Stranger in my mirror

(Published 5/18/11, Manila Standard Today)

There are two things human beings have in common that make all of us equal, no matter our gender, race, education, religion, political persuasion, or economic standing. We all age and we all die. When and how we die is largely beyond our control and not worth fretting about, but how we age—that’s about as personal and unique and interesting as each of us makes it.

While men generally associate aging with wisdom and experience, most women I know tend to focus on the inextricable link between aging and physical appearance. We lose our looks as we age, or in the vernacular: “Tumanda na, pumangit pa.” It doesn’t matter if we’re smart, successful, talented, accomplished, and highly cherished partners, wives and mothers. The finale’s the same, no matter the journey to get there.

When I was in my twenties, my friends and I would walk from the Arts & Science (AS) building to the Main Library of the UP campus in Diliman, fully enjoying the stir our micro-minis created among the law and engineering students loitering on the front steps. One boy would sing the opening lines from “The Girl from Ipanema”: “…tall and tan and young and lovely…” and I would give him a side look and a faint smile, toss my long hair back, and sashay away with my friends. Every day, it was the same. The girls flirted and the boys lapped it up. We were on the verge of…something, and not knowing what or where or when only added to the excitement.

We loved the University of the Philippines and the extra cachet it gave us. UP students were not only known as the smartest of the bunch (we liked to say we were la creme de la creme), but also as free and independent thinkers, unafraid to push boundaries and to challenge those who questioned our convictions. We gloried in being identified as subversives, activists, instigators. We joined rallies and were proud to see our faces among hundreds of others on the covers of magazines, like it was a badge of honor. We raised our fists and eagerly marched in support of the Marcos opposition. And we wept bitter tears for those who were captured, imprisoned, raped, tortured and killed. Yet for all that, life was somehow sweeter, more poignant, more real.

Life calmed down considerably after college and the ouster of the dictator. I left the young, rebellious girl behind and entered the next phase of my life. I found employment, returned to UP for graduate studies, got married, raised my children, lived a normal life.

I liked the older, wiser me. And at 35 I was still slender and young-looking. My legs looked good in a short skirt, and I was still turning men’s heads occasionally. My husband was both proud and worried. I liked it.

But child number three made an appearance when I was thirty-nine and my body sneakily hoarded some of the pounds I gained while I was carrying the baby. If I had been paying attention, perhaps I could have done something to stave off the effects of the late pregnancy. But I was distracted, and worrying about my looks was the last thing on my mind. I was a mom again after an interlude of 13 years. It was like starting over; I felt clumsy and ineffectual. Did I still know how to take care of a baby? What about my job? How would I balance the demands of an infant, the needs of my teenage children, my husband, and my work?

To compound it all, we relocated to the United States at about that time. I was a 40-year old immigrant with a full-time job, two displaced teenagers, and a kid at home. I missed the friends I left behind, but to be honest, I missed my housemaids most of all that first year in America.

The years rolled by. Tragedy struck my family three times. I lost my son to a carjacker and my mom to a weak heart, and my 30-year marriage fell apart. On the plus side, my older daughter gave me a great son-in-law and an amazingly talented grandson. My younger daughter graduated from college and found a job, and finally, finally….I could breathe again.

That’s when I realized to my utter dismay that in the hustle and bustle of daily living, I had succumbed to the dreaded A-word. I had aged. The model-thin girl in a mini skirt had been replaced by an old woman with graying hair, droopy face, and a sagging body. Oh. My. God!

My thoughts flew to the college friends of my youth. I wondered if a strange old woman now inhabited their mirrors, too. After a flurry of e-mails and phone calls that bounced back and forth from the US to the Philippines, to Australia and Canada, we got together in Manila to get re-acquainted with our older selves.

We laughed and cried as we reminisced about the past and our youthful escapades in UP 40 years ago. We toured our old haunts in Diliman and were saddened to know that the lagoon where we had spent many pleasant afternoons was long gone. The AS basement, that smoke-filled bastion for intellectuals and bohemians where we used to hang out, had been converted into a dusty storeroom. All that was left was a small plaque by the door and the fading memories of its past denizens.

And my friends and I? If you closed your eyes and simply listened to our voices and shrieks of laughter that day, you wouldn’t have known we were baby boomers well into our 60s.

Robert Heinlein once wrote: “…there was never a girl born who ever grew older than 18 in her heart no matter what the merciless hours have done.” Indeed. Time to play “The Heartbreak Hotel.”