Really, the numbers hadn't bothered me all that much the past couple years. Turning 30 wasn't as hard for me as it is for some, and 31 & 32 passed uneventfully.
However. As a "happy birthday" present this year, the DMV sent me a license renewal notice with a picture required. I sat in the car in the parking lot to touch up my makeup & hair, attempting in vain to hide the signs of aging that have bombarded me the past few months as 33 approached, as well as the annoying post-Lizzie "baby hairs" that are growing out and looking altogether lovely. Thoughts of commercials promising a reduction in the visible signs of aging started running through my mind, and I wondered why I hadn't prepared more vigorously for this day by exfoliating & penetrating & shrinking & minimizing.
And it hit me even harder than it did on my b-day: I will never again, as long as I live, look young. Sure, I don't get offered senior citizen discounts, and I do look like I'm in my 30s (with the amount of sleep I usually get, it's often my late 30s), but I will never again pass for a 20-something. If I'm carded, it will be by some 20-something kid who's trying to butter me up for a bigger tip. I look old, and there's no going back.
OK, not OLD, old. But you know, old. To the teens I teach, I'm somewhere in the same group as their parents. To the kids at the local college, I'm in that "your old but your hair's not gray, so I don't have to be nice to you, right" age group. And these days, when some guy pays attention to me, it's because my child is making off with a candy bar at the store and he's warning me of the impending shoplifting charges, should she get away.
Sigh. Aging. How did this happen?
1 comment:
isn't aging bizarre? I swear most days I'm 28. And then one of the kids I work with calls me "old" to try to get my goat.
Also I was way too excited the other day when some customer said I was "too young to be the manager." Way too excited.
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