I got a catalog in the mail a few days ago.  No big deal.  I get my fair share.  Some I ask for.  Some find their way to me because I’ve fallen into that marketing bracket.  This particular catalog markets “much needed items” for women who are "changing" and “getting older.”  Maybe a computer searched a database of birth certificates and cross-referenced it with a change of address card and suddenly this catalog of illusions, or delusions, came winging my way.  It’s also possible that the cosmos is making fun of me.  But someone somewhere knows how old I am and they want to either tempt me or to taunt me with this catalog.

In defense of this company, they are trying very hard to make certain that we women "of a certain age" have available to us things that are nice, pretty, and useful.  It’s just that the nice, pretty, and useful things they sell are meant to augment and correct all kinds of problems they see with aging, or that they see we see in our aging.  There are lotions and aids of a personal nature that cleanse and cover up, that stimulate and calm down, that stretch skin and correct the wrinkles that we’ve earned only after years of hard work and, well, living.  There are under garments that are designed to hide and alter a multitude of sins.  They have padding and uplift and apply pressure to slim us down so that we can feign conforming to the better version of our older selves.  The longer I looked at the catalog and read the descriptions of these products, the more I wondered how bad it is now and how much worse it’s going to be for we women of a certain age.

There are the sexy dresses meant to be alluring.  I love that word.  Alluring.  It sounds sinful.  But if your alluring self gets into a situation where sins can be committed, you’ll have to excuse yourself and take that sexy dress off yourself then come back under the cloak of almost absolute darkness because the pressure panels that are meant to help slim us also lie for us.  Now if you’re an older version of what you’d like to see in the mirror and single, and doing the dreaded dating thing, I think your accomplice in sin is going to notice that, ah, you’ve changed shape.  “Look and feel 20 – 25 pounds thinner!”  I’m sure you will look great.  I know I’d look different in a dress whose inner linings are designed to compress my excess flab where 20 – 25 pounds are pressing against my lungs.  I think I’d pass out from lack of air but I’m sure I would look lovely lying there on the floor.

There are jeans that are designed to flatten my stomach and lift my behind to make me feel sixteen again but there’s just something about the words “stretch lace" that makes me melancholy about striving to feel sixteen again.  I’ve earned the mileage on my body through laughter and tears and to wear clothes that tell it that I’m ashamed of it seems like a betrayal.  Using the car metaphor for our bodies, even the beloved Subaru is driven until it simply can't be repaired again and they have a heaven if that commercial can be believed.  Notice I said repaired, not redesigned.

There are leashes for my glasses because I’ll start losing them or there will be occasions when I need to remove them but I may need them again “lickety split.”  There are magnifiers on necklaces in case I lose my beautifully leashed glasses or my eyesight deteriorates suddenly that they are rendered useless in a matter of minutes.  There are bracelets that will flash like an emergency vehicle on my arm letting me know my cell phone is ringing, which is kind of cool since my hearing is not headed in a direction I want it to go.  And there are the “bracelet buddies” to help me fasten my bracelets on my arm, which would be useful since my own personal bracelet buddy died three months ago and I haven’t worn a bracelet since.

There are concealers for hiding parts of me if my bra and shirt are too thin and supports that keep the girls from hanging too low.  Clamps and straps hide the bra straps and extenders I can take with me in case my body decides to expand at some point during the day but at least my bra won't fail me.  There are invisible, allover undergarments that "shape" us and flatten us, lifting us there and controlling us everywhere.  They are long enough down your our thighs to our calves to be called Capri's.  If anyone of us wearing this bodysuit gets "lucky,” you’ll need 20 minutes to unhook, unclasp, and unpack everything, using that extender they sell on page 25 to attach to the bracelet buddy for any last hooks in those out of the way places.  Using the extender on the bracelet buddy might be a good idea; you know, to keep your hands out of the way for when you’ve opened this magical undergarments enough for you to blow out of it.

There are sprays and lotions and lubes and ointments for a myriad of things that scare the hell out of me.  There is a spray that will suppress my appetite.  I can't imagine what it would taste like to kill my love of Mexican food but it would have to be close to the floor of a French Quarter taxi cab during Mardi Gras.  There are soy based tubes of something that smell and taste like cinnamon to make me feel "in the mood" along with creams to increase my circulation for the same reason.  There are green and orange gels and oils that are also supposed to enhance my love life along with more sprays that take 1 - 2 weeks to start working on my libido.  There is even an elixir that uses an eyedropper to drip it’s secret chemistry in my "secret places" to get him to want to continue our "special time" which I may actually need if the concussion from the blast of my body being release from my invisible, allover undergarment threw him against the wall.

I’m sorry.  That was uncalled for.  I have a warped sense of humor and even though I miss my husband so much that I still cry everyday, I couldn’t help that thought popping into my head.  I know he was irreverent enough to have laughed.

The last part of the catalog is the makeup and concealers that attack our lines and dark circles and age spots and cellulite.  There are half glasses to make sure we apply it correctly.  The last thing you want to do is go putting bleach and wrinkle cream on anything that isn’t dark or wrinkled.  But if you do, there are concealers.  The shavers and callus buffers and wrinkle serum and ginkgo applications and blotchy skin/ stretch mark/scar creams are in pretty little jars and bottles that make me want them just for the pretty little jars and bottles.

Last but not least is the lotion applicator.  It’s a long handle with a pad on the end so I can apply whatever concoction I need to those hard to reach areas on my back.  I’m thinking that a husband would be happy to apply lotions to those hard to reach areas and if you both have the love for each other and yourselves and a warped sense of humor then you’ll end up not needing that secret elixir to extend or enhance that “special time.”

I’m all for buying the stretch lace, the padded and under wired undergarments, the bra extenders and boob sculptors and strap traps, and all the topical ointments, gels, oils, elixirs, creams, and sprays if that's what you want.  Go for it.  Life is hard enough without being allowed the secret whim of catering to your self esteem.  It’s a very nice catalog and there are some pretty nice things in it.  I just hope that, individually, we never get to the point where these things are all we feel we are, that we’re not worthy of being cherished, loved, and respected if our bodies aren’t smeared with lotion and trapped in body girdles.

I have scars on my body from a couple of C-sections and small white scars all over my hands from sailing and building stained glass windows.  My husband had them all over his body and hands from his years as a Marine.  He loved me scars and all.  I love him.  I saw an ad somewhere for a product I can no longer remember.  (Guess I do need those vitamins on page 12.)  But the ad said, “Scars are tattoos with better stories.”  I’d like to think that’s true for most people.  We all have scars and our bodies show the wear and tear of lives actually lived.  We shouldn’t try to cover them up.  Beyond healthful maintenance, I think we should be more accepting and forgiving of ourselves for getting older.

Some of us don’t get to.