I turned 60 and went from a man magnet to an angry old lady OVERNIGHT

Research shows that aging occurs suddenly between the ages of 44 and 60, says author Julie Burchill, 65…

Lying on the beach at age 60, I looked down at my newly minted bingo wings and realized that while I’d always been a fan of the batwing sleeves, I never expected to grow them out.

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And how on earth is it possible for a face to look swollen and emaciated at the same time? An event that surely violates all known rules of geometry.

It therefore comes as no surprise that we tend to think of aging as a gradual process, but new research from Stanford Medicine in the US shows that it really can happen overnight, especially between the ages of 44 and 60.

It is thought that this is why serious health problems affecting the heart and bones often show up as unwanted gifts on certain birthdays after we hit 40.

It was initially thought that the decline at age 44 (coincidentally, the bingo call for this is “sagging underwear”) was a result of menopause, until data showed that men were also starting to experience problems at this age.

Still, I can’t help but think that women will read about the 44/60 sampling points with more gloom than men.

While men are used to being judged by the sum of their parts, women are used to being judged by a number of their parts – particularly their tits, teeth and hair – and these tend to degrade with age.

I have been a striking woman since my youth. Not pretty-pretty, but tall, dark and pretty, with bright green eyes and a beautiful body.

I don’t remember my forties. They were a haze of hedonism that made an Oasis tour seem like a Saga spa tour. But I do remember waking up on my 60th birthday in the summer of 2019 and going from Snow White’s Evil Queen to her Crone disguise overnight.

There are pictures of me in my mid-fifties looking like a girl, but by the time I was sixty the fun was over.

It was as if overnight I had gone from being a loyal male magnet to a man who was only useful to the opposite sex because I was tall enough (5’9″) to reach stuff off the top shelf of the supermarket for old geezers in carts.

“You’re a beautiful big girl!” doesn’t have the same erotic charge when a man is only thinking about the last Fruit Corner hiding in the back of the refrigerator.

Then stiffness occurs, also of a less interesting kind.

I’m fortunate enough to be quite robust for my age, but ‘wear and tear’ is a reality that no 60-something can avoid.

I would like to point out here with some self-congratulation that my peers who have been fitness enthusiasts their whole lives are actually worse off than I am. Many of them have knees and hips that shimmy around like jumping jacks on Bonfire Night.

I’ve always preferred the saying, “Don’t run if you can walk.

“Don’t stand when you can sit. Don’t sit when you can lie down” and so, at 65, I find myself relatively untouched by the rigors of life after a lifetime of “resting”.

Yeah, it takes me a while to get going in the morning, but I’m a philosophical person. I used to be a perfect three-minute pop song, but now I’m one of those great eighties dance songs with a really long intro.

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When I was 57 and realized that I looked young for my age (I had lost a lot of weight that I had gained in my 40s; a magazine ran a picture of Jabba The Hutt and said it was me), I was more than happy when a newspaper sent me to celebrity beautician Dr. Michael Prager for an article about using Botox for the first time.

When he smiled politely and said the magic words—“What do you propose I inject you with? You don’t have any frown lines”—I was sold.

Ignoring the fact that I got to the age of 57 with wrinkle-free skin through a strict regimen of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll, I’ve gone crazy for ‘tweakments’ (I can barely say that terribly shy word now) and spent thousands of dollars on facial fillers to keep doing what I already had.

Then the lockdown came and I had a moment of reflection.

I looked in the mirror and saw a 60-year-old woman. I was happy to see her, alive and well, while friends younger than me had passed away during the pandemic.

Five years later I have settled down and have fallen into my old age.

Losing vanity is beautiful, but inevitable.

When I was in my fifties and I met new people, I would casually mention my age. Usually they would say with genuine surprise, ‘No, you’re not!’

When I say I’m 65 now, no one is shocked.

But when I see other women my age trying to maintain their appearance, I feel like a boxer who has voluntarily left the ring.

I don’t feel like reaching for those trophies anymore.

‘INVISIBILITY SUPER POWER’

When I hear how many women – even middle-aged women, let alone older ones like me – complain about their “invisibility,” I realize what they mean is that they are invisible to strangers.

So what?

Who is so desperate for validation that they want to grab their attention from a random passerby in a bar?

There’s a reason “invisibility” is such an enduringly popular superpower.

I find it relaxing because, like most women, I have been harassed by strange men on the street since I was a teenager.

By the time they lose their youthful appearance, females have had all the sex they wanted, and perhaps some they didn’t.

For men, it is not, unless they are handsome, famous or rich. Perhaps that is why they perceive the aging of women as much more horrible than it actually is.

Imagine growing too old to be the inspiration for a pervert’s masturbation.

How are we ever going to manage this!

I can’t get around the fact that when beautiful women in their sixties, like Andie MacDowell and Sharon Stone, embrace the “age explosion” by growing their hair gray and/or adopting a more modest style of dress, it’s like putting up a sign: NO MORE YOUR FANTASY.

‘OLD PEOPLE ARE SCARE’

Previous research has shown that at the age of 78, the aging process peaks again, which in turn leads to a decrease in vitality. However, this could not be confirmed, because the oldest participants in this study were 75 years old.

That’s handy.

It sounds to me like a conveniently vague way to discourage old people from throwing caution to the wind, when they’d be better off planning a good time than a long one.

The study authors believe the findings could help guide interventions such as increasing exercise in years when older adults can expect to experience rapid muscle loss.

Well, they know what to do with that nonsense.

So I’m not going to cry into my hot chocolate about this survey, but rather giggle into my Long Island iced tea that I’ve mastered the tricks of the Wicked Old Lady’s trade, even though my 60th birthday is already half a decade behind me.

Bring it on!

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