so starts the song "age" by x-ray spex. you know you're old when you start thinking about getting old and look in the mirror for signs of aging. by that logic then it means that i'm old. i first realized that i was getting old once i lost the sparkle in my eyes. when i was a teenager, i had an older friend who pointed out the sparkle factor to me. she pointed to young people and i could see the sparkle in their eyes. then she had me look at her eyes and there was no sparkle. i didn't care much 'cos i had plenty of sparkle! then one day, i think in my late 20s, the sparkle disappeared. it was a bit sad. youth had surely left me. no more dying a young tragic death. now i'll just have to see how long i can live.

when i was growing up, my mother would hand me a pair of tweezers and search for white hairs on her head and i would pluck them out. that taught me that getting old is something to hide and especially that white hairs are something to remove. in my early to mid 20s, a couple of times i found a rogue white hair on my head and i'd wondered how the hell did that get there as i removed it. then in my mid 20s when i started taking university classes part time as i continued to work full time, there would be moments of stress that would cause a white hair or two to appear. those were promptly removed--i can handle working and going to school at the same time; i'm not getting old! after finishing the courses though, a few of those white hairs continue to appear. perhaps i am stressed about something else now. no, i'm just getting old.

one other thing about my mother. i've been watching her hands as she ages. when i was younger, i vividly recall her hands. they had a bit of age to them but were still youthful in a way. these days though, i can't say the same for her hands have aged much. i look at my own hands and they too have lost their sparkle, so to speak. i can seem them age now. there is no more luster, just waiting for the veins to pop up higher and higher.

"age, she's so afraid. age, she's not the rage."