Mature? Cry, The Beloved Comfort

I’ll admit there are some things I don’t like about not being a nubile young thing anymore. But not many.

I think Nature is kind that way. What she takes away from us as we age, she makes up for in other areas.

Not in physical areas, of course - unless you happen to think that the appearance of brown splotches on skin is a positive addition. Rather, the substitutes are in the psychological and emotional vein. They involve perspective.

Take the tyranny of Fashion, for example.

The older I get, the more free of it I become. No, not free to be a slob; that’s what college was about. I mean free of the urge to jump and bow and scrape and cry, “Yes, master!” when Fashion cracks its merciless whip.

As a rather typical American woman, I figure I’ve spent more than 35 years jumping, hopping, bowing, scraping and crying. I remember being 11 years old and convinced I would die of humiliation if my mother didn’t buy me white kid pointy-toe flats to replace my white kid round-toe flats. It only got worse as I “grew up.”

What’s put me to thinking about all this is the re-emergence of the micro-miniskirt - or “slice” as the item is now known in the ironically named rag trade. I read last week that slices are in. And they’re supposed to keep coming in; such high-toned designers as Oscar de la Renta have featured them in their new autumn lines.

Apparently, to qualify as a slice, a skirt should be no longer than 17 inches. Some slices are 14 inches long - and the sky (or the place where the sun don’t shine) seems to be the limit.

Now, as recently as five years ago, I would have read this news about slices, and I would have felt dismayed or discombobulated or, at least, on the horns of a dilemma. I would have heard the crack of Fashion’s whip and instinctively jumped.

Oh, to don a slice or not to don? Am I too old? Have my knees gone too far south? I have shorts longer than 17 inches. Would it contradict my basic feminist credo? Compromise my hard-won but still-tenuous dignity?

Last week, though, I didn’t flinch. I knew the whip-crack wasn’t meant for me. No way I’m wearing a micro-mini again. Done there, been that. Was always worried about bending over. Or getting runs in my hose.

It was the same last autumn when I heard the Fashion whip-crack that signaled a ‘70s revival.

Lime-green polyester? Not me. Bell-bottoms? knit hip-huggers? Platform shoes that weigh two pounds apiece and look like little apartment houses? Not me.

Since I have stopped jumping (as often) to the whip-crack of Fashion, I’ve seen a long-held myth debunked: If you don’t jump to Fashion’s whipcrack, you can’t look great.

I believed this for decades. Even when I was in college, rebelling and being a slob. I now know that all you have to do to look good, to garner compliments from friends and admiring glances from strangers is to keep an eye on fashion but be your own benevolent dictator.

Know thyself. And let comfort be thy guide. Not the dumpy, sensible shoe kind of comfort (unless that’s what you like), but the more basic kind: Do I feel good wearing this? Does it feel good on me?

I hated the way knit polyester felt when I had a closet full of it in the early ‘70s. Why would I want to give up breathable cotton, soft wool and silky silk for it now? Just because it’s back in style? Nope. Don’t care.

Middle age has made off with a few of youth’s treasures, all right, but it’s also lifted some monkeys off my back. So far, that feels like a pretty even deal. No matter how you slice it.

xxxx