38.
That's how old I'll be in two days.
I don't feel 38. As my grandma used to say when I asked her if she felt her age, whatever it happened to be at the time, she'd say:
"Nope. I feel 100."
I feel 100.
At least some days. When I'm chasing my two sprites around in the hot, muggy day and I'm feeling sweaty and out of shape and so, so far from the pictures of those celebs frolicking with their spawn in People magazine. Their hair just casually placed just so, rocking the Juicy Couture or whatever hip threads I wouldn't even know the name of. Even that Marcia Cross with her twins, she's older than me and she's going around and round with that Eden Prairie and Eva Marina, or whatever their names are, and she is just looking so damn JOYFUL.
There are days I am not looking quite so hot. There are days I just look hot.
And probably tired and wrinkly, too.
There are days my intentions are greater than my patience. And that I realize, while I'm probably a better mother than I would have been ten years ago, my knees and my back - not so much.
Some days I just want to call in the butler of my dreams and ask for a tall iced lemonade, and while he's at it, would he mind watching the kids for a few minutes?
But then yesterday happens, where I get on a plane and realize, like everything, age is so incredibly relative.
My seatmate, though I'm no judge of age, was maybe 60 or so, and after not saying much to one another during the flight, we began to chit chat on our landing approach. She asked me what I was reading and I told her: a book of essays by Sloane Cross, freaking hilarious and beautifully written. I mentioned I'm into writing essays myself of late.
She said: "for school, or something?"
Bless her heart.
Nope, I said. I'm a writer, just not near as good of one as Ms. Cross here.
Well, she said. "That takes some life experience, now."
I wonder if she thought I was twenty-five or just a really dense and lonely looking almost thirty-eight year old.
Whichever, it hit me that I'm old until someone's older than me.
I disembarked with a spring in my step, a little youth-ish lilt in my gait.
I have to say, it's looking like a good year.
I don't feel 38. As my grandma used to say when I asked her if she felt her age, whatever it happened to be at the time, she'd say:
"Nope. I feel 100."
I feel 100.
At least some days. When I'm chasing my two sprites around in the hot, muggy day and I'm feeling sweaty and out of shape and so, so far from the pictures of those celebs frolicking with their spawn in People magazine. Their hair just casually placed just so, rocking the Juicy Couture or whatever hip threads I wouldn't even know the name of. Even that Marcia Cross with her twins, she's older than me and she's going around and round with that Eden Prairie and Eva Marina, or whatever their names are, and she is just looking so damn JOYFUL.
There are days I am not looking quite so hot. There are days I just look hot.
And probably tired and wrinkly, too.
There are days my intentions are greater than my patience. And that I realize, while I'm probably a better mother than I would have been ten years ago, my knees and my back - not so much.
Some days I just want to call in the butler of my dreams and ask for a tall iced lemonade, and while he's at it, would he mind watching the kids for a few minutes?
But then yesterday happens, where I get on a plane and realize, like everything, age is so incredibly relative.
My seatmate, though I'm no judge of age, was maybe 60 or so, and after not saying much to one another during the flight, we began to chit chat on our landing approach. She asked me what I was reading and I told her: a book of essays by Sloane Cross, freaking hilarious and beautifully written. I mentioned I'm into writing essays myself of late.
She said: "for school, or something?"
Bless her heart.
Nope, I said. I'm a writer, just not near as good of one as Ms. Cross here.
Well, she said. "That takes some life experience, now."
I wonder if she thought I was twenty-five or just a really dense and lonely looking almost thirty-eight year old.
Whichever, it hit me that I'm old until someone's older than me.
I disembarked with a spring in my step, a little youth-ish lilt in my gait.
I have to say, it's looking like a good year.
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loves from the stewart gang