When I was young, my Dad would occasionally talk to me about life. This often happened at dinnertime, and oddly there was usually a butter knife involved.
“This is your life” he would say, while putting his fingers on either end of a butter knife, “You are here”. His finger would move just slightly to show a minuscule advance on the knife turned ruler. I remember rolling my eyes and thinking, “Whatever Dad”. It seemed that grown ups always had some tale like this, talking about how short life is and how it goes faster and faster all the time. I knew I certainly felt more grown up than I was then, and was definitely at least halfway on the butter knife scale.
Now at 43, I understand what he meant. I don’t feel older, but as the days and months pass by, when I hear music and it brings me back to the mini skirt, frosted lipstick, big hair days of my youth, I realize that I am getting old. I now have a hair strategy (telling in and of itself) that “incorporates” the gray that is growing in so rapidly. I refuse to succumb to monthly hair appointments or to hiding the signs of my age. I want to wear wrinkles and gray hair as a badge, and to move forward with my head held high into the next few decades. I think anyway.
The butter knife analogy comes to me often these days. And I use the phrase, “Back in the day” way more than I should.