So you’re getting old? Great… That means you should be worth more than ever!

By the way, I am so old that I actually had to stop in the middle of what I was doing, cleaning, so I could write this down or else I would never remember.

So here I was, outside scrubbing off all the dirt buildup in the crevices of my outdoor colonial style porch railings (which incidentally was not on my checklist for today… so of course I then immediately added it to my check list, and checked it off. This is very important because it makes you feel like you’ve accomplished more…like, combed my hair, check/ cross off).

Not entirely off the subject but, did those early colonial settlers from England have to make this intricate pattern for their porch rails? Couldn’t they have come up with something easier that we didn’t want to imitate 300 years later? Now I can see the relationship between English muffins and English architectural railings… Look at all those nooks and crannies. What were they thinking? You don’t even get to take advantage of them on railings, with amazing wells of melted butter pooled up ~ so what good are they? Hotbeds for green and black moldy stuff.

Anyway, back to my back-breaking work.  As I was cleaning off lots of dirt and grime in the crevices of the areas that were carved out and molded, it occurred to me that this actually looks sort of like “antiquing.” This is something we like to do to furniture and building designs to make them look more beautiful… You might pay a lot more for something that’s beautifully painted with antiquing in the crevices. My “new” kitchen cabinets have this.  Hmmmmmmm…

That’s weird. Something that 200 years ago they would’ve been out there cleaning and scrubbing away just like me (and trust me, this dirt and grime on my porch did not take 200 years to get there- I wish!) many, many years later we call a beautiful antique. And we try to re-create it too – on purpose.

I actually kind of love that. But why is it that we don’t feel the same way with human beings? As we get older with our beautiful lines and age spots IE: antiquing, WHY isn’t that considered more beautiful and more valuable?

I’m annoyed by this thought. Mostly because I’m getting all of those beautiful lines and age spots.  And, I do love my elders, in addition to being disgusted (ok, jealous) of Hollywood types who have all that expensive re-surfacing work to take away their antique look.

We have become a culture of youth worshippers, thinking we should never, ever actually get old looking.  In fact the worst part is that in many cases, our insides could be in terrible health and crumbling, and what is advertised to us in glossy print that we simply MUST have, is some life changing technique or cream to take away our surface lines.

Ladies and Gentlemen: we are going to get old. Feeling. Moving.  And yes, looking.  I know that 50 is the new 30, and 60 is the new 40 or 35, or freakin’ 25 or whatever. But it’s inevitable.  I don’t like it either, but why do we fight it so hard?… Is it because that’s what we are being taught and sold day in and day out?  Our worth is based on our ageless beauty and trying to keep up with the dewy skin of teenagers – who ironically have NO CLUE they have the amazing porcelain stuff –  for the rest of our lives?  It’s really stupid and non-sensical, but in our brave new world of fast everything, instant media exposure (and over-exposure) and constant voyeurism into the lives of the rich and famous, it’s the rules.

It shouldn’t be the rules.  I always knew this of course, but until you are “faced” (hehe) with it yourself, it might kind of elude you.  I’m much deeper now that my lines are deeper.  I have a greater understanding and true respect for my aging mother when I can clearly see myself in her struggle to remain independent and get around without falling.  It certainly doesn’t matter how she looks ~ she’s beautiful to me, from the inside out.  That’s what I want, and sometimes it seems aging gracefully is almost a lost art.

So in the end, since I’ve stumbled upon all this wisdom of how wonderfully valuable antiques are, why am I cleaning the dirt off? Why don’t I leave it for the antiquing look?… Somehow it doesn’t seem right for a porch to be genuinely scuffed, moldy and marred (unless you deliberately and permanently do some kind of crafty artwork to make it that way) when it was only built several years ago… It’s only good if the house was built in like 1782, even IF it’s been cleaned most years since then and the dirt and grime that looks rustically beautiful is probably from 1972. Or maybe even 1992.  Actually, make that last year.  It’s not fair, but that’s the rules. 

So then, did I do a really thorough job of cleaning every little corner? No, of course not. I want to preserve the integrity of my growing antique… I think I will just tell people that on this former Civil War battleground area, my house was the only one that was here, built in 1798.

Okay. So that probably won’t work. No, definitely.

But I could tell them that I salvaged this incredible railing from an antique house. There you go.  This is going to save me many years of cumulative work. Which is a good thing, seeing that I. am. getting. old.

Seriously ~ trapped in my little brain, I still feel like I’m 20 something, young at heart, exuberant about the future, passionate about life, with maybe just a pinch more of wisdom thrown in.  So, just like the railings, I’ve gotta take care of this shell that carries me 🙂 .