(just a random photograph of my farmer’s market zinnias)
Tomorrow, it’s August. And that means it is the month that I turn 35. I am not looking forward to this birthday at all. Hilary finally made me realize, last year, that birthdays are not, on the whole, happy occasions for me. That has historically had little to do with getting old, but this year that fun detail is thrown in the mix as well.
As I drove home from Providence today I was thinking that I just do not feel 35. I just don’t. I am simultaneously an old soul (many, many people have commented on that to me) and an arrested adolescent. I often look at my children and wonder when the real mother is going to show up. To, maybe, show me what to do too.
I was thinking there are a lot of ways that I’m still 18 and also a lot of ways that I’m ready to join the AARP. Not that many ways that I feel like – or act like – a 35 year old mother of two. Though it’s important to note that none of these behaviors or preferences are deliberate – this is just how I act and feel naturally. But still.
Signs I am an 18 year old in full-blown arrested development:
- I dress like a teenager: jeans, juicys, sneakers, logo tee shirts, ponytail
- I eat like a teenager: crap, crap, and more crap
- My music tastes tend towards the teenybopper: Taylor Swift, Britney, Jessica Simpson – and who doesn’t secretly think Miley’s The Climb is a moving anthem??
- I bite my fingernails down to the quick – professional that’s not
- I paint my toenails dark sparkly blue
- The pimples that just will not stop, even when they battle for real estate with wrinkles
Signs I am a senior citizen:
- I prefer the 5:30 dinner reservation to the 8:30 one (hello, cmoore!)
- I like to go to bed before 10
- I could – and often do – eat the same four things every single day
- I can’t stand too much noise, smell, or overstimulation of any kind
- 4pm is the new 5pm when it comes to an end-of-day glass of wine (or several)
- The deep wrinkles around my eyes
I wonder if my birthday goal this year, other than limiting my seemingly-out-of-thin-air bawling, should be to find a way to feel more 35. I wonder, too, if this is connected to my general discomfort in my skin, the persistent insecurity about who I am that manifests in a multitude of awkward and unappealing ways. I should try to find a way, I guess, to embrace my 35 year old self, to relax into her middle-aged body and enjoy the joys of right now. Easier said than done, sadly, but a worthy goal.