I used to complain about how nobody showed me respect due to my age. I would walk into a room with my younger friend by 4 years and she would get a good afternoon madam while I got a perfunctory “…..aunty?” I have never been able to decode the pause before the aunty and frankly, I still wonder about it and the barely concealed sneer in the expression as my would be adversary sized me up. Oh, they were always adversaries because you guessed it, not having received the respect that I believed was due to me, I always picked on the dear girls and made already miserable lives more so. The boys are slightly different, a shade ingratiating at first meeting, but they scoffed openly as if I was some recalcitrant girlfriend when I put on haughty airs in a bid to command the elusive but desired respect.

All that changed in the past year though, everywhere I get to now, people barely younger than me – by my own estimation – fall all over themselves to acknowledge my superior age. It is ma this and ma that and can I carry your bag ma, they almost offer to hold my hand to help me up the stairs! All this transformation happened in the space of one year. Do I welcome it? Of course not, I had taken perverse pleasure in being thought to be younger than my years, and although I bristled openly, I often gloated about my youthful looks to my husband. It now appears however, that youth is finally deserting me. Moi, proudly ageless moi!

I started to come round to the concept of aging when the boy, yes the boy, that I married started to grey. Like me, he denied it and spent hours in front of the mirror, plucking errant grey hairs out his beard. He ended up with prominent bald patches in his once lustrous gleaming black beard, but better that he looked like he was afflicted by some rare form of eczema than to let the world see that he was greying. There were other signs too. First came the raised blood pressure that my husband insisted was due to a particularly stressful business deal and would soon go back to normal. It has been ten years, many low business periods and many holidays have passed, but still we wait. Since we have been waiting, he has had to change his diet and to stop guzzling coke like the beverage was going out of fashion. According to him, real men drink coke and he was on a twelve to sixteen bottle a day habit. So you can imagine his anguish when he became sugar intolerant. Don’t say the word diabetes in connection to my husband o. He is simply sugar intolerant. Those little white pills are merely to help him manage with starchy foods and although he suffers bouts of headache from sneaking slabs of chocolate from the fridge when no one is looking, he would rather that and endure the drowsiness that comes with it, than die slowly from sheer longing to feed his sweet tooth. He has even argued that what is the purpose of living if he cannot indulge this one vice. The only one he admits to only because it so very obvious.

Watching my husband resist old age, set me to thinking about mine. I think life had treated me extremely kindly. If you asked me in a distracted moment how old I was, I probably would say eighteen in reflex. This is the age I would rather be in spite of an additional three decades. I just do not feel that old. As a teenager, I thought thirty was oh so old, now I see obituaries of people aged sixty and I lament about how they have been cut down in their prime. It is easy to see that I do not want to age. I still try to be with it by talking teenage lingo and I behave no different or even dress different than I did in my twenties. I do not think twice about climbing on four inched heels to enhance slits up to the hips in my long black skirt. The things I wear, the dress code police would pick me up in an instant, which is the real reason I am so much against that dress code bill, otherwise it really is none of my business.

Not feeling old has not stopped me from researching healthy life styles. I reckon the sooner I start living healthily the better my chances of delaying old age so that I am not taken unawares as my husband was. I see that I left it too late already. The waist has thickened dramatically in the past year and I cannot bend from the waist any more without grunting and breathing hard. I have also become careful about getting on my haunches since I blacked out when I got up suddenly from cleaning cupboards in my kitchen the other day. The black out lasted only a few seconds but it sent unmistakable signals to me that I was on the wrong side of middle age.  All those moves I used to mimic my poor mother have suddenly become real. I cannot get out of the car any faster than she used to, the limbs are not that limber anymore. Crossing from the back to the front seat is history and I understand now why it took my poor mum so long to get down from the car and foresee that I too will soon have to turn fully and plant both feet on the floor before getting up and then out. I pray that it will not happen for many more years so I am trying hard to follow all that healthy living advice that I researched.

Some the advice I read is quite bizarre and not that easy to follow. At my age, salads and leafy vegetables are meant to replace most meals. They are about the only things that are good for me they say. If I as much as look at other food types then I become in danger of getting cancer, or building up cholesterol, gathering mucus in my lungs or straining my liver. I never remembered that I had a liver until I started to learn to live healthily. How do vegetarians cope? I was amazed to find that vegetables are much more expensive and a lot less satisfying than most meals I know, Nigerian or foreign. Salads were designed originally to be a side dish, an expendable one at that if you do not feel like competing with the goat you bought for Christmas or other celebration.  Now you are advised not eat the goat but to share some of its grass. Being organic in Nigeria (or are they just poorly handled?) the vegetables seldom come without blemish and preparation time outstrips any pleasure you might hope to derive from the eating. Then to be asked to eat nothing but salads and vegetables and be expected to produce nine kilogramme of waste every week is a bit much! Imagine how many kilogrammes of plants you will need to eat to get that many bowel movements and how are you expected to measure each one so that you tally it all up to the required weight? If you do less than nine kilos this week can you make up in the next week by doing nine plus the deficit? Or would too much toxicity have built up in your system and caused more rapid aging?

Take the advice about drinking two to three litres of water a day. Oh I took it in good faith but lasted no longer than the first day. Like my husband, I am an unrepentant coke and coffee addict, and my attitude is if it does not have a taste, it is not worth drinking. Thinking that my weakness for things that come out of a sealed bottle would help, I went out to buy a carton of bottled water. If the water came out of the bottle instead of a tap, it would be more attractive and might taste better, was my reasoning. To be honest, I had a second motive. I wanted to raise my social status by joining the growing number of newly rich and health conscious Nigerians who now go everywhere with their plastic bottle of water. It symbolises that you have ‘been to’ properly – actually lived ‘away’ for a few years not just squatted in a friend’s dingy apartment for four weeks. Like many white visitors to our country, you will also show that your system is pure and intolerant of the millions of bacteria that pollute Nigerian environment, food and drink.  Unfortunately, the water did not taste better than the one that comes out of the tap. Instead, it reconfirmed to me that insipid is not a taste and it did not taste as good nor was it as satisfying as my coffee and coke. What was worse, after carrying the bottle around for the better part of the day and recycling my own saliva, I could not help but wonder if it had become contaminated in some way and put myself off drinking it.  I ended up drinking less fluid than I normally would, so I became dangerously dehydrated I thought, enough to replace dinner with about six bottles of coke. Thank God, I am not yet sugar intolerant.

The sacrifice I have had to make for staving off this old age is making me reconsider. I am not enamoured with the fact that I now have to wake up two hours earlier to exercise. Not that I do much of it because I get so tired watching my husband do his routine and the mere thought of exerting myself to that level helps me break out in sweat. Since sweat appears to be the sole output of exercise, I mostly pay my due by the time dear hubby is done huffing and puffing with skipping rope, running on the spot, doing a few dozen push-ups and a 100 stomach crunches. No wonder the man still looks so good, especially now that he has allowed some distinguished looking grey around his temple and chin. I will take all my pleasure from admiring the dapper dude. There is still enough material in the market to artfully disguise my own thickened waste so that I remain attractive too, indeed better my full cheeks than a gaunt hungry face is what I think. Those two hours have given us the opportunity for bonding and a good conversation in the rat race that we call living. It does not matter that most of his contribution is grunts; I can do enough talking for the two of us.

I will work hard at convincing him that I should not have to try so hard to stay looking young. Everyone knows that our first child, conceived while we fumbled clumsily in the back seat of his brother’s car those many years ago, is now crowding the grand old age of thirty. If I am that man’s mother then surely I can be excused a few folds around my middle? Letting my matronly figure develop to full bloom by eating human meals and continuing my usual productive physical activity of cleaning house and running my own errands is my symbol that I have accepted to age gracefully, because grow old I must unless I die. I do not want to die trying so hard to stay looking young.

Robot  Villager

# 1 I used to complain about how nobody showed me respect due to my age. I would walk into a room w...Read the full article. Posted by Robot| 25.02.2008 17:34

emj  Villager

# 2 Hmmm........it shows, walahi u are ageing fast o:lol::biggrin::biggrin: He has even argued that what is the purpose of living if he cannot indulge this one vice. The only one he admits to only because it so very obvious I begy leave da man ojare, abi, one must indulge in something ke:wink: I do not think twice about climbing on four inched heels to enhance slits up to the hips in my long black skirt. The things I wear, the dress code police would pick me up in an instant, which is the real reason I am so much against that dress code bill, otherwise it really is none of my business. Hmmm...dress code Police...gotta remember dat....hmmm. Letting my matronly figure develop to full bloom by eating human meals and continuing my usual productive physical activity of cleaning house and running my own errands is my symbol that I have accepted to age gracefully, because grow old I must unless I die. I do not want to die trying so hard to stay looking young Yep, yep, not die trying hard to stay young. Good one there Mutti. Trying to shed the middle-age spread is not easy, but then one can fall into a routine that is doable. Myself and some of my friends had made so many plans including gym workouts, power-walks(doable), counting calories, all to no avail...at the end of the day, each one had to just take things in their stride and do that which is possible and take it from there. I remember like yesterday the craze about Atkin's Diet....chei:biggrin: http://www.atkinsexposed.org/ http://www.atkinsdietalert.org/ Posted by emj| 25.02.2008 20:13

Dimaanu  Villager

# 3 I used to complain about how nobody showed me respect due to my age.......... All that changed in the past year though, everywhere I get to now, people barely younger than me – by my own estimation – fall all over themselves to acknowledge my superior age. It is ma this and ma that and can I carry your bag ma, they almost offer to hold my hand to help me up the stairs! All this transformation happened in the space of one year. Do I welcome it? Of course not, I had taken perverse pleasure in being thought to be younger than my years, and although I bristled openly, I often gloated about my youthful looks to my husband. It now appears however, that youth is finally deserting me. Moi, proudly ageless moi! Be careful what you wish for.:lol: Another great piece, Mutti! Each year, as I mark my children's birthday, I always catch myself thinking: Wow! they are growing so fast. That's where it ends, I barely acknowledge the fact that as they grow older , so do I. I do not feel any different...I can still remember when I turned 16. I got a shocker recently when my children's school sent a letter home for a Parents' Talent Contest. I told my children that I am planning to enter the contest. My 10yr old son's fingers momentarily froze on his Nintendo DS. "As what?", he queried. "A dancer", I fired back. The Nintendo landed on the sofa, he knelt down, grabbed my legs and begged: "Whatever you do, Mom, do not dance at my school...That would be the worst embarrassment, ever!" I did some steps to show him that I am still cool like that. Wrong move!...He passed the verdict...No dancing in public! Anyway, I am not deterred!....What does he know? At 10 years of age, I also thought that my mom was old. Well, since my #1 fan will not be cheering for me, I may end up singing one of my favorite songs: "I believe the children are our future". Posted by Dimaanu| 25.02.2008 20:48

Mutti  Villager

# 4 Hey Dimaanu, couldn't stop laughing! To think one was being tosted only a few years ago for those very talents we are now being begged to hide! Posted by Mutti| 26.02.2008 01:35

Oru-Ama  Villager

# 5 Age some say is a number. Is it really true? Sometimes you cant help feeling so old. I started feeling old when I turned 37 and more than 35% of my hair had already greyed by that time. I'll soon be 41 and you can actually count the number of black hairs on my head. A colleague of mine has taken it upon himself persuading me to colour my hair as I look older then my real age. My husband consoles himself by lamenting that it was the stress of banking work in Nigeria that turned my hairs white within a very short space of time. Aging is a reality we'll all face at one point or another. Rejoice. Nothing spoil. Posted by Oru-Ama| 26.02.2008 05:57

ronkemac  Villager

# 6 Nice one, Mutti. I myself am at that age when some people are not sure whether to call you "Aunty" or "Madam". One foolhardy soul (a fully grown adult male) actually called me "Mummy". Quelle horreur! Posted by ronkemac| 26.02.2008 06:22

The Saint  JJC

# 7 Hmmmmm!!!!!!! How time flies. Sorry for those who starve all for the sake of looking younger. Whether you die of tuberculosis or of common cold It is after all of the same buerial. I wonder how many of us think about Death because we surely must die no matter what we look like. Reminds me of a joke that says enjoy life and die young or suffer and live long I think living each day as if it where your last will help you become more human less 'Nacissist'(pardon my spelling, I have never been good with big words) in other words if you think of what you dish out you will realise that happiness from within is the key to always looking younger. When the selpulcher is painted white it does not change the fact that what is inside is dead and decaying. Posted by The Saint| 26.02.2008 09:30

datuouwadaberechi  Villager

# 8 my dear mutti, ur article really speaks to me!!! i went from two years ago people not believing i'd had ever had a baby (much less 3) and people often mistaking me for an aunt at kids schools, to suddenly being addressed (just like u noticed) as ma, madam, etc. any minute from now it'll be d big 40. well, just like u, i try to make the transition as gracefully as possible. what else can we do?? if there are ways to mitigate the damage without acting silly, lets go for it. thereafter, just take it in stride. just hope that we get to fulfil our purpose of being on earth be4 d time runs out!!!! yours in graceful aging, me Posted by datuouwadaberechi| 26.02.2008 11:50