Louisa Simmonds

Fight With Shattered Mirrors by Stephan Geyer at http://www.flickr.com

As I lay back nervously in the dentist chair today, three tampons prizing my mouth open and a pair of sunglasses protecting my eyes from direct and awkard eye contact with my hygienist, I contemplated food.

NO! I contemplated ‘life’.

Actually, I WAS contemplating food because I’d stupidly forgotten to each lunch before my appointment, unaware that I was about to endure an hour of scraping, digging and hand-pickaxing while wafts of Dahl tempted me from the Indian restaurant next door.

To take my mind off the pain, I focused on the bright ceiling light above my face that was guiding the hygienist to my calculus and that shone painfully brightly into my eyes, and for a moment it seemed almost like a sign from God, there to remind me about the things I have a tendency to forget when I’m super- busy being anxious and whining.

To seize the day.

I’m middle-aged and not getting any younger and although I’m not yet fifty, sadly I already have a few ‘mobile’ teeth, which is the dentist’s polite term for ‘wobbly teeth’, and I take that as a definitive sign that I’m not going to age well and I need to heed the warning signs now.

And ‘make hay while the fucking sun shines’.

I can cope with being toothless or being called ‘gummy’ by the kids but I can’t cope with the pain of getting there. Teeth issues ruined my mother-in-law’s last few years and everyone knows that tooth-ache is the worst kind of pain.

Actually, that might be a man-opinion, and as they have never labored and believe that a cold is the flu, ignore it if you choose.

But, let’s be honest, there’s not much to look forward to PHYSICALLY as you get older, is there? Your libido goes, your co-ordination, eye-sight and hearing deteriorate, your uterus can prolapse in mid-jog to the bar and eventually you become scared to leave your house.

So I decided for the nth time this year, as I counted the nose hairs of my hygienist, that I need to make the most of what I’ve got RIGHT NOW!

Middle Age: it’s about seizing the fucking day, bitches.

#Women #Health #middleage #Ageing #Humor