The Sunday morning spinning class is way more mellow than Saturday morning, which is why I only go if I’m feeling lazy. The instructor is a middle-aged yoga devotee who whispers about elevated heart-rates amid trance techno songs with names like “Blaze of Life” and “Soul Drumming.” The regulars are a tight-knit group of forty-ish moms who regard the instructor as their Alpha.
Last Sunday was the instructor’s birthday, and someone brought in a song to play, a comic spoof that riffed on hot flashes, memory loss, and the other inconvenient facets of female aging. They all found it hilarious. The instructor apologized to the one male in the class for “the surging estrogen in the class this morning.”
“Or lack of estrogen!” a woman called.
I suppose their good-natured acceptance of their gradual croning is admirable, but I don’t buy it. I’m turning 30 in exactly one week, and my sole consolation is that I’m unscathed from the brunt of the physiological pitfalls of aging that the women in my spinning class found so mirthful. All my squibbles are vanities.
Like, about how my general appearance requires more maintenance as my hair loses its youthful gloss and my face melts out of its skeleton. I’m trying to sooth my pride with philosophical platitudes, like: Why care about spreading hips when you’ve got a spreading 401K account? Is it better to have age-acquired wisdom and experience, or look cute in baggy sweat clothes and no make-up? And hey: 30 is 10 long years away from 40.
