I can't believe that I will be saying "Happy Mother's Day" to my mother for the 39th time. I would do the math and tell you how old she is, but I have learned that certain things only anger her, so why light that match? (Mom, if you are reading this, you are just as young and beautiful as I remember you from my childhood!)
Speaking of my age... I am getting ready to have my 14th Mother's Day as a mother myself.
Here I am as a young mother of two:
Wait... WHAT? My first baby is already 14 years old? Something just doesn't add up there. Where are the little babies who relied on me for everything? We used to worry about diapers and formula and detergent allergies, but now we are worrying about high school and peer pressure and bad attitudes.
How is it that everyone in my life seems to be getting older (except me, of course)? Every day on Facebook lately I have noticed that another one of my friends has turned 40 years old. FORTY!
I may be holding on (not so gracefully) to 39 with every ounce of my being, but lately I have noticed a few things that may be indicators that I really am older than I think I am...
1. I know more about beauty/anti-aging products than I would care to admit. My conversations with my friends used to be about milestones our babies had reached, but lately I have noticed we spend more time talking about glycolic acid, retinol, fereulic acid, vitamin C serum and tretonoin. Instead of comparing dates like we did in our twenties, we are now comparing day creams, night creams, eye creams and fillers. Most conversations begin with, "Your skin looks so good, what do you do?"
2. I can't do everything I used to do. In our youth, most of us enjoyed spending entire days out on the beach greasing up with baby oil mixed with iodine, drinking bottomless beers and smoking cigarettes. Now we know that every ray of sunshine becomes an age spot, beer belly is a real phenomenon and smoking makes your skin wrinkle up like used wax paper (not to mention CANCER).
3. The recovery time after a fun night is brutal. It's just not worth it. I have to recover for days and often feel worse for wear on day two after a big night then I did the day following it. The bags under my eyes are tell-tale signs that I either had too much wine, stayed up too late or ate too many salty chips with my margarita at the mexican restaurant.
4. Sleep is a NECESSITY now. I used to enjoy taking naps just to get a little extra energy, but now, if I don't get a full eight hours of sleep a night then I am pretty worthless the following day. I have to take a nap or I am no good to anyone. My brain is cloudy and I spend every waking second focused on when I can go back to bed. And that is to SLEEP, not to "nap" (wink, wink). I'm so tired of being tired.
WHY IS MY BODY TURNING ON ME? What was once enjoyable would now wreak havoc on my body for days:
Life goes by too fast. Maybe I am older than I'd like to admit. I do not feel old enough to say that I have been doing anything for 23 years, but I have officially been driving that long. I feel like I was just in college a few years ago, but in actuality, I graduated from college 19 years ago. I often find it hard to believe I am married, let alone married for the second time. And my little babies, whose lives revolved around me, now choose to spend their time with friends or locked in their rooms.
Things sure do change in a hurry and admittedly all of the changes are not necessarily bad ones. I feel so much wiser than I was 15 years ago. I have learned so much by becoming a mom, living through a divorce and being a single mom for so long. I've grown to value the importance of a well-planned schedule and I am not late for things like I used to be. I love others more than myself now too, which wasn't always the case before having children. I am more passionate about life, my hobbies and my marriage than I ever was before.
However, it would be ideal to have the wisdom I have now with the skin and energy I had at 30. Yep, I think that will be my Mother's Day wish...
Read more by Valerie DeLoach at her blog, Life in a Blender.
Follow Valerie DeLoach on Twitter: www.twitter.com/LifeinaBlender2