That is until however, I went to a show with some friends. We are all about the same age, mid to late fifties. I felt pretty good about the way I looked that night to tell you the truth and was excited about a night out at the theater. It’s a funny thing when you live in NY so close to Broadway. You don’t go as often as you did when you did not live in NYC but rather outside of it in Brookly or Queens for example. When you live an hour or more away you seem to make a big deal out of going into the big apple, as NYC is referred to. You get tickets for good seats months in advance. Make reservations in a nice restaurant and expect it to be an all-evening event. When you live less than a mile away from the theater district and can walk there to both buy tickets and go to the show, you just don’t plan it the way you would if it was a bigger deal getting there which is all the more reason I was pumped up to go. I don’t go there or anywhere often, and I actually planned the evening and got us women all together to go. Anyone who has tried to get more than two women together on a given evening knows that takes some finagling.
Feeling sleek and slick in my black shirt, my smooth leggings, my new Michael Kors Black ankle boots that had fun boa like feathers sticking out and around the bottom of my leg, all that was missing was my Burberry scarf which I flung over one shoulder and headed out to meet my friends. Imagine my surprise when one of them, the one I’ve known the longest, since we were kids and the one who tells me all sorts of things about aging dress as she seems to be up on what is age appropriate although she does not seem to know how she knows what she claims to know or who made up these rules. Believe me, I’ve asked. She made a beeline for me and practically demanded to know if I realized I was wearing leggings. At first, I thought she thought I was underdressed and somehow mistakenly left the house in leggings before putting on the slacks I intended to wear. But no. She meant exactly what she said. Did I realize I was wearing leggings outside the house, with the rest of her thought being, AT YOUR AGE.
While some people criticize women forever wearing leggings, she literally told me that no one over 40 should be wearing leggings and that, that was even pushing it. So according to her,
I was almost 20 years too old to be wearing them. How did I miss that memo? It must have been in the same letter I received about not having long hair once you hit the magic number 40.
I don’t know about you, but I so don’t subscribe to this arbitrary rule of not doing this or that or wearing this or that because you are a certain age. My general philosophy is that if it makes you feel good, happy, pretty, go for it. In my case, I am built kind of like a tomato with legs sticking out. I don’t care if I am wearing a potato sack. As long as the legs are still relatively intact even though I am apparently way too old to show them off, I’m wearing leggings, even outside the house. And you should too.