Is this really what middle aged looks like?

Welcome to middle aged.  Really?  When did this happen to me?  Wrinkles.  Gray hair.  Reading glasses.  The start of jowls.  Seriously...jowls.  Moisturizing is no longer for silky soft skin.  It's a necessity to keep the sheets from snagging on my nasty cracked old lady heels.  Ice cream gives me a belly ache, which in the middle ages is defined as being lactose intolerant, not to mention it bothers my sensitive teeth.  My knees creek louder than a rusty hinge.  I sometimes feel like the Tin Man's sister.  Suddenly I think everyone in my family mumbles.  They all think I need a Beltone.  Oh, and am now in a race with my fourteen year old son to see who can grow a mustache first.

Forty is not the for the faint of heart.  It isn't that it's the end.  It's that it's just the beginning.  It's realizing that time is marching on faster and faster.  The things I thought I'd have plenty of time for later now are either dead dreams or pressing matters.  As I stand on the cusp of the hill, (you know the hill...the one we all aspire to climb only to discover going over it makes us old), as I stand on the cusp of that hill, I look over to survey what lies ahead.  It isn't all bad.  But there's always some level of anxiety that goes along with the unknown. 

I wonder if I'll age beautifully like my mother and her mother before her.  Will I act my age or will I still be able to find my inner thirty-something when I'm getting a senior citizen's discount?  Will I have a gaggle of grandkids while I'm still young enough to enjoy them but after I'm old enough to feel comfortable being called granny, memaw or nana?  Will I grow old gracefully or will I fight it every step of the way...or is it possible to do both?

So while I don't particularly feel middle aged or think of myself as middle aged, I resign myself to the fact that I am indeed middle aged.  And I'm going to do my best to embrace this time in my life, to celebrate it, marinate in it and with great fondness, reflect on it as I would my own face in the mirror. In that reflection, I hope to see the me I used to be merged into the me I am and easing into the me I'm destined to be. If this is what middle aged looks like, I think I'm ok with joining the club.