The Mojo & The Mundane

Somewhere between retiring and returning home; between becoming a pensioner and a forever-stay-at-home wife and mom, I slowly lost my marbles, my mojo, and the Nariman who kicked ass on the daily.

It took all of nine months to strip away the layers built over decades, leaving behind a blank, albeit older, slate.

Is it comfort that has dulled me? Is it boredom? Or is it the stubborn grey hair sprouting like weeds, abundant and rampant across my head, often accompanied by headaches and that peculiar heaviness that settles into your bones? Or is it the belly fat refusing to budge, rounded and protruding despite shapewear and all sorts of desperate measures? Enter the heavy breasts resting low against the ribs, until somehow nothing fits quite right anymore.

Reining in the sensual is easy when you start to believe your days of being sexy are over. Especially when you turn into the pensioners’ bay at the mall and exit the car with dodgy knees and hips that crackle like crisp packets in a quiet cinema.

What is it that other people see, I wonder, as I rub the sleep from my eyes? I flip on the selfie camera and press record.

Can I still pout? Do these eyes still know how to lock someone in? And these breasts—do they crinkle and fold now, cleavage looking more like wrinkled bedding than crisp white sheets? And how does the neck even do that? Fold upon fold, like a concertina.

I press record again. I stare deep into imaginary eyes, holding a gaze, whispering words soft as breath. I laugh. I flirt. Then I press play and see what sexy actually looks like at sixty.

Should sexy even be something I still do at sixty?

The truth is, sexy isn’t a performance. It isn’t just youth or narrow beauty standards. It is the confidence you carry and the chemistry you fuel in the most ordinary moments of everyday life.

It isn’t a posed video or a body draped over an armchair for the male gaze. It is the soft touch when he reaches for your hand. It is the wildness in his eyes when he looks at you. It is the early-morning kisses as dawn finds you tangled together in crumpled bedding. And it is this body, no longer firm, no longer entirely flexible, that still finds deep pleasure in being loved.

Perhaps sexy at sixty isn’t about looking like the woman I once was. Perhaps it is about finally celebrating the woman I have become.