Aunt Bea, Demi Moore and Me

It was no wonder that Demi Moore wound-up in the hospital now that fifty is the new thirty. The problem with fifty being the new thirty is that you're still fifty and being thirty when you are fifty is EXHAUSTING.

It used to be fifty looked a lot like Aunt Bea from "The Andy Griffith Show". My own grandma looked a whole lot like Aunt Bea. She had that figure where everything goes to the middle (as in "middle-age) and she wore those tidy cotton dresses and sensible shoes throughout the sixties. Grandma had a sweet face (like Bea) and soft white hair. Her house smelled like fresh bread, because she baked her own. She made quilts out of the fabric leftover from the tidy cotton dresses she sewed and could knit mittens for grandchildren without a pattern.  

Now grandmas aren't supposed to act like grandmas anymore. When we are over fifty and ought to have some sense, we are supposed to look like one of those women on  "The Housewives of Whatever" shows. Maybe it is just me, but I think those women look like a pack of ex-strippers. Who wants their grandma looking like that? I am glad my grandma didn't look like a former exotic dancer. Plus, all that teetering around on five inch heels makes me nervous -- someone could break a hip!

A lot of the media has latched onto this fifty is the new thirty-thing like it is the most wonderful thing ever. Not that there is anything wrong with trying to look nice, but if it involves a visit to the doctor's office you can count me out. It's not just that I loathe pain (I do), I don't think those women who get all that stuff REALLY look that much better. A lot of them wind-up looking kind of weird in a somewhat embalmed way.

Not that Demi Moore doesn't look damn good for her age (if not a bit thin) but you just cannot do the stuff you used to do in your twenties in your fifties.  Including Ashton Kutcher.   Listen, if  G.I. Jane can't handle the fifty is the new thirty thing without being hospitalized, I sure as hell can't.

I'm not resigning my standing hair color appointment, or throwing in the towel on the whole "Weight Watchers" business (although sometimes I want to throw the towel at that cute little Jennifer Hudson) and inhaling a pile of lard. I am not promoting pure surrender.  It's just if you are over fifty, cut yourself a little slack:  Relax.  It's O.K. to be older.  I may have traded-in capris with elastic waistbands and Birkenstocks for Aunt Bea's tidy cotton dresses, but like Aunt Bea, I worked HARD for the privilege.