Time, the Subtle Thief of Youth

They are in the back seat, engaged in one of those sisterly feuds that takes the place of conversation while we bide our time in the carpool line. Today’s debate has something to do with which of their friends have the youngest, prettiest mothers.

“Leah’s mother just turned 30. And she gets her nails done every week,” my 8-year-old announces.

“Natalie’s mother is only 27,” her sister counters. “And she wears butterfly clips and has streaks in her hair.” (Natalie is 11. I do the math . . . and hope my daughters don’t. I’m not prepared to discuss motherhood-at-16.)

“Well, Lauren’s mother is pretty too,” my eldest offers. “She’s got really nice hair and dimples when she smiles.”

Her sister concurs, with one caveat: “She’s really old, isn’t she, Mommy? But she’s really pretty . . . to be so old.”

And I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. She’s really old, all right. She’s one year younger than I am.

It’s funny how your perception of age changes as you . . . well, age.

I remember feeling--as my children do now--that 30 constituted the end line of youth, a boundary to be crossed as one entered middle age and looked into the rocky maw of old age.

Perhaps that’s why my mother never trusted us kids enough to reveal her age. She married later than most of her friends and waited years more to have children. Whenever we asked how old she was, her non-answer was always the same: “Just say I’m 21-plus.”

Now, at 21-plus myself, I’m mature enough to consider the passage of time a bit more benevolently and secure enough to feel no great angst at divulging my age.

It’s my birthday today. And I’m 45. Ancient in my children’s eyes but still young enough to run a marathon or write a novel . . . or even have a fourth child, as my mother did at this age.

I know folks my age who greet each impending birthday with despair, who consider their future only in terms of its lack of youth.

And I have friends who see previews of their twilight years in their parents’ wrinkles and infirmities. Mom’s arthritis, Dad’s hearing loss become telltale signs that their children, too, are growing old.

I am spared those reminders, that forced confrontation with my own relentless march toward old age. Both my parents have passed on, consigning me to grow old in a vacuum of sorts, unencumbered by the looking-glass version of the aging process that awaits me.

*

I recognize now, when I look in the mirror, the subtle signs of advancing age . . . signs I wonder if my children see. But I suspect I am ageless in their eyes, just as my mother was in mine.

And if there are times their youthful perspective makes me feel old, there are other times that their very existence keeps old age at bay. They may give me gray hair and wrinkles, but they also allow me the luxury of moving through life in constant touch with the joys of youth.

Through them I connect to my own childhood passions--the wonder of the Christmas season, the pride in a good grade on a history test, the thrill of making the cheerleading squad, the magic of a budding romance.

And I find myself marking the passage of time not by birthdays and calendar changes or by gray hair and creaky knees but by the rituals of our family’s life, the little signs that signify how much, how fast, my children are growing. By the memories we are leaving behind.

I reach out to kiss my teenager’s cheek and find I must crane my neck. She is suddenly, somehow, taller than I am.

I haul out a box of winter clothes and unpack my children’s year-old jeans. And when I hold them up to a once-small child, I discover that the pants that dragged on the ground last December now stop midway between ankles and knees.

They are growing up, imperceptibly; changing in ways that I do not notice day to day because I am too close to see. I suppose I must be growing old in the same way.

I am not afraid of the prospect--I welcome the wisdom we gain as we age. But even if I were, there is no escape. You cannot hope to outrun old age.

For now, I will indulge in my own fantasy: They are growing up, while I stand still in time.

Sandy Banks’ column is published on Sundays and Tuesdays. Her e-mail address is sandy.banks@latimes.com.