She’s too old to wear her hair like that!
That woman should not be shopping in the teen section.
These are the comments my mother used to say when I was younger. Actually, she stills says them. I mean, you should have seen the disgust on her face when she saw my multi-colored hair. She grabbed a few strands as though she wondered if it were real. Good times.
Was mother just mad about something, because I look hot for a forty-something year old. I can wear what I want, when I want to wear it…at least that was the thought until I went to a mall for the first time in many years. And after my experience there, I’m questioning if I’m becoming that woman my mother was talking about?
I couldn’t tell you the last time I actually shopped in a mall. First, the internet is my friend. I order something. It’s delivered to the house. Then, crazy thing, I try it on in my own home, and if it fits, get this, I wash it. If it doesn’t fit, weird, I ship it back to the sender. So, why do I need to shop at a mall, you ask? It’s simple. I’ve been exercising (not working out).
Us Midwesterners need a break from the frigid temperatures in the dead of winter. A little cabin fever makes us a bit anti-social, and don’t even get me started on my pale skin. It’s unnatural, I tell you. Why do I live in a region where come February, my white socks are camouflaged with my legs? Well, this year we’re making a break for it. Tropical sun here we come; hence, the shopping spree at the mall.
The first old person irritation was the parking lot. There were so many cars and nowhere to park. And just when we found a spot, wouldn’t you know it, the end of the aisle was blocked in by a snow pile, which means the only way to get out was to reverse the whole way. Ugh. After walking a half mile, I was winded and needed to sit on one of those old people benches to catch my breath and rub my bunion. When I finally got inside, I regretted this tropical clothing shopping spree immediately.
The moment we walked through the glass doors the air felt wrong. It felt off. My intuition was blaring alarms, kicking and screaming, shop online. Shop online. I shrugged it off assuming it was my cabin fever, anti-social introvert trying to flush me out of the building. It didn’t take long to realize my already-frenzied guardian angels were about to lose more hair.
First, there are a lot of people and every single one of them is wearing a mask. (For the record, I’m not criticizing or commending whether you wear a mask or not, this is simply my observations passed onto you.) And since I rarely wear a mask anymore, I’m a serious outsider, like they knew we weren’t from that part of town. This is when I went into panic mode and kept a smile pasted on my face—you know, to look friendly. Curl those lips up.
I realized that anyone my age had a teenage person with them. So, when my wife went into the dressing room to try on clothes, I was stuck outside the fitting rooms carrying her purse, her coat, her reading glasses she almost forgot still sitting on top of her head, plus my stuff.
I was being judged the whole time. Judged for my naked face. Judged for searching a size 14 instead of a zero. Judged. Judged. Judged. The feeling was alive and it was happening whether I wanted it to or not. And while I tried to play it cool, that’s when I noticed other mothers staring at me. Mothers my age. Were they looking at me the way my mother used to look at other women who shouldn’t be wearing that?
The whole experience put us on edge. We wound up leaving after only two stores and went and did what people our age should be doing. We drank margaritas, got lit, and ordered our new shorts and cute shirts online, like you’re supposed to do, from a bar stool.