Old Ladies Don't Drink Margaritas

"...and they tell him, "take your time, it won't be long now
'til you drag your feet to slow the circles down" Joni Mitchell, "The Circle Game"

You say it's your birthday
We're gonna have a good time
I'm glad it's your birthday
Happy birthday to you. Beatles, "Birthday"

When I write the Great Australian Novel it will be called "Controlled Falling". Watch out for it.

The expression came from an old boyfriend. I don't know whether it was because of his Dutch heritage or his science major, but he tended to see the world through unemotive eyes.

We were walking down from an outcrop of rocks. It was a hundred years ago in a desert somewhere in Australia. "It's much easier climbing down," I commented. "Climbing down is just controlled falling," he explained in his Dutch lecture-style way.

Since then I've seen my life in terms of a prolonged and (mostly) controlled falling, from one stage to the next.

The speed of a person's life-fall is not constant. It is extremely slow during childhood, perhaps to twelve years of age, speeding up from then on, until one gets to a certain age and time starts to screech by, somewhat short of the speed of light.

Major changes in speed occur several times in one's life, often associated with life events, such as one's first sexual experience, birth of one's child, the first gray hair, divorce, death of a parent...

Some changes in speed are sign-posted by an epiphany or a comment from another person marking indelibly the precise time of the change.

When I was about 10 I used to run home from school jumping over rubbish bins on the sidewalk. On one particular day I suddenly stopped dead short of a rubbish bin. "You are to old for that," an inner voice whispered. And I jumped no more. My childhood was over and its slow speed accelerated to the faster speed of adolescence.

Marriage, children, divorce, menopause, career ... the wheels of change move increasingly faster as life events pile up rapidly, sometimes even colliding with each other.

Old Lady Not Drinking a Margarita

A "sign-post" manifested itself just yesterday. I was talking to a friend. "My husband invited you over for margaritas," she was saying. "I told him," she continued," "Kate is an old lady and old ladies don't drink margaritas."

The world sped up and I recognized another turning point.

I, who I believed could never get or look old, was defeated.

About to fall, tumbling to the last rung of my descent.

But first, I think I'll have a margarita!

Stay tuned.

hhh