I’ve withstood the ravages of time:  I have not yet been called “Grandma,” am still courted by those younger than I, and I still do not get the looks that others often get (“others” with gray hair, wrinkles, and sagging bodies).  So far, I’m sitting like the Cheshire Cat, grinning from ear-to-ear about my little dirty secret. (You know, the one about my real age).

However, I do believe that it is all about to change. (Uh-OH!)

Lately, I’m noticing those lingering looks – those looks that go from child to mother, mother to child. Those furtive glances that look quickly for another younger mother or another woman standing nearby.  You know the one where people are trying to “figure it out,” without appearing to “figure it out.” In short, the day is coming when I’m about to be mistaken for them, those others…the ones on the other side of middle-age.

I carefully read the words of veteran writer Linda K. Wertheimer when, in her blog post “Don’t Call Me Grandma,” she writes, “But, please do not call me Grandma. I don’t feel like an old Mom. Sure, after a few sets of tennis or of knee bends to pick up my toddler, my body aches more than it did in my 20s. But I’m also more comfortable with myself than I was in previous decades.”  She explains that the hour she waits during her son’s preschool class is most often spent talking to the sole grandmother in the group. “…we talk about the joy of having toddlers in our lives. It sometimes feels like I have more in common with her than with the younger mothers. But still—don’t call me Grandma!” But, she concludes the way that most of us as Midlife Mothers often do by saying, “I could not be happier. My son knows my name. It’s Mommy.”

Here’s where the seriousness begins: despite our best intentions – our joy at having become mothers at any age, the pause for reflection that pushes us to live each day to the very fullest – we know all too well that whenever we pass on we will do so much too quickly for ourselves and, more importantly, for our children. The fact that we are now in Crone stage, and are identified as such, becomes further edification of this very fact. The figurative and literal mirror doesn’t lie. And, perhaps, our own white lies to ourselves – that it doesn’t matter, that our lives have played themselves out in this fashion because it was “meant to be” – only mask the fact that we do, indeed, sometimes harbor regrets at not having started out (mothering, marrying, pursuing life choices) sooner than later.

So, with several more months or (more wishfully) maybe a few years to go, I’m beginning to practice my lines – those quippy responses I’ll have to those very stupid (grandmother) comments. Here goes:

“Are you the Grandma?”

“Me? Hell, no~…..”