I’m always compelled to catalog my feelings each August 24th. To greet the age in my bones. Each birthday anticipated less, appreciated more, and hardly felt unless pressed to pause and reflect.
So 28. I smile about things I thought I’d be and things I’m most definitely not.
When I was 8 I received a journal and each page prompted a new doodle. One of the pages read “draw yourself in 20 years.” I drew myself with a bob and a briefcase. The silver gel pen reveals I’m stylish and smiling with the same sort of cheerful cardigan you’d see a mom wear on the Disney channel in 1998.
20 years later, the reality is my hair has never been longer, grown out for our wedding. I don’t sport a briefcase, but an overstuffed tote bag, bursting at the seams. I’m stylish and smiling and still choosy about pens.
So yesterday. I woke early, grumbled about a meeting with members of the board, rolled my eyes, dressed nicer than usual, looked at the clock, cursed, called an Uber. It was raining, sirens calling like distant echoes. As the Uber sped through puddles I sat in the back seat gazing out the window admiring the tall Chicago buildings, layers of grey shadows in the fog. I took note of my heels then and my blazer and my responsible to-go mug of coffee. A board meeting somewhere in the middle of this entanglement of beautiful metal. All these things seemed to whisper “welcome to 28.”
I smiled. I marched into work letting the clicks of my heels guide me to corporate greatness.
Later that day my search history: long bobs.
12 hours later:
Barre class concludes. I rifle through my overstuffed bag, feeling for my tennis shoes, find none. And suddenly the realization, they’re forgotten. Just these show-stopping heels. The pride they stood for earlier breaks down to mockery. I decide to tip toe out of class in my padded socks, less foolish than tromping clumsily in heels and joggers. Right?! Decidedly still foolish. I surrender to embarrassment and call an Uber for the second time today.
I reach my destination, home, with minimal weird looks. I thank the driver and step out onto the pavement where a middle aged woman greets me with, of course, a weird look. She exclaims rather loudly “where are your shoes, little girl?!”
I’m startled. At her volume and that last part.
Little girl?
I’m 28! And suddenly my silver illustration of corporate greatness and heels and responsible temperature retaining coffee mugs is washed away with the rain and her astute observation.
Leaving me, just me, as I am today:
A little girl in socks.
With a trace of white hair.
A sweet tooth.
A husband.
A distracted brain prone to forgetting things.
A mental note to check my 401k contribution.
A Taylor Swift song in my head.
A sense of humor.
To an 8 year old with a gel pen, I’m a doodle come to life with a little less grace.
To a 48 year old woman, perhaps I’m a silly reminder of a girl she used to know.
I decide to keep my hair long. Find my tennis shoes. Eat m&ms for dinner and call my insurance company. Feel comfort at this place in life somewhere in the middle, embracing contradiction.