Minding the gap...

My sweet Nana, who lived well into her nineties, used to tell me how she would forget how old she was until she caught herself in a mirror. Her reflection would surprise her, she said, because in her mind she was always decades younger. She would forget how time was tracking her down and changing her outside of her thoughts...that is, until an ailment or trip to the doctor would remind her. Then she would always sigh and say "Don't ever get old. It's terrible." None of this made sense to me. I would wonder how one could not always be absolutely aware of her age, and, really, why wouldn't I want to get old? We get older every day, every minute. What's the alternative? Yep, death. And who wants that?

Ok, Nana, you win. I get it.

Today is my birthday. My forty-second birthday, to be specific. And while I certainly don't want to stop the aging process for fear of the alternative, I would like it to slow down a bit and let me catch up. Give me a minute to absorb the fact that I can't stay up until one a.m. and not regret it the next day. Let me have a few days to wrestle with the fact that I have no idea what certain slang terms mean, or who half of the "celebrities" on the pages of my InStyle magazine are (I will assume most are from the Disney channel or vampire shows and will rely on my daughter to fill those gaps for me in the years to come.) I will need at least a month to stop doing before-and-afters in the mirror, pulling my neck up tight to remind me of what it used to look like. Give me a mourning period for my youth, and let me attempt to embrace where I am now.

I, too, forget how old I am until I see my reflection. I am perpetually twenty-something until I catch myself in the eyes of the girls shopping next to me in Forever 21. Then I am painfully reminded that I am not one of them. I need to move along to Chico's with the rest of the moms while the kids feed that youth demographic all the consumer reports talk about. I'm not quite there yet, girls. But I get it. I'll stick to my side of the generation gap. Just remember to listen to your grandmothers.