Breathes there a woman, from age so dead, who never to herself has said, “Now, there goes a nice set of buns.”

I was asked recently, “When did you realize you were getting old?”

Realizing and feeling are two very different things. At seventy-eight I still don’t feel old, because all the people I’ve been at different ages are still part of me. Remembering is not like imagining. Remembering takes me back. I don’t have to imagine what it feels like to be young, because I’ve been there, done that.
But, I also remember clearly the day in my fifties, when I first realized I had reached the age of invisibility. I went into an auto repair shop for some help and though several men glanced my way, no one came forward to ask what I wanted. It was a wake-up call leading me to notice that men’s heads didn’t…