39

So, here's the deal. Margi stirred a turd. Hop on over to May I Have A Word, and you'll see what I'm talking about. She threw down a challenge last week. And because she has some kind of mind-reading voodoo, it coincided with a whole lot of things that I've been thinking about. The challenge was to write a blog post explaining why I am exactly the age I should be. I am going to do this and some other things, but the secret password around here for the next few posts is: ageing. (Or aging, if you did not have your spelling irreparably disrupted by spending formative educational years in a British colony.)  No matter. Let the festivities begin.


I am thirty-nine years old.

Sometimes I feel old.

My hair is graying, my belly sags. My laugh lines are deeper than they used to be. I talk to friends about movies that were released before they were born. I did a back bend for my daughter last night and saw stars for far too long afterward. Parts of me fall asleep alarmingly fast. My knees protest long Lego sessions on the floor. I forget things faster than I used to. I need glasses to read. I am clumsy when I send text messages. People I used to babysit are getting married, having children. The "grownups" in my life are dying. My peers are running the world, or at least managing it. Yeah, sometimes I feel old.

These things are so shallow. Sometimes I am shallow.

I am thirty-nine years old.

Thirty years ago, I longed to be at least twenty, and most people thought I was twelve or thirteen. Twenty-five years ago, I wanted to be grown up. I wanted to be on my own, I wanted to be past the uncertainty of the next several years and firmly established in my imagined role of changing the world. I wanted to be thirty. Twenty years ago, I had no idea what I wanted, just not this. Fifteen years ago, I wanted to stay that age forever. I wanted to preserve the new innocence and perfection and blissful halcyon of I can't believe I get to live this life. Ten years ago, I didn't give it another thought, I was right where I wanted to be. Five years ago, I had no space to think about myself. Last month, on my birthday, I laughed with my husband as he had to do the math to figure out how old I was, because he forgot. "I don't think about our ages," he said, and it occurred to me that I don't much, either.

There are certain times of life where your age matters immensely. My daughter is counting the years until she gets to be called a teenager. She's excited about the imminent double digits. When you're 15, it matters that you're not 16, because you can't legally drive. When you're 17, it matters that you're not 18, because you can't legally vote. (I'm gonna go with "vote" instead of "buy cigarettes and lottery tickets" here, but you decide.) When you're 20, it matters that you're not 21. By the time you're 35, you can do pretty much anything you want - up to and including run for president. I suppose it will eventually come around again when I'm 59 and not 60; 64 and not 65.

The Earth revolves around the sun once a year. Meanwhile, its rotation makes gravity which pulls on us and keeps us from floating off into space. The longer we go without floating off into space, the more we see the effects of gravity and wind and sun and time on our bodies. And there are always bodies popping on and off this Earth, so there are always people in different points along the time continuum. Some have been here longer, some got here after us. These seem to be rather large forces to resist. These seem to be rather pointless things to wish weren't so. I can't resist the revolutions of the Earth. There are other revolutions I would rather tend to.

I am thirty-nine years old.

Remarkably, I have not yet flown off the face of the Earth. I have thirty-nine years of experience in navigating this body around. I have thirty-nine years of trial and error and triumph. I have been gifted all this time so far, to take the tools I've been given and build a life. I have had the space to see the most ghastly and the most wonderful things. I have had the time to see just how appalling I can be. I have had the years to decide that I don't want to be. I have been here long enough to realize that most things have very little to do with me. I am enough of a grownup to make my own decisions, to know my own mind. I am old enough to see how the decisions I make affect other people. I have been around long enough to know I can decide how other people affect me. I am plenty old enough to take responsibility for who I am. All of the rest of it is just window dressing.

I am thirty-nine years old.

Yeah, sometimes I feel old.
Mostly, though, I just feel like me.