Bouncy Bouncy, Ooh Such A Good Time

One thing people rarely mention about ageing, but which I am noticing quite a lot is the lack of bounce a person has as they get older.

For me, this is a holistic experience. For example, not only do I now no longer bounce back from; all-nighters, alcohol, any form of exercise which involves me being vertical or deploying rapid movements, sadness, any and all stresses - indeed, anything that requires me to stay conscious and string thoughts together past about eight o’clock at night, but also physically I have lost my spring.

My spring has sprung.

My skin, once taut and together, fully cohesive and with a plan to regenerate and hold me close, don’t let me go etc, now withers on the vine. Undressed I resemble a bag of oranges wrapped in damp crepe paper. Another hammer blow to my late life plans to take up nude modelling if bookselling doesn’t work out.

What is a girl to do except watch herself communing more and more with a floor that once seemed so out of reach? Eventually I suspect I will resemble a woodlouse (shocking posture, absolutely shocking) crossed with a Pokemon creature known as a Grimer, but at the approximate height of Mrs. Pepperpot after she has shrunk down. My children will not have to pay care home fees. They will furnish a vinegar bottle as per all the best folk tales, and pop me inside to live out my days. A crepuscular twilight soundtracked by the mild susurration of my skin folds, skimming the bottom of my bottle.

It never occurred to me that I would miss elasticity. Indeed, the thought that I was so elastic was something I entirely took for granted. I thought it was innate. But it had a sell by date and that is long gone. I am not just an orange, I am a mouldy orange wrapped in damp crepe paper - to add insult to injury.

There are two ways to restore some flexibility to my husk of a self I think.

The first is to go down the route of medical/cosmetic interference. I assume that the popularity of collagen is something to do with other, more noticing people realising their bounce had gone and attempting to restore it by macerating dead animals and having it injected into themselves at great expense and agony.

Where does the collagen come from? Popular things to have injected into yourself at various times were; semen, placentas, monkey glands and a collection of unsavoury dangly bits from things dredged up from the sea. Collagen probably comes from something equally awful. My best guesses so far: eels, orangutan arms, octopus tentacles or the sacrificed bodies of young virgins.

I was going to guess something to do with testicles as for some reason, emanations from male genitalia are a big hit with youth seekers, but testicles are too wrinkly to have collagen in I think, so scratch that. Perhaps I, in my increasingly corrugated form have been accidentally eating something to do with scrotums. I imagine it working like a terrible, cursed homeopathy.

The problem with this route is that a) it’s expensive and I spend all my money on snacks and art exhibitions and have none left over for the brutality of youth seeking, b) it will undoubtedly be painful and invasive and I hate pain and insist on keeping my vest on at all times, and c) I might end up looking like Madonna.

Sorry Madge. Love you madly. Icon. Hero. Soundtrack of my life to date. All round top woman, but just no.

The second option is to get more bendy in other ways.

This includes being more open to life; reading more widely; listening to other people and accepting they might actually know what they’re talking about (except on the subject of collagen); allowing myself to be curious; trying new things; hanging out with young, naturally bouncy people and being braver about stuff.

I’m trying this, with varying degrees of success. It’s still really bloody hard after eight o’clock at night. I am all for middle of the day happenings for the over Fifties. I think Jamie Lee Curtis was talking about this recently, and she has my vote. As long as I can vote before dusk, obviously.