[영어 원문] Wait, Who Did You Say Is Middle-Aged? by 뉴욕타임스

뉴욕타임스 · 독보적인 저널리즘

2022/10/19

일생 동안 해왔던 셀프 케어 기술이 날이 갈수록 향상되면서, 내 화장과 머리 스타일의 최선의 상태가 어떤 건지를 알아차리는 순간, 그 모든 것이 부질없다는 걸 알게 된다. 약간 화가 난 것 같은 잔느 모로의 분위기를 풍기는 듯한 중년 초기의 표정, 즉 실제로는 그렇지 않은데 화나고 짜증이 난 것 같은 표정은 점점 더 거칠 것 없이 격노하는 것 같은 표정으로 굳어진다. “무슨 안 좋은 일 생겼어요?” 그저 딴 생각을 하거나 좀 먼 곳을 부드럽게 응시할 때 사람들은 이렇게 묻는다. 더 이상 누구도 내게 '용기'라거나 '유행을 앞서간다'거나 '보이시하다'는 수사를 사용하지 않는다. 그런데 충격을 받았다면 알아야 할 것이 있다. 친구든 동년배든 아는 사람들이 보톡스를 맞은 적이 있을까? 대답은 ‘그렇다’ 이다. 그들은 이미 몇 년 전부터 맞고 있다. 당신은 대체 어디 있었던 건가. '그런데 내 생각에 우리는 고등학교 때와 똑같아 보인다'고 말하고 싶을지도 모른다. 만약 그렇다...

뉴욕타임스 · 독보적인 저널리즘

2022/10/19

[영어 원문] Wait, Who Did You Say Is Middle-Aged?

생활/사건사고+5

By Pamela Paul

Irving Browning/New-York Historical Society, via Bridgeman Images

There’s a brutal moment in youth when you go from looking up to your elders to looking somewhat down on them. Or at least seeing them with a more jaundiced eye. Maybe it happens at a party. You glance around the room and realize the gentleman you once saw as distinguished has cheerfully dipped a half-eaten chicken wing into a bowl of hummus. You see what one might politely refer to as a “not young” woman waving her arms around with a little too much gusto on the dance floor. And it hits you: They don’t realize that they’re old.

So how do you know when it’s happening to you?

There are a few signs. For me, it was contentedly listening to my favorite podcast, one in which three funny, charming and totally-with-it co-hosts — the kind of guys I’d want to hang out with, the kind of guys I’d label “cool” or “hip” or what do they call it now — banter around and feel like a part of the gang. Then I reckoned with the fact that they are all in their 50s. Their 50s.

It’s that shift from copying the outfits of your slightly younger colleagues to realizing that their fashion choices would not look at all OK on you. And then moving on to the final frontier: looking at the outfits of your much younger colleagues and really not wanting to dress like them at all. With a lurch, you recall those Harper’s Bazaar features about what to wear for each decade of your life and understand that you’ve entered the age in which wearing jewel tones is meant to be a good idea. Welcome to the long slide.

Then it starts hitting you repeatedly in the face. It’s all those little moments: waking up after a really good, long night’s sleep only to feel worse off than you did when you got into bed the night before. You don’t bounce out but instead heave yourself up to audible snaps and crackles. You learn that you can inflict a grave injury to your own body simply by reaching for the alarm clock in the wrong way. You know that when you wind up in physical therapy it will not be the result of a marathon or water-skiing but because of something that happened on a sidewalk.