She sat upright with perfect posture displaying firm breasts that faced forward effortlessly as a German Short-haired Pointer. With full lips, the kind thin-lipped women attempt to replicate surgically, but regretfully result in a ‘come what may’ platypus pout, she extended her bronzed, toned legs, smiled and giggled. The perfect perfume, the perfect designer shoes and hair so expertly styled as if she were ready to hit the Paris Fashion Week runway, she filled the room.
Occasionally bumping elbows slumped one next to her donning wrinkled, elastic-waist kakis, chipped toenail polish and a stained GAP ball cap obviously hiding roots that were screaming for a touch up. With pale, puffy calves peeking out from tattered Capri’s and blending into a buttered popcorn-grease stained seat, I observed her out of the corner of my eye.
I had lost interest in the movie. Glancing sideways as if there was something worth noticing, I took inventory of this faultless reproduction of a young Cybil Sheppard crossed with a pinch of Bo Derek (name’s only my generation will recognize) while I, with popcorn kernels nuzzled between my slightly whitened teeth wondered, “What the hell has happened here”?!? And I was curious. “How does she do that…and sit up so straight and make it look so natural”?
I sat reeling in Youth as it wafted from her pores. It was like an out-of-reach dream of a time long ago when all my joints worked together holding up unyielding flesh as it bounced from perch to perch without the now, all too familiar joggle, wiggle and waggle.
So, in the glow of the big screen, I sat up a bit straighter and made a vow to myself to get back to the gym thinking for a moment that this would perhaps alter time’s cruel corporeal erosion. Instead I felt jealous and sad. And I would love to say in this moment I gleaned a morsel of encouraging insight from this unkind awakening about accepting this thing termed as ‘best time of your life’. Instead I comforted myself with the thought, “She probably can’t spell and has trouble reading the Huffington Post”…
But then again, I must admit there was a voice in the back of my mind reminding me if I do want this to be the ‘best time of my life’, all I have is the ‘Right Now’…
because the ‘Was Then’ can make me sad…
and the ‘What Is To Come’ incite fear.
And isn’t it true that adjusting perceptions in the ‘Right Now’ can bring about the most amazing gratitude?
I’ll adjust tomorrow. My “Right Now’ is still pissed and confused.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0KvMJCERF4