To age or not to age

To celebrate it's 50th anniversary General Hospital producers, yes I'm still talking about GH, brought back as many old characters and actors they could find and afford to pay. It is one of the reason I began watching again several months ago. So many of my favorites passed through the doors of the renovated hospital bringing back great memories, but all I could think was, "seriously these people have aged!"

General Hospital isn't the only show that is bringing back the elderly past.  On a recent episode of the remake of the nighttime soap opera Dallas it took me a good five minutes to identify one of the characters as Lee Majors, the Six Million Dollar man back in the day. Obviously the robot work done on his body didn't withstand the test of time as he is now paunchy and limping, not to mention balding. It depressed me. Steve Austin. Heath Barkley. Gone was the youth, vitality, and looks that had me girl crushing him as a teenager.  

At first I gasped and shook my head in disbelief at what time and the addition of high definition television had done, but somewhere along the line I began to realize that some of the characters were my age or slightly older. After that realization came the one that if they looked like that what must I look like? It was an awakening of sorts. While I know that I've been aging all these years, in my head I'm still that girl in my twenties. Part of that misconception comes from avoiding mirrors and not turning on lights, but mostly I've ignored it, until these shows began trotting out my past.  Now I've had to add my own aging to the horror list that includes my kids aging.

Time is passing me by.  Once I worried about finding love and fantasized that would be with Tom Selleck, who has aged fairly well, but is well, seriously old.  Now I worry about my kids not wanting my kisses and hugs.  Once I worried about acne.  Now I worry about wrinkles.  Once I worried about the girls getting enough to eat, getting enough sleep, and getting through the day uninjured.  Now I worry about them bringing home boys, driving, and leaving home.  How did things go by so quickly?  It seems like yesterday I lived in Indiana with my parents.  I was shocked when someone asked me how long I've lived in Florida and I added up the 24 years and realized I've lived here longer than I lived in Indiana.  My husband and I just celebrated our 19th year anniversary.  I feel like we just got married a few years ago.

There isn't anything I can do about it.  Time ticks away and with each second I lose a little something of my girls, my body, my life.  I suppose I could change my looks with some work if I could afford it, but after seeing some of the plastic surgery done on the actors of GH and Dallas I think I'll pass on that.  I've never been a beauty and I've never been on television so at least I don't have to look at myself today in high definition on someone's television and wonder what happened.  I'll just peer into a mirror and sigh.