was me!
“I was completely taken aback, and as people walked past me, I stood stock-still in the middle of the road staring at my reflection. I didn’t look tall and thin as I’d always been in my modelling days. On that day, aged 44, I looked dumpy and middle-aged.  I was only 18 when I first hit the modelling scene, and I soon realised that although I didn’t have perfect features I believed a model should have , with the right poses and with a good photographer drawing attention to my best bits, I could stop traffic!  With my long legs and svelte figure, I was very successful. I also had a stint as an air hostess before I set up the agency.
“Marriage and three children followed and the agency thrived. Still, it was a massive shock when I realised I was no longer lean, lithe and youthful – at least in comparison to the way I’d been. I convinced myself that it must be a bad angle, but in reality, it was the start of a difficult process of coming to terms with ageing throughout my 40s and 50s. I was battling all the time, trying to turn back the clock with all sorts of magical cosmetic potions.
“The turning point was a few years ago, when I was one of the panellists at a modelling contest when another panellist gushed: “You’re Roli, the model, right?’ ‘Why, yes, I said, pleased, I could still be recognised for who I was.  `My mum used to be a big fan of yours’, he said, bursting my bubble.  It was a stark reminded that I bore only a passing resemblance to the glamourous woman I had been all those decades ago. Thankfully, I’d already learned to have a sense of humour about ageing by that point. Now, I don’t bother with expensive beauty brands and treatments – I just try to throw my shoulders back, suck everything in and walk with confidence!”
My aha! Moment came a few years ago when I was to launch a collection of my Yours sincerely Column  in the Vanguard to mark my 60th birthday. For years, James who ran a fairly successful advertising agency had always joked of what a relationship we could have if given half a chance. It was harmless ribbing of course – but how many of that have often led to torrid relationships? Anyway, as the day of the launch drew near, I was lucky to run into him. I briefed him about the impending book-launch and the fact it was to mark my 60th. ‘Sixty?’, he howled, his eyes rounding with disbelief. ‘You’re going to be sixty?’ “Why yes,’ I told him, a bit irritated by now. ‘Anything wrong with that?’  ‘Sixty!’ he muttered again. I had to laugh. The poor bloke just had his 50th birthday and to suddenly realise he’d been lusting after a woman almost a decade older must be quite daunting!
Needless to say, he didn’t attend the book launch – but he sent a modest cheque! Would the cheque had been fatter if I’d been his age!?
Kunbi, a journalist said she got her own shocker some ten years ago.  “I was 42 and driving to help pick up a friend’s mum when I caught myself in my rear view mirror. There was a criss-cross of wrinkles across my forehead and around my eyes. In between my eyebrows there was a great big dip, which made me look permanently angry. My hair was streaked with grey. I felt that sort of pit-of-the-stomach horror you have when something hideous happens, like when you suddenly realise your handbag with all your phones, money and house-keys inside it, has been stolen. But what had been stolen were my looks.
“It hadn’t happened overnight of course, but I had been so busy raising four children (one step-child and three of my own) that I hadn’t focused on myself for sometime. At the time it happened, my smallest was seven and I had to take him to school in the mornings. I finally had time to look in the mirror.  I tried to reason that the light was harsh, but the face is that for the first time in my life, I looked old!
“Just the other day, a friend and I were discussing a man she knows who, at the age of 48, has just married a 25-year-old woman.  Rather depressingly, it dawned on me, that given the choice, men of my generation probably don’t want anything to do with women my age. But, at the same time, I’m a little optimistic about the process. My two daughters are growing up into beautiful young women and my son is thriving. My own mother is 75 and still having fun.
“I’m also beginning to realise that ageing is all about attitude. Of course you have to look after yourself, but my hope is that if I don’t behave like an old person, I won’t look like one.  Because, like it or not, however, much I try to halt the ageing process with creams and potions, diet and exercise regimes, it will defy me and happen anyway. It is happening now. And there is nothing I can do about it. But being happily married and having children has taken away a lot of the insecurities women have when they’re young, when we endlessly analyse our looks, worrying about every grey in our hair, because we want the people we fancy to fancy us back. If it means being settled and content, getting older can be a relief”.

Money well spent? (Humour)
Two women were having lunch at a restaurant and catching up on family news. “I was so sorry to hear that your Johnson had died”, remarked the firs women.  “I hope you’ve been able to carry on with life without him”. “Yes, thank you”, came the reply. “He was such a king and thoughtful man. Do you know that hours before he died, he gave me three envelopes which he told me would ease the burden once he’d gone”.
“How thoughtful!” remarked the first woman. “What was in them?”
“Well, the first had N750,000 to buy a coffin.  The second had N2.5 million in it with a note saying `use this to give me a good send-off’. And let me tell you, they’ll be talking about his funeral for years to come!” “And what about the third envelope?” “Oh that said `use this cheque for N5 million to buy a nice stone’. So I did”, she said, holding out her finger to show a huge diamond ring, `what do you think of it?”