another year older - another year gone

yesterday was my thirty-sixth birthday. i've never been super excited about ages. i hear that some of you are. some people get all excited about turning twenty-one, or sad about turning thirty, or say you're over the hill at forty. the only age that has weirded me out at all was not even mine. it was when the mister turned thirty-five. when he turned thirty-five, for the first time it occurred to me that we were real-live grown-ups.



i don't feel like a grown-up. i most certainly don't act like a grown-up. i'm usually the first one to make fun of people (to their face, in fun... not with any kind of mal-intent), i love being the center of attention, i rarely make appropriate footwear choices. certainly these things don't point to adulthood.



but there are a few things that make me constantly aware that i am, in fact, an adult.



i have a car - and it's PAID OFF



i have whiskers in my chin



i have a stack of bills on top of the fridge that isn't shrinking with each payroll



i fall asleep when i read



i think eleven o'clock is late



i own plants



i listen to talk radio, often



i remember to feed my pets



i don't get carded to buy wine



i have cash in my wallet (sometimes)



these are obvious signs of aging, in my humble opinion. and i'm fine with every single one of them, even the whiskers (who doesn't love tweezing?).



it's hard to reconcile how i feel on the inside with what it says on the birth certificate though. and i find it very hard to believe that those pioneers of age, who were thirty-six thirty-six years ago felt this young inside. when i look at a woman more... advanced in her years, i can't imagine her doing the things that i do. especially not doing them with the gusto that i do. i'm sure that they did, and hopefully, they still do. because i never want to feel my age. ever.



because if i ever feel my age, it will mean that i have stopped doing a few things.



i find great joy in singing the national anthem alone in my car, as LOUD AS I CAN



i have a crush on all three jonas brothers and zach effron



i dance to amy winehouse like no self respecting fat girl should ever dance



i wear black toe polish every. single. day



i shamelessly watch big brother, and read the spoilers online



i color in coloring books



i tell extremely inappropriate jokes to equally inappropriate audiences



i require slurpees on a regular basis



i desperately want edgy teenagers to like me and not view me as stuffy



i believe in santa



if these things, plus the exponentially longer list of things running around in my brain, ever stop bringing me joy, i will know that i have succumbed to age. i refuse to let that happen. there is too much fun happening all around me to ever REALLY grow up.



however, i am greatly enjoying the privileges of being a grown up. i set my own bedtime. i don't get in the car to leave if i don't want to. i don't have to eat my dinner to get dessert. and frankly... as much as i'd love to go back and re-do highschool, we really do have better hair and make-up tricks the older we get.



i like the me that i am today. i can't say that i'm a teenager in an early middle-aged body, i would have said that in my twenties. but i'm definitely in my early twenties internally. i like this place. i think i'll stay here for a while. wisdom, i'll always gladly gain. but more maturity? no thank you, i'll pass.



and as far as wanting my girlish physical self back? check out a picture of me at my twelfth birthday, and then a picture of me at my thirty-sixth. i'm pretty happy with where i am now physically as well (bless that little girl's heart... she's what you'd call a late bloomer!).

so let's hear it for only aging on the outside!!!

arrivederci, rebecca marie