My life as an elderly woman began at a very
early age. As a child we would visit my grandparents 
and
stay with them while we were visiting them.
My family did not believe in hotels but instead believed in staying with
the relatives. My grandmother was
feeble all the time I remember knowing her.
I began to wonder what it would be like to be an elderly woman like my
grandmother and to be feeble like her and have to use Oxygen just like she
occasionally did. As I grew my
desire to be an elderly woman somehow faded.
The desire stayed hidden until shortly after Donna-June arrived.
When I became Donna-June everything fell right in place except for one
thing that turned out to be not so minor. One
of my requirements for Donna-June is that she looks in every way like she just
stepped out of the 1950’s. Unfortunately
my hairstyle was wrong and my wife and I couldn’t find any books on fifties
hairstyles. There was one book that
was suppose to be coming out but it kept getting delayed so I every weekend,
vacation, and holiday I would work on a fifties hairstyle that I liked.
I even cruised the internet for some hairstyles that my wife and I could
agree on. During my search I
discovered that the only 1950’s hairstyles that had a distinct 1950’s look
were the shorter ones. We did
find some that screamed forties but nothing in the fifties.
The 1950’s 
began
a lot of hairstyles that are very similar to the ones worn today so if I chose
one of them I would not look like I just stepped out of the 1950’s.
One evening after looking at a short hairstyle that appealed to me on an
old record album cover I decided to try to see if I could actually set my long
hair in a short style. After a few
attempts low and behold I managed to get my long hair to appear shorter and to
my amazement in the mirror looking back at me was the stereotypical 1950’s
television style housewife that I had diligently been looking for.
I was so excited that I had finally found the hairstyle that I loved that
I immediately hurried to show it to my wife.
My wife took one look at my new hairstyle and to my total dismay she
immediately hated it. Her only
comments were that it made me look older and that I now looked like her mother.
She was also furious thinking that I had cut my hair into this style but
when I told her it was all done with curlers she calmed down just a tad.
Still she was very unhappy with the short style.
When we got past the cutting my hair short panic part I informed her that
since I was pretending to be a stereotypical 1950’s television style housewife
that me also pretending to be an older woman did not bother me as long as I had
a hairstyle that screamed 1950’s to me. I
also told her that her mother was a very attractive woman and not only did I not
mind looking like her mother but I thought it was a very fine complement.
My wife did not take my complement well and I went back to trying long
styles. As hard as I looked nothing
said 1950’s like the short hairstyle I stumbled upon.
Finally I gave up looking and each weekend I would curl and shorten my
hair into the short fifties hairstyle that I loved while we waited for the book
to be published. I even kept trying
to see if I could make it look shorter and shorter even though I knew this upset
My wife. After all I was only
experimenting and I wanted to see just how short I could get my hair to look
with out actually cutting it.
Occasionally My wife would get upset enough with my
short hairstyles that she would attempt a different long hairstyle.
Sadly to say as hard as she tried every long hairstyle once finished
looked like it came out of the seventies and absolutely none of them gave even
the slightest hint as to being from the fifties let alone screamed it.
Months passed by and the publishing date kept being
pushed further and further away until it looked like our 50’s hairstyle book
would never be published. Each and
every passing week would find me endeavoring in my attempts trying to perfect my
short hairstyle. Unfortunately for
me each and every time I was also confronted by My wife’s comment on how it
made me look older and then each and every time me telling her that I didn’t
care if I looked older as long as my hairstyle screamed 1950’s.
My wife’s comments on me looking older reignited
a long lost anomaly of mine. That
anomaly was being an elderly woman. To
make my look and experience more authentic as an elderly woman I did purchased
two sets of hearing aids. One set
for modern wear and one set like the ones that would have been worn in the
1950’s. My wife agreed to allow me
to get them because I actually could use some hearing aids.
The hearing aids I bought are pretty powerful so to make myself deaf
enough to need them I inserted foam ear plugs deep in my ear canals.
This way I would be quite hearing impaired and I could only remove the
foam plugs and hear normally again if I had a pair of tweezers handy.
I also wanted to dye my hair grey and then purchase some contact lenses
that would dramatically worsen my eyesight and then get some thick glasses to
correct my vision back to normal. Once
I had my contacts in and my ear plugs in for all intent and purpose I would
truly be hard of hearing and hard of seeing like some elderly women are.
I have even tried to figure out how to create wrinkles but so far that
skill set has avoided me. Even so
often when I dressed up I tried to make myself look older.
I drew dark lines in my natural wrinkles to deepen them and I would on
occasion color my eyebrows grey when I was not wearing make-up.
My first taste of living as an elderly
woman came on Halloween 2006. I
managed to get My wife to agree to allow me to be an elderly woman for a few
days. Not the entire week bet none
the less a few days anyway. I dyed
my hair grey with spray on hair color, inserted the foam plugs
and hearing aids,
and spent a couple of days as “Donna-June’s mother.”
I even used a cane like a real elderly woman would use and slept with a
nasal cannula in my nose. I also used clear
tape on my knuckles
to simulate arthritis.
I was
surprised how well I looked but I did wish my hair was grey for real as every
time I washed my hair which I do on a daily basis so I can set my hair for the
next day I had to re-spray my hair.
I am normally an intense, hard driving, very
impatient, person and I was worried whether I 
could live at an elderly pace for
Halloween. Surprisingly, during this
time I was the most relaxed I had ever been and even the slow pace I had to
maintain because of the cane I was using did not bother me at all.
What I took away from that Halloween was that I wanted to live a more
intense version of Donna-June’s mother and for a much, much longer period of
time. Since that time until
On
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