Well, the day has finally arrived. I am a teenager! I have survived through 13 long and oh-so-hard years....
This is what I wrote in my diary on my thirteenth birthday. I continued by discussing my plans to become a soap opera actress and offering a complaint about a bad grade in science class. And there was that guy that failed to notice me. What was the problem? My zits? (Yes.) My braces? (Yes.) Little did I imagine that I would be sitting here decades later, writing much the same thing:
Well, the day has finally arrived. I am middle aged!
I know that it's indelicate for a lady to admit her age, so let's just call me SPORTY. Everyone has been asking me if I feel differently now that I'm SPORTY, or if I'm depressed, or if it marks some big, cataclysmic shift in my life. Certainly, there was the SPORTY of my imagination. You guys remember -- we used to sit around, full of youthful ambition and smugness, and say, "I don't want to turn SPORTY and not have (fill in the blank: won a Pulitzer Prize, sailed around the world, figured out the way to achieve world peace...)." SPORTY was like a judgment day, a cosmic end-of-unit assessment. And, sadly, it turns out that I have not done any of those things. I have no Pulitzer, no sail boat, and I can't even broker peace in my own home.
But if I'm honest, SPORTY doesn't feel all that different than FLIRTY WHINE. I still have to get up and make the school lunches. I still need to badger (scream at) my kids about their homework every night. There is still a splotch of food ON MY CEILING that has no explanation. I frankly haven't had the time to contemplate what it means that my optometrist has warned me about "the changes that start to happen at your age."
Speaking of changes, I will cop to a big one. For the last 20 years, I have purchased my t-shirts in the juniors' department. They are SO MUCH CHEAPER than the grown-up kind. And it doesn't really bother me when Britnee, the salesgirl, comes over to tell me HOW TOTALLY CUTE a pair of denim-looking leggings would look on me -- BECAUSE I KNOW BETTER. Britnee, I wore leggings with STIRRUPS in ninth grade, and those old pictures don't lie. I looked like an eggplant (and actually, so do you!).
But the other day, I was in the dressing room in the juniors' department at Nordstrom, when I overheard a group of young women talking about tattoos.
Girl #1: (Squeal!)
Girl #2: Like, my mom is such a b**ch
Girl #3: OHMYGOD, what did she do?
Girl #2: She won't let me get a tat on my hip.
Girl #3: OHMYGOD, No way!
Girl #2: She said I shouldn't put Justin's name there in case we break up.
Girl #3: OHMYGOD, you'll never break up.
Girl #2: We are so in love.
Girl #1: (Squeal!)
So there I was in the adjacent stall, musing about why my legs always look so much worse in store dressing rooms than they do in my mirror at home, and I had to literally bite my tongue to keep from telling Girl #2 that she should absolutely, positively, NOT tattoo Justin's name on her body. It occurred to me that I am so like her mother, that I could BE her mother. And with that, I have no business trying on the same t-shirts as she does.
So, OK. Now that I am SPORTY, I will consider shopping in the adult section of the department store. I am also going to take my calcium supplements more faithfully. But really, turning SPORTY is all good. I am very, very lucky to have made it this far.
6 comments:
I had my Sporty moment well before I hit that age. I was at Strokes concert with some friends. In the interregnum between opening act and the headliner, we were discussing the college's HMO insurance plan and why certain procedures were not accounted for in the deductible.
During this passionate discussion, I had an out-of-body, 180 degree reflection on the hopelessness of my situation. Lachesis, in the guise of a 19 year old girl flashing her breasts while seated on the shoulders of some glassy-eyed brute, laughed at us.
Love being in the Sporties. I am certain that you will too, and I definitely look forward to reading about it. Happy Birthday, Jennifer!!
Happy Sportieth! You're just getting started. I'm confident that eventually you will discover what's stuck to your kitchen ceiling, if not the key to world peace.
P.S. That tattoo conversation really freaks me out, and also makes me just a tiny bit glad that I'm not raising a girl.
Hooray for Sporty Spice! She ain't Old Spice yet!
No, I am not sure what that means. My brain is fabricating a 5-part female cover version of the old TV commercial ditty and I want it to stop.
As it happens I was up in SHY CARGO last weekend for a confab. On the way to BLECCH I walked my very tolerant and much younger coworkers right past NOT MY QUARTERS. All much the same, except the trees are way bigger. Having just passed yet another sell-by date myself, I was dismayed that I am now measuring time passing by THE DEGREE OF FORESTATION.
Anyway, clink!
The great thing about you, is that you only look Plenty . . . not a day over Plenty-bun. Love this, J. I wish someone had told ME not to get a Justin tatt on my arse. Oh well. Justin . . . Jeff. . . they're all really the same.
But Sarah, I have always wondered, if you get a tat on your butt, does it stretch over time. So, if you have a nicely printed "Justin" when you're sixteen, does it turn into Juuuusssssttttttiiiiinnnnnn by the time you're SPORTY?
Thanks, you guys. I'm looking forward to typing "40" into the elliptical trainer tomorrow.
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