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(Photo Credit: sciencephoto.com)

If some time this week calls were missed and returned ten hours after, text messages unread and unanswered, I apologize. I did something I had been meaning to but never quite got around to doing. Mostly because I reasoned I didn’t have the time.

But age has a way of reminding me, like an alarm clock that you’ve been pushing to snooze every five minutes only to go off again and again. I did not have a choice but to yield to it.  Naah, not to the alarm clock. I had to yield to time and age catching on.

Having nursed a flu last week after coming from a trip, a series of out of town meetings and early morning flight, I came home in both denial  and full steam ahead mode I am likely to be buried in the accumulated weight of the workload I left behind and new work load I took back home.

I woke up mornings discomfited by the white hair that grew on the roots of my hair. My skin was dry from lack of sleep. My nails were long and shapeless.

And then I had to leave again. This time for three more meetings – largely work related save for the last one where I consulted my bestest (how do you call someone who’s better than a best friend?)  friend over a business model but mostly, to whine and whinge about being weighed down with work for that is something I couldn’t do with hubby who has a habit of stuffing his ears with  noise eliminating ear plugs when he works or when I rant. I had been amply warned he’d be busy. Very clever.

(Photo Credit:hongkietown.com)

And so we went bar hopping initially at Cafe Havana in Greenbelt which as usual was too crowded and noisy on a Friday night we belatedly, traipsed to neighboring Cafe Breton.

And over La Pinay crepe I hung on to his every word and counsel. I have all the reasons to. Governments in the Asia-Pacific, the World Bank,  IMF and UN are consulting him and here he was giving me a piece of his mind over a potentially lucrative and innovative business model. For free.  I am lucky in the real friends department.

Then the lights were dimmed, the dancing fountain put off and we were not done talking. It was past two in the morning. I had ample time to go back to the hotel in Makati, get my bags, check out and take the ride that would bring me to the airport  for my 4:30 AM flight back home.

And so I missed my make up class. And I came down with fatigue all I ever wanted was sleep.

On the rare occasion he was not working at home, I told my husband ‘I think I’m getting old’

He said  ‘Don’t we all?’

I said ‘What?’

He said ‘We all grow old’

I said ‘ I didn’t say I am old. I said I think I am old’

He said ‘Ah, the same thing. You think therefore you are.’

 ‘Don’t you Rene Descartes your argument with me when I am thinking old mode! We all know his logic is flawed’, I protested.

‘Now, you’re being ageist’. he concluded.

End of argument. I could not rebut. He was right.

And so I thought about friends and acquaintances who have had their share of turning back time – the Botox injections, the body sculpting , the extreme weight loss that make them look like younger sisters of their mothers, the overpriced  glutathione injections that elicits a modicum of skin  whitening but the same wrinkled and troubled soul, the perpetually changing eponymously named diet du jour. And don’t get me started on stem cells from Romania.

The following day, perhaps sensing my fatigue and the wrinkles on my forehead, my husband who has never cared about my physical looks (long or short hair, natural black or copper colored, zaftig or slim is fine with him, but this rule doesn’t apply to ward robe) asked if I wanted something done and he will pay for it.

Ah, the ‘pay for it’ sprung me to life.

And that’s the story how I went missing for almost ten hours after a short stint at work as I reveled in modest pampering that while routine to many is actually a luxury for me.

.

(Photo Credit: youvegotnail.com)

I had my massage, a foot massage (not as good as hubby’s foot massage though) and foot spa. I colored my nails, for the first time in about five years and chose the oh so very today Chanel’s Violette nail lacquer. I had my now very long hair re-bonded and colored professionally.

(Photo Credit:susansbeverlyhills.com)

While waiting for the chemicals to kick in, in between shampoos and ironing and neutralizers and colors, I read a very good book. I was three chapters away from finishing it by the time everything was done.

And that is the story why, sometime this week, calls were missed and returned ten hours later, text messages  were unread and unanswered. For the first time in many years, I went down town for my down time and hung up and finally got around to doing what I had been meaning  to do because now I realized I could always opt to have a downtime.

I never felt better. And that is why, I do not think I owe anyone an apology. Missed calls and all.