Maturity, and after it age, come to us women first. I noticed this back when I was 12 or 13 and all the boys my age looked to me like underdeveloped amoebas. We, on the other hand – my girlfriends from class 7A and I – looked exactly the way (in our opinion) young ladies of our age were supposed to look – with make-up, hairdos and skin-tight clothes.
These days, in my capacity as the mother of two boys, I have a new point of view. My boys look to me like normally developing little kids, while the girls of the same age strike me as cocky early bloomers who, by their mere presence, threaten my innocent little bunny-wunnies. I know, I know – I've started turning into a typical boy-mum.
Valentin, my elder son, is 13. In his own mind, though, he's still a child and couldn't care less how he looks. I was reminded of this yet again on our family trip to the seaside, when he set off for the beach with a spring in his step, decked out in swimming trunks, knee-high white towelling socks and rubber flip-flops on his long hairy legs.
After an hour of throwing himself into the waves, Valyo is hanging around the beach glumly – a tall, hairy, bored, muscly beanpole, overflowing with hormones he isn't aware of. I nudge my Husband Emo and point Valentin out to him with my eyes. Again with my eyes, I try to convey to Emo that Valyo is bored.
Emo takes matters into his own hands at once. He looks at Valyo and his voice booms out in mentor mode: “Come on, Valentin, grab a little bucket and a spade and go play in the sand. Do I have to come up with your games for you?”
Emo shoots me a commanding manly look that says: “There you go, helpless little woman, feel better now? Your problem's solved. If you've got another one that needs solving – I'm right here.”
Valyo, for his part, shoots a long, pimply look at his father.
I understand Valyo. I roll the whites of my eyes to show him that in spirit I'm with him.
In the evening we have dinner with the kids and a family we're friends with at a restaurant by the beach. Idyllic! Valyo is sitting at the table with us. He's tapping away at something on his phone, propped against his folded legs, on which my favourite socks-and-flip-flops combo has been restored. Next to him, his brother is peering at his screen. I'm drinking my white wine and nibbling my fried calamari. Emo is unwinding from solving my problems by drinking his beer – the man is on holiday, after all. My eye is caught by a stunning babe at the next table. She looks about 20 to me, beautifully made up, with glossy hair, a fabulous tan, an ample bust and very long legs. My, how beautiful young people are these days! Good thing she's no competition for me! – flits somehow casually through my head.
It turns out that becoming competition isn't out of the question after all, because Maria, the woman from the family we're having dinner with, waves from our table to the stunning babe:
“Alex, come over and I'll introduce you to a big bro, so you've got someone to play with!”
Well, look at that Maria! I jump as if stung! Where does she get off wanting to introduce the beautiful Alex to my husband, and on top of everything presenting him as a “big bro”? My lightning-fast association whenever I hear “big bro” is with a pick-up. “Big bro” instantly conjures up in my mind the image of a moustachioed ladies' man with a whiff of the wide boy about him. I suppose that's because of the pop-folk classic forced on me for years, namely “Come to big bro, little chicks”. But besides that, I remember that before I, so to speak, “tamed” my husband, he used to strut around Sofia under the pick-up-artist nickname “Big Bro Em4o”. Very 1999–2002.
I come back to the present and to the ill-considered, not to say irresponsible behaviour of my friend Maria…… Honestly, what is this Maria playing at – on top of everything, she's calling Alex over to “play” with the big bro, I ask you! I picture my husband secretly patting himself on the back and whispering to himself, “Big Bro Em4o's still gr8 at playtime!”
Furious, I turn the other way, towards Maria. If it's so important to her to introduce Alex to “big bros”, she can introduce her to Big Bro 4efo (her own husband and an old mate of Big Bro Em4o's, with whom he used to tear up the nightclubs back in the day).
But to my great surprise, our table puts forward a third representative of the “big bros”, one I hadn't expected at all.
“Alex, meet big bro Valyo!” – Maria introduces Alex to MY CHILD!
“Are you from 2008?” Alex asks, holding out her hand.
“I was born in 2007,” Valyo bellows in his breaking voice.
“Ooh, so you really are a big bro to me. I'm 2008.” Alex vanishes into the dark, leaving behind her a cloud of gorgeous perfume, wrapped around the unspoken but obvious “still, you're too young for me”. I wonder whether she noticed the socks and flip-flops.
It turned out Alex was 12, not 20. Maria, who is a friend of her mother's, asks me how come I didn't recognise Alex. In answer to my baffled look, I learn that back in 2010, when Alex was a baby, I took her with us several times so they could “play on the beach with big bro Valyo's bucket and spade”. Emo nudges me: “See, when he played with the bucket and spade, at least he managed to hold Alex's interest for longer. Haven't you learnt yet that I'm always right? Next time you'll back me up when I tell the child what to do, instead of rolling the whites of your eyes at me.”
I'm not even listening to him. I'm ashamed of myself. I remembered how, already in my mid-20s, I used to catch the appraising looks of (as I called them back then) “little women” of 40-odd who, with an experienced eye, would “run over” my figure and come out with comments along the lines of “well, you and I have the same bum”. I'll admit that back then I told myself: when I turn 40, I won't be like them – I'll age with dignity. In my imagination I saw myself as a dignified 40-year-old lady in a shapeless smock, sealing jars of pickles, sewing tapestries and not measuring her bum against the young ones'.
At 40, I do none of those four things. On the other hand, I make a deliberate effort to see myself from the outside. I saw myself from the outside and realised I'd fallen into the trap of the cyclical behaviour imposed on us for centuries, the “woman who has a son and turns into a mother eagle”. I've also taken offence when people told me I looked good for my age (I wonder why – would I have preferred them to say I looked bad for my age?). And now I'd got rattled by a 12-year-old child!
I thought of my home help, 75-year-old Oksana from Russia. She doesn't take offence on the subject of “age”, or on most other subjects, because she's at peace with herself. I realised this one day when my younger son, Nikolay, before he'd even started school, was wondering whether Khan Asparuh had muscles and whether he could do pull-ups. The question nagged at him all day, because “if he could do pull-ups, how come he didn't manage to break a bundle of arrows”. In search of a contemporary of Khan Asparuh who could give a first-hand account of his physical abilities, Nikolay's gaze came to rest hopefully on Oksana. He blurted out without beating about the bush:
“Oksi, were you Khan Asparuh's girlfriend? If you knew him – do you remember if he could do pull-ups?”
I froze. I'd understand if Oksana took offence. She's no spring chicken, but the same age as Khan Asparuh, that's a bit much….
“Yes, darlink,” Oksana replied, stroking Nikolay's little head. “I vas wery close vith Khan Asparuh. He had enormous muscles and vas excellent soldier.”
Oksana winks at me. I smile back at her with relief. Nikolay is happy. Ever since, whenever Oksi comes up at home, we always refer to her as “Khan Asparuh's Girlfriend”. And if “Khan Asparuh's Girlfriend” means a woman who is at peace with herself, lives her life calmly, doesn't take offence and doesn't compare herself with anyone, then I want to become “Khan Asparuh's girlfriend” too. Because that is ageing with dignity…. actually, I don't like that phrase at all. Let me correct myself – what I meant to say is – that is living with dignity.
