Monday, April 30, 2012

On Being Thirty-Six



Forty is age when you officially begin your slow descent into old age and death. You can no longer tell yourself that you are young and developing, that you are really a kid. You should not be listening to Eminem if you are forty. You should not be trying to put enough money together to get a decent car. If you are still doing this, it is already too late. You are not up and coming. You are a loser. I am thirty-six. My vantage point on forty is keen. I have been watching it like an approaching leopard, ready to strike at any moment, mauling my features until unrecognizable with age and sour maturity. (At thirty-six, you need to stop wearing your hair in double pony tails, but I started doing this instead.) In less than two months, I will be thirty-seven. (At thirty-seven, Kid Rock is out of the question.) I will be issued a bottle of Metamucil and a pair of spectacles then told sternly to behave.

A youthful appearance is supposed to be a good thing, particularly for those of us edging ever close to that fateful precipice. I am not fond of wrinkles. I think it is especially unfair that it is possible to have both wrinkles and pimples at the same time. Whose cruel idea was this–putrefaction spiked with adolescent angst? I will confess, though, that I seem to pass somehow for someone much younger than myself. This could be, as I might hope, due to supple skin and grey hair artfully concealed by foils, but I suspect it may have something to do with my bearing, which communicates something less than a goddess-like maturity.

At any rate, the situation I find myself in goes as follows:

Nice person asks me, "Oh, do you have children?"

"Yes, I do, " I reply.

"How old?," they say.

"I have three boys," I confide. "Six, eleven and fourteen."

This is when the stares of open horror begin.

"Fourteen, you say?"

"Yes, fourteen."

I can see them making mental calculations.

"I am thirty-six.," I assert.

"Ohhhhhhhhh," the person says, finally able to breathe again. " I thought you were in your twenties for sure."

"Yes," I say, " I get that a lot."

I guess I should have t-shirts printed for when I meet new people. They will say "I Was Never a Teenage Mother". And then, because I'm me, on the back, they will say "Not That There Would be Anything Wrong with That" and list some resources for teenage mothers.

Maybe, instead, I'll just tell people my oldest son is a really surly ten year-old.

17 comments:

  1. Please. 40 is young. I'm 49 so I look back fondly on 40. Especially as it as a week before my 40th that I found out I was pregnant with my first child. I did not plan on having children so late and do not recommend it; it happened that way, though I have perhaps more patiencee having had my career, published, taught, etc before I became a stay-at-home-mom. which now that the kids are in school, has gotten me back to writing again. Celebrate 40! You have beautiful children will on their way, and you DO look 20 something!

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    1. I know! I have been freaking out about the next age "hump" I am approaching since I was about to turn eighteen. It's all tongue in cheek,seriously. I just never feel mature enough to be the age I am supposed to be next. Having kids late is probably a great idea. Since my health started failing in my mid-thirties, I am glad I had them younger (although perhaps they ruined my health???), but I was a real dork as a new mom.

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  2. heh - I always get mistaken for the babysitter, or much older sister. To my six year old. And I think, like you, it has nothing to do with youthful appearance. More likely it's the fact that I don't swear much, don't drink, don't drive, and watch TV meant for teenagers.

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    1. See, I think it's because I DO swear, listen to heavy metal and shop from the juniors section, that I have this problem. You sound like you look like a "nice" teenager. I look like a kind of nefarious coffee shop maven–someone who might smoke. :)

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  3. What about overalls and mismatched socks at 37? Surely that's acceptable. Also, I have not many wrinkles, but a head full of gray hair and people still think I'm 5-10 years younger than I am. I think it's because I still get food in my hair when I eat and I hoot real loud in polite company when something is funny.

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    1. Perhaps it is a writer's thing? Along with our questionable childhoods misspent adolescences, and tendency to over-think, we are blessed with eternal immaturity? I am loving the overalls and mismatched socks by the way.

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  4. Having passed that dreaded 40 mark, I'm slip-sliding my way toward old age. The ride gets faster and faster. Especially when you realize teenagers see you as ancient.
    I had a baby at 40 and now my kids range in age from 19 to 5. I'm sure I would get more strange reactions if I lived anywhere other than Utah.
    I'd love to look as young as you do. I can color the grays, but fighting gravity is a losing battle.

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    1. Ahhhh, gravity. Well, that's why I have to buy push-up bras, compression leggings and cruel Spandexy fat-sucking girdly things to wear under dresses. With all that obfuscation, people only notice the face. :)

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  5. Tara,

    Let'em wonder. Walk away with a grin on your face! Bwahahaha! Their issue, not yours!

    Regards,
    Darlene
    EBWW

    P.S. By this reckoning, I'm likely REALLY old at 54, but you want to know something? I've never felt so free to be me, so able to do what I want rather than what others want me to do. I'm happy and excited about this next non-small-children chapter of my life. And it's never too late to reinvent yourself, my friend!

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    1. Love this!! Yes! Let 'em wonder. Judge not and so forth.

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    2. I am so much more me at 40 than I was at 23 and am certainly much more happy - even with wrinkles, gray hair, and aching knees. The only person who has a say so on when you're old and must behave is you.

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  6. You know you're getting old when you can't look good messy anymore. These young things can go out dressed in grandpas old painting shirt and 3 week hair and still look gorgeous, not fair.
    Darlene is so right though, instead of our blouse sexily slipping off our shoulders - it's expectations that slip off.

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  7. One of the great things about not having children is that I can always lie about my age. When I turn fifty, the world will know me as twenty-five year old. I don't care if I can get away with it.

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  8. 40 isn't so bad. You are still in good company in the 35-44 box. But once you hit 45, that's when all hell breaks loose... and I don't care what they say about aging and good wine and all that crap, the 45-54 box is NOT nice.

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  9. I definitely think you need that t-shirt.

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  10. There are whole parts of this post that I could've written. I've lost track of the number of times people have been stunned that I have children in their twenties, and, since I still suffer no age-related visual impairment, I am certain that their, "You don't look that old." really means, "You don't seem that old." which really is just another way of calling me immature. I'm pretty sure. And they wouldn't be entirely wrong. ;)

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Faith in Ambiguity by Tara Adams is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License