I am now A Woman
Posted under People I love
I am now A Woman. I just needed to offload that. As distinct from being ‘a girl’ by the way, rather than a man. This shouldn’t really be a surprise to me given my Great Age, but it’s taken me a week to process the news.
Last week I meet a couple of friends for dinner whilst working in London. I’ve known them for what feels like forever, we met on our first day at university when we were 18 and considerably fresher faced than we are now. I shared a room with one of them during our first year, the other lived in the room next door. We went on to share a house together for the next two years, along with another two friends. 21 years later we’re all still friends.
It was whilst I was telling someone at work that I was meeting friends for dinner that our ‘womanly’ status revealed itself. I started to say, “One of the girls is…” and then it suddenly occurred to me how ludicrous it sounded. I’m 39. She’s 39. She’s 40 in July. I’m 40 in December (ha! I win). There is no way in the world that either of us can be described as ‘girls’. Nor can the other of our merry band of 3, who is 40 in September (ha! I STILL win). We’re not girls. We’re women.
I can vividly remember the first time some random child in a shop referred to me as ‘that lady’, I was in my early 20s and it felt ridiculous. I can also remember the first time someone called me Mrs Spud, even though I actually wasn’t married at the time. That felt ridiculous too. And now my self-imposed ‘woman’ tag feels ridiculous too. It feels like dressing up in your mother’s clothes.
I watched my Women Friends dig in to their second bottle of wine (I was driving and sober, grrr), giggling and gossiping like the past 21 years haven’t happened at all. We look a bit older, our faces look a bit ‘lived in’ but otherwise hanging out with them feels exactly the same as it did back in 1989. Will we still laugh and talk like this when we’re 50, 60, 70 and beyond? The dynamic of the group hasn’t changed one bit, the in jokes are the same…the food and wine might be a bit classier than during our impoverished student days…but otherwise it’s pretty much the way it always has been.
So, were we women acting like girls? That’s the worst of both worlds. I absolutely cannot ABIDE that kind of mutton-dressed-as-lamb skittishness. Women indulging the girlish side of their nature? Or does our shared history mean we revert to our ‘old selves’ when we get together? Shedding the dress up clothes of mother, wife, boss etc etc in favour of remembering a more frivolous time in our lives?
Whichever way you cut it we have well and truly outgrown our girly days…three marriages, one divorce, five children, one lost parent, two lost children, serious illness…between us there have been enough ups and downs for a mini-series. These are not the lives of girls.
My new ‘Woman’ skin feels a little weird right now but I’m sure I’ll grow in to it. Soon it will be baggy and wrinkly like the rest of me. I think I can adjust to being A Woman, as long as I can gather my old friends around me every once in a while and watch the years roll back as we laugh and chatter like the shadows of the past is the just the future yet to come.
I am now A Woman. Just so you know…
this afternoon i had a similar experience. i was sitting in the second row of an irish public bus, coming home from vienna and from the airport. two quite old ladies with very rough voices and a terrible accent were chatting and chatting and chatting quite loudly. one showed the tk max bag she had with her to the other telling something about new shoes she had bought today. and i thought by myself: will i sound like that in 20 years time? comparing to them i am still a girl or at least i feel like that…. but of course most youngsters refer as “that lady” to me….
It’s amazing how we can fit back into those “girlie” modes when we get with our (ahem) old friends… it’s like nothing has changed.
glad you had fun.
someone said to me last week that i was a sweet woman… made me see myself as some old withered dear. somehow dont see myself as a woman just yet! i know i should…
So wonderfully perfect that you should address this at this time. I feel the same way, probably because I too met up with friends of old when I was home, lifelong friends that were with me before marriage, before trotting off to the States and before kids.
It’s so much fun to hang on to those people and grow old disgracefully together!!!!
The more we change the more we remain the same? I’m finding I am more true to my real nature the older I get…and I’ve got a decade on you Spud.
Consider it another great step on the journey – the one where you realise that coats are useful in winter and the comfort of long friendships
I realised recently that I’m coming up to having been with Mr for half my life – how? I still remember the university days and the other men… perhaps I need to take your advice and become a woman!
good for you! :-) I agree, at some point it becomes very silly to refer to friends as girls (even though I’ve heard women doing this well into their 60s and 70s). when I was working as a speech-language therapist I often got referred to as “the play lady” by kids and their parents… who said speech therapy isn’t fun?! ;-)
Hey, Woman. That’s one phenomenal picture you’ve got there!