Tag, I was it. . .now you're it!

Thank you Jacris from Mom's Special Diary for tagging me with the question: "How Old Is Old?"

It's kind of ironic because I was just thinking lately that I look old. I've always looked young for my age. I come from a long line of women who look fantastic well into their 90's. Therefore, it didn't bother me in college when people mistook me for a high schooler, or even when I was married and living on my own and was still mistaken for a high schooler! I look at pictures after I had my son when I was 28, and although I don't think I could have pulled of high school, I do think I could have passed for college-age. However, something happened after my 29th birthday (December 21, 2008) and my son's first birthday (April 18, 2009). I aged.

February was the month I shared here that I had a bit of depression. I also gained 15 pounds. Can those two things be to blame? Is there any hope of me looking in the mirror again and thinking I look "fresh," or do I just need to get used to this droopy, saggy new me?

I've heard that all women come to a point in their lives when they realize that the visual they have of themselves is suddenly not accurate anymore. For years we might look the same and then one day it's over. We're old.

I'll be turning 30 in 4 months and I think I look it. Thirty was always the age I had in my mind as old. Growing up it's like my life was cut in two halves: below 30 = young, over 30= old. However, inside I'm really not old yet!

I wrote my post, 8 Months Old, on my 29th birthday. I explained that I've never really cared about my age before. Aside from turning 12 (one age away from 13 was scary because I still felt like a kid, not a teenager), my age always made sense to where I was at emotionally, physically, mentally, etc. So I never feared it nor did I ever get excited for it. I enjoyed celebrating my birthdays and really didn't think too much about the age that went with it. My birthday fell in the middle of the school year so I was surrounded by people older and younger.

This time I don't match! Maybe it's because I don't feel I made the most out of my twenties. Yes I graduated college, yes I worked at my first full time job, yes I got married, and yes I had my son - all accomplishments I am very proud of. . .but they were all well thought out and planned. During my childhood years and teen years exciting stuff "just happened." So part of me kind of waited for something big to "just happen" without me having anything to do with it, but it never did. So now I'm turning 30 and I'm looking back at my twenties and thinking, what happened?

I've heard that the twenties aren't usually the favorite. Oprah has often joked, "Remember your twenties? Thank God for the thirties!" I like hearing that because I have hope that my inside and outside will equal each other again. Then, I will feel like I'm worth moving on to the next age.

Right now I feel like there is still something unfinished in my twenties. Was it getting my book published? (More on that in my next post) Was it not taking my first trip by myself? (I plan to do that in the spring when I fly for my first time alone to visit my bff in Seattle, Sarah) Or, was it just having something happen. . . completely unknown to me that I could never create but am worried that it's something that can only happen in the twenties?

I made some mistakes and I learned from my mistakes, so I definitely came of age and matured. In fact, even when I think of 25 I'm like, wow, I was really young. I can't imagine thinking like I did back then let alone doing some of the things I did. It's not even possible! (Thank God.) But I don't want to become a bore. Because then I'll have regrets about not doing what I could before I was too old - and I don't want to regret.

So maybe that is where the definition of old lies - not in an actual age but when you decide to be old. When you decide that your mind, your body, your life just won't allow you to do something that a younger person does. I have not decided that yet, so I'm hoping to live with gusto in my thirties. . .and then maybe I'll end up looking younger because of it, and so no one will think I'm weird if I act like I'm in my twenties because I'll look like I'm in my twenties. . .LOL. So, here's hoping that I'll love my thirties!

Whoever reads gets to post their own ideas on this! :)

(Here's a pic of me exactly a year ago):