Age-Defying

Turning 30 for my sister was tumultuous and painful and required a trip to New Orleans to take the edge off.  In reality, the trip only amplified the edge as we bemoaned the oppressive heat, the stench of a city that made the New York subway system seem as if it was Febreezed by the gods and the incessant high-pitched cry of barely-legal drunk girls so desperate to let their nipples air-out on Bourbon Street that it didn’t matter that it was the middle of fucking July and not even the homeless were raising their eyes to take note.  This was New Orleans PK (pre-Katrina) – before it became a societal obligation to love New Orleans, before it became a political statement to go there and before Brangelina made the city their newest and shiniest domestically adopted child.    

I digress…Turning 30 for her was hard, so I was certain that this year, facing the big 35 was going to be monumentally earth shattering.  I decide to let the saints come marching in fully clothed this time and keep it local – a small get-together with likeminded, like-aged gals to soften the blow with wine, calamari, Carpaccio and little lava cakes that literally bleed chocolate.  I tell them all that it is the big, fat, hard 35^th anniversary of birthdays.  I tell them that this will be the Worst. Birthday. Ever.  That she doesn’t even want to acknowledge it and to keep said surprise unhappy-birthday-hour on the DL. 

Then, just days before we were to light the candles of doom, during an innocent conversation that involved some kind of nonsensical mathematical equation (Y must be X years older than Q because X years after M, I was with Y until P), I discover that she is not in fact turning 35, as I had so publicly declared via evite – that horrible marker was already pushing up daisies from the rearview mirror.  She was turning 36. 

My sister and I are two years apart.  It was at that moment, nestled in between thanking Christ I went to a college that didn’t have a math requirement wondering why my middle fingernail always curves inward when it grows past a certain point, that I realized that this coming year I was NOT, as planned, turning 33 but 34.  When the fuck did that happen?

It was also at that point that I realized that I have a serious, undiagnosed situation.  Age-Dysmorphic Disorder.  ADD for thirty-somethings who refuse to believe they are as old as hell.  The symptoms of this disease have reared their ugly heads in flashes – conversations with my two infuriating loverly college interns who make a feeble attempt at coupling  Krispy Kreme glazed eyes with feigned interest when I mention Lloyd Dobler as the ultimate romantic or how the new 90120 will always suck balls compared to the original in all of its half-shirt, I-talked-to-a-black-person-and-went-to-the-bad-part-of-town bitchy yumminess.  There was no Barack Obama back then and 90210 single handedly took down the stern walls of racism in a sweet 60-minute format that often featured the likes of Color Me Bad or Cathy Dennis. 

The symptoms are progressively getting worse.  I like to think myself all things hip, young, trendy with a side order of wisdom – I keep up with the world through TMZ as all young people should.  I like the Black Eyed Peas and know who Flo Rida is (even though I think he is ridiculous).  But still, I am thisclose to being 34.  Thisclose to being listed as Advanced Maternal Age should I ever get a bump that is not due to too much wine.  Thisclose to being undeniably and tragically old.  And I could deal with it if it weren’t for the constant reminders.  The wonderment of mouthy youth who are fresh out of diapers their sophomore year of college and kind-of-sort-of think that Brad Pitt guy is good looking even though he is really, really old – like over forty.  Son of a crack whore – it is BRAD PITT girls.  BRAD PITT!!! 

So, I guess I have a choice.  To treat my illness by taking in the heaping doses of reality in the form of my ticking time clock, my childlessness, my singleness through continuous IV drip.  Or I can watch Gossip Girl with my magical age-defying elixir (wine) and smirk.  XOXO