Going into a cheap earring store, like Ardene or Claire, where you can also buy cheap sunglasses, trendy hats/scarves/handbags, all at 3 for $10, makes a woman feel old. She feels especially old going into these cheap earring stores when she is looking for replacement nose rings while carrying her infant son in her wrap while her four year old daughter fritters to and fro. I think it must be like going into a maternity shop when you're 15, only reversed. Or going into a M.A.C. store and realizing the amazingly put together woman doing your make-up is actually a man that walks in heels better than you ever will. In your life. Ever.
In all three situations, the people in the store know you're a fraud-- that you should either know better and not need to be there, or if you really do need their services, honey, you need to get your crapola together.
At any rate, I picked out my nose rings (Kiddo #2 likes to grab my hair on either side of my head and pull my face to his mouth to subtly indicate he's hungry. Most of the time my hair gets caught in my nose ring, which subsequently goes flying) and slunk guiltily away.
I think, though, that this feeling of general Agedness (Age-Ed-Ness-- gotsta pronounce all three syllables) was actually compounded by the morning spent at my daughter's soon-to-be school in September.
Heavy hearted is the realization that I have a child old enough for school. Oh, sure, in the grand scheme of life, school is wonderful and I'm excited for her to start. I didn't even cry when I brought her in for the orientation. In fact, when we all went for the bus ride together, I instantly realized why I keep my car seat like a capital letter 'L' (only backwards); I spent many, many years riding a bus and those seats are adroit.
Anyway Kiddo #1 did great at the info session. She had lots of fun with the three adults that could be her teacher, she had fun with the other students and I didn't have a full-blown panic attack at the thought of my being old.
It wasn't until I sashayed my way into the cheap earring store that I came face-to-face with the fact that I'm old enough to have a child in school so why am I getting nose rings? The best part is that I didn't know I was that ... insecure about my age. I mean, I usually don't run around blasting my age to begin with, but mostly that is because I have friends that range in age from young to young-at-heart, so I don't really care about what the number says on my birth certificate.
But this unease in the cheap earring store has me really shaking. Maybe I AM freaking out about getting old? And if being ...
[We interrupt this admission of age with a behind-the-scenes look at the writing of this blog. The writer just spent the last 15 minutes trying to type her actual age in the next spot in the blog.
She would write the numbers, erase them, make them younger, shave off a year or two, make her age much older so as to trick readers into thinking she looks very young for her advanced age, writing her emotional maturity age (which was very young, really, and not very complimentary either), and then left to get a drink. She decided, upon realizing the baby was awake, not to make the drink alcoholic and got some milk whilst nursing Kiddo #2. This time, while sweet, was also spent deliberating how she might finish that sentence.
"If age doesn't matter to me," she thought to herself while her son's new teeth made her breast feel like the windshield of a car being scraped of ice in the Winter, "then I should just put my age down and be done with it. I'm 53. There's a lot of stuff that makes up being 43. I've done lots of things, or at least several things, been lots of places, or at least a few places, and I've learned probably a handful of things in my 23 years. I should be proud of being 33 or at least not worried." She then switched Kiddo #2 to the other side and checked her email on her third, perhaps favourite child, her iPhone. She chuckled and thought she is lucky no one can read her mind about that.]
Oh iPhone. Thank you for listening to me every time I speak, for calling me gently with soothing music when you need me (as opposed to shrieks of terror, for example), and for making me look trendy and cool (although, with the recent baby boom in Hollywood, my kids do make me look trendy and cool, too).
Nose ring stays. Next time I need to get more, I'll visit a friend who is menopausal first, instead of taking my child/ren to school. That way I can say things like, "Well, Penelope, I'm off to buy tampons, birth control and nose rings," and it will all be filed away under Youth. Ahh. Sweet youth.
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