LITTLE LOSSES

A wise woman once told me that the rule of thumb for fashion - at my age - was that if you had worn it the first time around you should definitely NOT wear it now. Mini-skirts, hip-huggers, platform shoes, peasant blouses, skin tight, belly revealing and so forth.

And if you think you are the exception...you're not.

Well, I was okay with that. Proudly I knew I could, would - was - aging gracefully; combining dignity with just the right amount of dash to keep things interesting. Understanding all too well that my mental picture had stopped aging in my thirties and resolving to live and dress according to the mirror not the internal image.

Even with the occasional blunder, (Damn, that is really a cute dress.) I shopped and wore with a blitheness that ignored the unseen and unsuspected future. Until I retired. And was looking sixty in the eye by a lash.

Even my occasional free-lance jobs, my charity speaking engagements, the occasional nights out can no longer obscure the fact that my fashion choices have narrowed. It's not that I really miss most of them. It is just that I miss the potential they represented.

Sigh...Tall high-heel boots? I look at the ads and simultaneously wonder why I ever wore such monstrosities and also why I miss the excitement of the purchase. Itsy, bitsy, teeny, weeny bikinis? Shame on me if I fail to blush. Low rise jeans (hip-huggers reincarnated)? Let's just say my tummy has lost it's suck.

It's the little losses with age that wear on your mind. Knowing that once, you could do or be anything you wanted. Each year knowing that you were making choices; not doing some things that were still possible if you made other choices. Then knowing that choices had been made that ruled out some possibilities.

Eventually, knowing that no matter what choices and changes you might make, some possibilities were gone forever.

I'm grateful the boots and bikinis were once part of my life. While secretly I'm rather glad they're gone, I mourn their passing as my own.