In just over a week I am turning 39.
Besides the usual where did the years go and how is it possible that in one year I will be 40, this year I am plagued with other questions.
How do I grow older gracefully and continue to be who I am? I remember when I was younger thinking people in their 40s had one foot in the grave. Now that I am nearly there I feel anything but!
I am exactly the same person I was when I was 25. Maybe a little less erratic and maybe able to handle situations with a little more finesse but the core of who I am has not changed. I still love the same kind of movies, books and music; I still have my own sense of style; I still laugh at inappropriate humour. Is this meant to change? And if so when and how? Is it a gradual thing where one day I will wake up and find myself buying all my clothes from Millers, watching dramatic adaptations of Danielle Steele, reading Mills & Boon and listening to Andre Rieu?
I, like the majority of society, cringe when I see “mutton dressed as lamb” or some older person at nightclubs with the barely legals. I don’t want to be one of those people. As much as I tease Noah that I am going to be 80 and showing up to Christmas dinners wearing a t-shirt that says “Don’t ya wish your girlfriend was hot like me” and being the number one Cougar at the retirement home, I couldn’t do it. I don’t want to be the centre of attention and the joke of the town but I don’t want to be a frumpy muumuu wearing nana that tut tuts at the music that young people listen to these days.
When is it no longer ok to listen to the Ramones? When do I have to choose sensible flats over my Doc Martins or high heels? At what age is a Jackie Chan marathon not a good night in? When do I stop getting excited about bands coming to town?
I know personally I am a long way off having to worry about this but how do you stay true to who you are and what makes you happy? Is it fear of getting older? Or is it Peter Pan syndrome and I am refusing to leave my Neverland? If it is maybe Tinkerbell can sprinkle some fairy dust on those little wrinkles that are starting to appear!
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