I Still Get Carded!!

You hear people say that they don’t feel their age. Well, what age do they feel? Older? Younger? I feel “on time.” I don’t feel old though I know I’m somewhat wise beyond my years. I don’t feel young, either. Just about every morning I wake up with some sort of ache or pain and then hear the crackle of my joints as I walk down the hallway. I do yard work and I’m stiff the next morning. So I know I’m not young.

I’ve had many experiences in my life that have aged my mind. Maybe it’s not so much my mind but my conceptions of the world. I’ve grown up fast because of those experiences, too. You have to because you’re forced to. At the tender ages of adolescence, a child who is immature of the mind cannot begin to grasp or reason why the world, and the ones they trust, can be so cruel. It’s not fair and thus the lesson.

I don’t fear age. Yes, I have several grey hairs sprouting out of my head right at my natural part that I’m not fond of but I am by no means vain about my appearance. I threaten to dye my hair but I know I won’t do it. It’s my sheer laziness that prohibits me from maintaining beautiful, dark auburn locks for the rest of my life though the color is quite appealing to me. I don’t wish to by young again. It was hard growing up. I was teased when I was in grade school. I was fat. I was loud. I had braces and bad, frizzy hair and worst of all I was smart and I knew it. You were that age. You know how it went.

I don’t want to go back to seventeen either unless I can have that body with it. That was equally frustrating. It was fun being somewhat naïve and carefree but looking back, I did some STUPID things that I wish I hadn’t. I know what they mean when they say “I would go back but only if I knew what I know now.” My early twenties are out of the question, too unless, as mentioned before, I can have the body with it.

Here I am cusping on the edge of 30 and I’m quite happy. There are ups and downs that I struggle through but knowing how proud my family is of me (and a “thank you” for the ones who voiced this to me) makes me feel better about the decisions I made. I can’t change the past. And I’ll ruin the present by thinking of the future, so why not just be content and happy that everything turned out “ok”?

I can’t help but be giddy about the next step in my journey.