It's Not the Years Which Have Done You in...it's the Weekends!

There comes a moment (or 5) in a woman's life when she realises she's old. Well, maybe not old but she has this dawning realisation that the blush and exuberance of youth is a little behind her, unlike her behind which is perhaps not so little. Like mine.

So, here are 10 things that tell me I am on the road to my dotage

1. Liking men with beards and a hairy chest because they look like men. Not in the breathy blushing 'I only date older boys' teenage I like men with beards way. No, in the there's something sexy, reassuring, calming and enticing about a man with a beard and a hairy chest.

2. Needing caffeine to wake me up. Long gone are the days where I can open my eyes, be wide awake and compos mentis. No, that doesn't happen anymore until I'm either finished my first cup or have been awake for at least half an hour, whichever comes first. And I never seem to get enough sleep and no longer think 'I can sleep when I'm dead' or 'I just need to power on through the day'...nope. Sleep + caffeine = essential.

3. Not being able to lose weight by just skipping lunch. Now I have to skip a few lunches, and dinners for that matter, to lose weight.

4. Hangovers that last days. I used to go out drinking and I'm ashamed to say drink for 10 hours and the hangover would last a few hours to a day, maximum! Not so much these days. Once had hangover after only 4 beers and that lasted 2 days. 2 days?! Beyond lame.

5. Needing my own bed. I seem to have developed this inability to get a good night sleep unless I'm in my own bed. That's normal. For an old person. Within the first few minutes of being in it I can list all the ways that it's different - in a bad way - from my bed. Who compares beds other than old people?

6. Listening to girls talk about boys and the drama surrounding them. I don't miss the 'will he, won't he phone' nor the 'if he likes me why is he flirting with her' conversations. Okay, maybe I miss the butterflies in my stomach sensation but then again seeing L after he's been away does that to me.

7. Today's fashion. I do not have the body for it whether I like it and want to wear it or not. I have boobs, no waist as such (it's a thick one), hips and an ass that just isn't conducive to wearing today's fashion and not looking like mutton dressed as lamb. Mutton as lamb is definitely an old person thing!

8. Having a dozen things, worries, on my mind at any given second like blood pressure and my cortisol levels - old person concerns. I didn't even know what these were when I was younger and I'm pretty sure even if I had...I wouldn't have cared.

9. My idea of a good night out features a few - ahem 4 tops because as we've already established that's sufficient to give me a raging hangover - drinks in the kind of establishment where you can 'have a good conversation and be heard'. Failing that pizza, some kind of chocolate and a Disney cartoon. Not dancing the night away in some dark dingy club with thumping music, scantily clad girls, boys in crown jewels squeezing tight jeans, sickly sweet drinks and a carpet you stick to. See? Old!

10. I sound like mother.

Argh! That one in itself is more proof than all of the above that I am morphing into someone I would, not so long ago, have written off as old, out of touch, judgemental and boring. So not fair!

Hurry Up....and Wait!

Anyone the world over who is married to military personnel will know exactly where I'm coming from when I say that. It's like the phonetic alphabet: universal.

We're 'waiting' to move.
We're 'waiting' to hear when this is to happen.
We're 'waiting' to be allocated a house.
We're 'waiting' to know where this will be.
We're 'waiting' to find out what the house is like - how many rooms, their sizes etc
We're 'waiting' for the above so I can apply for jobs

And that's just the immediate future. In the long term...
We're 'waiting' on finding out the changes to civil servants' pensions in order to decide whether, where and when to buy a house.
We're 'waiting' on a member of L's family becoming a US citizen so they can sponsor and support our VISA application.
We're 'waiting' on being in a position to start our application.

That is a great deal of waiting...and it's stressful and tiresome and frustrating.

I feel like I'm on the phone being kept on hold for the Life Company, listening to some tinny lift music that is rage inducing and zapping my will to live at one and the same time. I keep listening to the automated messages, pressing the indicated buttons and being held in baffling line for different departments that give you conflicting information and dates all the while judging you. It's all a bit reminiscent of Franz Kafka The Trial.

Mean while the seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and years of my life clock tick-tock away in the rhythmic sound of a beating heart.