Age

Tonight, I went to an event with the Hall children (my sister's kids) at their school. It was a lot of fun, but as we were gathered in the gym, I looked around at some of the other parents: mothers holding their babies on their hips, fathers wrangling in screaming kids who were running in circles. It occured to me that I'm soooooooooooooo much older than them. I thought about how old I'll be when my kids are in school. If things work out in the next year or so, I'll be in my mid to late 40's. That means I'll have teenagers in my late 50's.

HOLY SHIT.

Ok, that sounds so damn old to me. My mom had me when she was 23, and she was done having kids before she was 30. I could be 20 years older than my mom by the time I have my first child.

HOLY. SHIT.

I'm old. My hair would be white if I didn't color it every 6 weeks (of course, I've been coloring it since I was in my mid-20's). Thankfully, my fat face hides any wrinkles that lurk under there. It's getting hard to fight this though.

I know that age is relative--it's all about how you feel and blahblahblah. I certainly don't think I LOOK 40, however I also don't see myself as fat as the scale says I am. It's true: sometimes when I look at myself in the mirror at home, I don't see a fat person, but when I catch a glimpse of my reflection walking by a store window, I'm appalled at what's looking back at me. If I'm this blinded by my appearance, am I missing the whole age thing? Do I really look as old as I am?

For most of my 20's and 30's, I always looked remarkably younger than the number of my years (moreso after I stopped wearing make-up or fluffing and primping my hair everyday). I was usually carded early on when buying alcohol, but those occurances slowly diminished throughout the years. Then about a month ago, I was in a Hallmark store. I went up to pay for my cards and the woman behind the counter (who was probably in her late 60's or early 70's) looked right asked me and said, "Today is Senior Day. Are you 55 or older?"

I KID YOU NOT.

I stood there for a good 3 minutes with my mouth slighly agape, hoping for a sign from her that she made a horrible mistake and oh there's no WAY I could be that old.....but no. I realized she was looking me in the eye and waiting for an answer. Of course, because I have few filters for those moments that call for me to gracefully answer proposterous questions such as this, I snottily said, "Um, NO," and had a look of indignation splattered all over my face. She totally missed it though (which is probably for the best).

It's moments like this that make me realize that I'm aging. And NOT gracefully. I wish I could go back 10 years. I don't know why--I don't think I could really change much of anything, and I didn't have Paul back then. I wish more that I could have everything now but 10 years ago.

But I can't. Duh. So I have to deal with the thought of being the oldest parent in my kids' school. And I'll color my hair until I feel it appropriate to be gray (I'm sure I'll be long dead by then though). I may go blonder as the roots get grayer--my Aunt Betty did that for years and looked just fine. ☺

I've finished my evening rant. Nothing new on the IVF front--still on drugs, and it'll be weeks before a transfer happens. On the house front, we're still here. We have a showing tomorrow, but it's been a long time since we've gotten excited about these.

The great part about today--seeing and spending time with Robert and Mary, and riding the scooter this morning! It was a good day.