Oozing confidence from every pore

RECENTLY I had lunch with one of my close friends. We went to school together back in the day, and she positively glowed as she sat there at one of our favourite joints waiting for me. Polished in smooth and flawless make-up which enhanced her natural beauty and outlined to advantage her high trademark cheekbones; clad in some two piece ensemble that contoured her ample body and bossom, with a killer shoe for days, sitting all straight up and elegant —she was a sight to see.

One I felt proud to be associated with as I noted that she was indeed holding her own in a world that is so harsh in its judgement of beauty and deportment. Particularly with the stringent western beauty template often unfairly and unjustifiably juxtaposed on the African sense of beauty, which in its typical sense celebrates bounty and curvaceous vivaciousness. (I have, by the way, since discontinued my subscription to the western sense of beauty, I feel more akin to the Malaika type of beauty.)

As I inched — sorry, glided—towards my friend to the table we had booked for our lunch and, it goes without saying, the accompanying tete-a-tete, before I could even give props to my friend on how great she looked, she exclaimed in delight and admiration at how tastefully and elegantly, I was put together. “Wow, you look great Maggie! Now that is all that!,” she said.

Clad in a summer dress, in one of my favourite colours — emerald green with some prints in lighter shades of jade turquoise- which flatters me no end and the dress in an uncanny combination of serious but flirty, revealing just a hint of cleavage — enough to afford me some basic measure of dignity in the office (which is where I was coming from) — and underplaying any not-so-flattering-bits; I must say I knew, without doubt, that I was also holding my own. With my now signature locks which, in the past few months, have matured into a glorious crop of pure au naturel tresses and some understated earthy coloured make-up, and, if I do say so myself, I have quite the skin to carry it all off, so, yeah, you bet I was in my element!

Needless to point out the first few minutes of our lunch was spent in oohs and aahs, each giving props to the other. We concurred, we were both quite happening. Then my friend, ever the optimistic observer, said something that, upon giving it some thought, I agreed with. “It must be the 40s! They give us so much confidence, it makes us look good,” she said.

I ran it through my mind and found it made sense. For all its worth, yes, we felt we were all that. We had a certain kind of conquering that we felt – as if we walked on air. Like we had some unseen but silently declared entitlement to our lives, ourselves, our very beings. And we had no apologies to make on any of those scores. We could each have filled jars with the confidence that was oozing out of our pores! We were each up our respective alleys. What is more is that it was liberating. It felt good; we felt good.

It really was the forties, I agreed with my friend. “It’s like we are ripe,” ever the wordsmith, I quipped, to which my friend laughed in agreement and we both squealed with glee and basked in contented mirth. As for the waitresses and other diners at this joint, it was all they could do to just look at us and wonder what had gotten into us. But hey, my friend and I were not about to apologise for finding ourselves!

Later that night as I reflected and mused on it all, I could only sum it up in one way: we have found ourselves. Yes, that’s it. In one’s forties one finds one’s self. One surely does come into one’s self! What a lovely thought.  Wow, I have got this! Them forties are fabulous and they can be freaking rockin! And to think I once dreaded them.

The Fabulous Forties column is a celebration of an age that benefits from lived experiences, opinions, observations and sentiments associated with the “coming of age”. Contact: maggiemzumara@yahoo.ie Follow on Twitter @magsmzumara