The other day at work a mother told me she thought I was 26. (For the record, I'm 28.5.) This came after she told one of the teachers she thought she was 16. (She's 24. We have 16 year olds teaching and they look 16. She does not.)
Anyway, she told me she thought I was 26 and, like always, whenever someone tells me they think I look younger than I am I say "Thank you! I'll take that any day!" or something similarly annoying. I mean, that's what we're supposed to think, right? Who wants to be thought of as their actual age? The horror! Who doesn't want to be younger?! That's the way we're programmed, isn't it?
Buy this $70 moisturizer! It will make you look 10 years younger!
Suck all the fat out of your love handles and feel like a kid again!
Surgically reposition your entire face until you are unrecognizable, but no worries! We shaved 20 years off your age!
Perhaps I'm susceptible to these kind of messages, as I am fairly vain and insecure, but I'm proud to say that I had a break through after that episode. I got back to my work and began thinking to myself why I cared if I looked younger than I was. I thought to myself, "Hey! I'm no 26 year old kid!"
Now, I've been staring down the barrel of the big 3-0 for a few years now, terrified of getting OLD, of leaving my youth behind. 30 seemed like the end of it all. Once you hit 30, you hit old age. You've become (dun dun DUN!) a grown up! Aaaaaaaah!!
That's what I thought, anyway. But I've thought about it some and the truth is, I think I'll be happy to leave my 20s behind. And my teens. Why? Because I was a miserable child, teenager, and twenty-something. Selfish, narcissistic, oblivious, moody, debilitatingly insecure. I can't imagine how my parents managed to not ship me off to some boarding school or something to free themselves from the dark, brewing storm cloud that was my personality in those days.
I don't know why I would wish to return. And so, with much anticipation and welcome, I look forward to 30. I look forward to wisdom, to a clearer view of the world and myself, and to finding a place for myself. If it means wrinkles and sunspots, saggy skin and a little more junk in the trunk, bring it on. I'd rather have all that then the mess that I was.
30, you no longer scare me. Let's be friends!
PS: TOTALLY unrelated, but I really love my kids.
5 comments:
Very funny Annie! I'm 30 and I know it isn't old and I don't feel 30, but hearing that number and associating myself with it SUCKS. I do like it when people think I am younger because when I was younger everyone thought I was 6 years older and I just wanted to be my age. Age it's a number, I guess.
I'm never going to be 30 and that's settled.
p.s. you should have gone to Hogwarts as a child.
Just for the record, because of your blessed genetics (thank your Grandma Chris), you probably won't have wrinkles and saggy skin for many, many years. When you are 63 and people think that you arer 10 years younger, without the assistance of creams or surgery, you can smile and say thank you very much.
Well, that is unless you got your Grandma Buie's genetics and are dying for a facelift at 45.
I loved my thirties. It was wonderful to inhale and breathe and be secure with myself. I'm in my 40's now and It's a blast. LOVE IT!!. People still think I look much younger than I am especially if my hair is pulled back. My kids find great humor in asking people "how old do you think my mom is?" It's nice to get the good ole, "your kidding right!" It's especially humorous to have the doctors do a double take on my age when I went to my first pregnancy check-up this Sept. Kirk just starting laughing when they kept looking at me and then the chart. Yes, she's in her 40's. I'm sure Annie you'll do just fine when the time comes. It's really quite painless.
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