Hey! I'm still hot....it just comes in flashes now!

I recently had a birthday.  Birthdays, like yearly mammograms, unavoidably fall into the “good-news/bad-news” classification. The good news about having a birthday is that I’m not dead. The bad news about having a birthday is that I’m another year older, which if you look on the bright side circles back around to that “not-being-dead” thing. 

It seems like I am always the oldest in whatever group I happen to be around.   To be honest, it’s never really bothered me.  When I reached a milestone birthday a few years ago, I had no interest in lying about my age, so I freely gave it when asked. No one batted an eye at the number I threw out, and all was good. But as I got a little older I started getting responses to my age like, “Wow, you look great.” At first I thought this was due to my snazzy sense of style.

….Or the pleasant mojo being in my presence brought.   

….Or the fact that I was actually having a good hair day.

….Or that the person was partially blind.

Eventually, however, I realized the meaning behind these words of praise once people started adding “…for your age” to the end of their sentences.

“You look good for your age.”

Really? Compared to what? The back end of a hippopotamus?

…A well-oiled baseball mitt?

…Steven Tyler on a good day?

Maybe I need to change up my snazzy style and aim for a more, I don’t know, maybe more of a sexy look.  What do you think?  Get rid of the granny panties, shop more at Victoria Secrets? Quit buying for comfort and start looking for lace, satin and some strong underwire? 

…Seriously?  

…I don’t think so.

…..I just don’t do ‘sexy’.

We’re not all Marilyn Monroe or Jennifer Lopez and it’s hard to just whip up sexiness if it’s not part of who you are. Personally, I have always felt completely ridiculous in sexy lingerie; rather like some bad hooker.

As I inch closer to my next milestone birthday, I've been thinking about this getting “older” business. 

First of all, birthdays come way too fast.  I know, I know!  That’s such a cliché, right? But I swear I just turned 30 about 2 years ago. Which means in another 4 years: I'll be 90. Yikes!  If any of you know a smarty-pants scientist, could you ask him/her to start working on slowing down time? Surely there must be some sensible application for their string theories and black holes and quarks and whatnot. Possibly he/she could spend a little less time developing apocalyptic video games and coming up with new flavors of vitamin water, and a little more time figuring out how to slow time down.  Please?

Recently, I was out having dinner with friends, laughing and feeling all social and happy. After using the restroom, while washing my hands, I glanced in the mirror to make sure I didn't have any lettuce stuck in my teeth or ranch dressing on the front of my shirt.  But the lighting must have been coming from some weird, wrong direction, casting creepy shadows because what I saw was the reflection of a hundred year old woman with my hairstyle and clothing.

Whoa! Who is that woman, I thought.  Oh wait, that's ME! Not the fresh-faced 30-year old version of me that lives only in my head and my old photo albums. Nope, it's actually me complete with crows feet, frown lines, and those oh-so-special jowls that I inherited from my grandmother.  Sigh….

For those of you who have the smarty-pants scientist friend, could you ask him/her for another favor?  If it's going to take long to figure out how to slow time down, could you ask the brainiac if at least he/she could give me a pill that eliminates wrinkles? Please and thanks!

I've noticed that with this aging process that my memory is crap.  As I may have mentioned before

…about a thousand times. 

Post-it notes have become a means of survival for me!  I use them at work and at home.  The problem is they sometimes end up in random places such as my purse

            …or stuck to my shoe

                        ….or tucked in a book

                                    ….or in the fridge

And then I have to try and remember what it was for.

You know what, though?  Even though I’m only a couple years away from my next humongous milestone, I feel great.  Seriously! I have more energy, less anxiety, a stronger immune system, and less trouble maintaining a healthy weight than I ever had before.  Okay, that last one is a lie but that’s a blog for a different day.  I rarely get sick, have a ton of fun, have awesome friends, and I'm pretty darn content with my life. Guaranteed now that I said that, I'll head into menopause and it will all go straight down the toilet--but for now at least, all is good.

You all know how the saying goes, with age comes wisdom.  Well, “wisdom" may be a little zealous but there are a number of things you get smarter about as you get older. In fact, there's a book I've been meaning to read, "The Secret Life of the Grown-up Brain: The Surprising Talents of the Middle-Aged Mind," but, well, I keep forgetting to download it to my Kindle.

I guess memory isn't one of those surprising middle-aged talents.

It seems like what I lost in the memory department, I may have gained in general smarts. At least, when I think back to some of the dumb-ass things I did when I was younger, I hope I'm getting smarter.

I have noticed recently that the road ahead looks less crappy than what I thought it would look like.  When I was younger, I always felt one of the major drawbacks of getting older was that life would start to accelerate in a downhill direction soon after you reach a certain age.  Now I have friends who are in their 50's, 60's, and 70's who are still kicking butt and having a blast.

So how old did I actually turn on this last birthday? Well, Oscar Wilde once remarked, “Never trust a woman who reveals her true age.” That said, I’ll tell you…I’m an energetic 102 years old.

Since that pretty much makes me equivalent to a fossil, then I suppose I would have to agree that yes, even though I just turned another year older, I do look pretty damn good…

                ........period.