Coming to Terms with the Fade

It’s not as if I don’t look in the mirror every day. It’s not like I haven’t tracked the lines in my face. There is no turning back the clock. You had your turn. There are worse things than being old. This is the lecture I give myself every day, not in a sad way, but in a way.

My husband has been going through 37 years of accumulated files, newspaper clippings, letters, and photos as part of his preparation for writing a book about the organization he founded and from which he just retired. This afternoon, he walked the ten feet from his office to mine and handed me a stack of pictures. This picture of me from thirty years ago was on top.

First of all, I still have the sweater.

Secondly, I look so bright. It was the brightness that got to me. My hair really used to be that color? I looked that vibrant? And I thought of looking now at pictures of my 47-year old daughter. She glows in those pictures. She has a big career and a big family and her days are strenuous and glorious at the same time. And that was me then. I glowed. That was my turn, I guess. My turn to glow.

And then there was the long fade. Or, rather, there is the long fade. Because I don’t think the fading process has quite ended. A pessimist would predict the fading to end with erasure but I prefer to stop short of that. Still, one can become only so gray before one is indistinguishable in the landscape.

When I turned 50, my husband bought me a t-shirt that read “When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple” and I shoved the shirt behind a heavy, very scratchy wool sweater in the far reaches of my closet. Eventually, it found its way to Goodwill. Now I wish I had that shirt. I need to wear purple so people will see I’m still here, despite the long fade.

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat that doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me,
And I shall spend my pension
on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals,
and say we’ve no money for butter.
– Jenny Johnson