For those of us of a certain age, when advertising for the Canadian National Exhibition begins in August, we know summer is almost over. A once-familliar tune, “Let’s Go to the Ex” still goes through my mind at this time of year.

It has featured in many of my memories, as a child, as a teenager with friends, with dates, and then this particular memory when I took my then-teenage daughter on a bit of a memory jaunt to the CNE. 

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“Mom, you should!” My daughter Samara tugged on my arm, her big smile encouraging me on.

I looked over at the man standing in the growing shadows of evening and considered. Could I fool him?

“Oh, I don’t know,” I protested just enough to play along.

“Yes. You have to do this.” Samara supplied the encouragement.

We were at the Canadian National Exhibition on a mother-daughter get-away, after I told her how this iconic late summer event in Toronto was a highlight of my youth. My mother would take us when we were children. One year I won at bingo, but she refused to hold my choice of prize – a budgie in a cage – while we went on the rides. Oddly, the hair dryer was something she could manage.  She used that hair dryer with its bright pink plastic helmet and flexible hose leading to the case for years!

Now my teenage daughter was cajoling me to test the CNE carny’s ability to guess my age. Could I win at this game?

I was often told that I appeared younger than my age, and I always paid homage to my mother’s genes.  I recall my parents coming home from dances and dad would boast about how people could never guess mom’s age.  But as I got older, my kids grew tired of me coming home and announcing another conquest, “Guess how old they thought I was?”

Now Samara wanted to put me to the test.

I paid the fee and the carny worker/professional age detective looked at me. Really looked at me. I tried to guess what he was thinking as I pulled my stomach in and tried to pull up my flabby chin. If he guesses too much older, does he fear insulting a customer for the price of a small stuffy? Does he have a quota to fill, so many to get right or wrong, and what’s his average today?  I teased him a bit – how good are you at this, and he boasted that he was pretty good at guessing ages.  He wrote his guess on a piece of paper and showed it to me – 46.

Now I have been vocal in my disapproval of a society that views a grey-haired George Clooney as a head lining sex object but forces the likes of Nicole Kidman or Robin Wright to carve out their own leading lady roles on streaming services like Netflix. I rail against the double standard – until someone thinks I am younger. I was 52 the year that Samara and I attended the CNE.

I have danced with the concept of age my entire life. 

As the last born of five children, I was always “the youngest.” I started grade one when I was five (no kindergarten and a birthday in January) and most of my classmates were already six. So, even throughout my school career, I was usually “the youngest.”

Of course, looking younger wasn’t what I wanted when I was young. I held tightly onto the two months I had in age over my best friend when I was 10-years old! Of course, now she has the revenge of telling she is younger. That’s what happens in a friendship that spans 60 years!  

But, looking older was my goal for a number of years. 

In my mid-20s, fresh in my new career, I told my dad that I was going to start calling people I met in a professional context by their first names despite my upbringing to refer to people as Mr. or Mrs. as a sign of respect for my elders. “It puts me at a disadvantage,” I complained. Unacknowledged in the conversation was an irony that I was asking my father for his permission – which he gave, telling me, “You do what you think is right, honey.”

In my 30s and 40s, I continued to do what I could to present myself as older – shoulder pads in corporate suits with silk blouses became my armour. I tended to be quieter, measuring my words and reactions carefully.  (I had an older brother who told me I could get away with someone thinking I was older until I began to speak!!) Professionally, I was like a sponge absorbing what I could to learn my craft investing in conferences and workshops along the way.

Then, I entered teaching in my 50th year, and I was suddenly faced with hundreds of young people who clearly saw me as older. It was a bit of an eye-opener to realize they saw me as older and to realize I was indeed older. Even my own 20-something children had to assure me: “Mom, you’ll be fine. Remember, you know more than them.”

Now, for the first time in my life, I was focused on not adding years to my looks. Over the next 14 years, I continued covering the grey roots in my hair … the students didn’t need to know I was older than they already thought or suspected.  And then, just as I began to think my appearance and age finally matched, a colleague nearly fell off his chair after working with me for a few years when the subject came up and I told him my age. He had thought I was younger than him, not older. 

Ha! I still had it. But how much longer could I continue to fool people?

My mother coloured her hair until my father died, when she was in her 75th year. A female colleague who had grey hair when I met her the first time showed up one day with her hair dyed a lovely brown. I didn’t recognize the younger woman. So, choosing grey was a decision fraught with fear. Would it make me look old?

Older had been a positive attribute for so many years, but old, that’s something else.

As it happened, the decision was taken out of my hands. I now have what I have named COVID-19 grey.

Au naturel!

I decided to keep it. There’s a sense of freedom that comes with it, but in all honesty I continue to struggle with the idea.  Intellectually, I love the Japanese idea of Wabi Sabi, that there is beauty in the imperfections that come with age… until I see my own imperfections.

Wisdom?  Working on that one. Still. 

Do you find yourself more accepting of the imperfections as we age (or what we perceive to be imperfections, I should say)! Share your wisdom here!  What’s your relationship with age and ageing?

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Let’s go to the Ex – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgs7j4GGeww