A Blinding Flash

I've often had the thought that I must be getting old now. It started to creep up on me around my 30th birthday, and has been getting clearer with every passing day since. I'd long ago accepted that I now only qualify as "relatively" young - that's relative to my parents, not to those who are genuinely young. And now, several things have forced me to accept that I'm fast approaching nana-hood, with or without grand children in tow.

The first real hint came when I wrecked my back. Since then, I have done what a young person would never do. I find myself making a quiet "oof" noise when I haul myself out of a low seat. I did it tonight several times, most obviously when clambering from a couch where I'd just inhaled high tea as part of a friend's much belated birthday celebrations. That one wasn't so much a quiet oof as a huge heaving grunt worthy of Maria Sharapova.

But the true realisation of impending doom, or maturity, whichever you prefer was neither the noisy raising of my butt, nor the "I can't believe these young folk and the clothes they wear", or even the "kids have no respect" thoughts that rattled through my head at intervals today. The real kicker came when we left the movies later tonight. We'd gone to a six o'clock session, because it fitted better with our high tea. The movie itself was perhaps a little Nana-esque - The Help, an excellent movie set in Mississippi during the civil rights era, focusing on the maids who worked in white households, I thoroughly recommend it for both the amusing and thought provoking storyline and for the lush sixties costuming - but not too terrible. The crushing realisation came as we left the cinema, making a beeline for the ladies as we went. Standing over a basin and washing my hands, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, and I not only felt tired, but I looked it. It seems that even having a week away from work wasn't enough to make me feel rejuvenated.

I was ready to just head home then, but allowed myself to be persuaded to stay out for a little longer. Now it's 11 on a Saturday night and I'm all tucked up in bed, unattractively attired in a threadbare pair of flannelette pyjamas.

Yep. It's official. I am a nana, in attitude if not yet in numbers. Heaven help me by the time I reach my sixties.