schizophrenic lesbian

At this point in my life I feel quite schizophrenic at best. I look in the mirror and see this 30 ish year old girl who could still pass for 20 something. Granted later 20 something but still... It's funny when I was young (very young) and wanted to be older I was annoyed by all the "god you look so much younger" comments. At 18 getting carded for cigarettes was seen as a major inconvenience. Now it's disappointing if I walk into a liquor store for wine and they don't want to see my I.D. Well by now me and the guy at the Wine Factory are practically on a first name basis so I guess it would be weird if he kept asking. Anyway although I could pass for younger the fact is I am not. And my 30's seem to be this weird contemplative age for me. I mean not too long ago I was in my 20's. Somehow in your 20's you don't think about becoming 30 or much of anything. In my 20's I still felt very much like I had my whole life ahead of me and 30 which was 10 years in the distance seemed like light years away. Until it was here.

So far my 30's have been good to me. I am fortunate and beyond blessed in too many ways to count. I live in a home I love. With a man that still has my heart. And 3 little people that we have made. The things I dreamed of and planned for are all here. Although I could not be happier that scares me a little. Or a lot. Because what's next? I remember the holidays as a kid. Spending them at my grandparents house with all my cousins. My cousins have all grown up... and apart. Most of them I don't know and for the most part choose not too. My grandparents except for my grandmother on my mother's side have all passed away. Each year there is another face absent for Christmas dinner. The older generation is now my parents who no longer seem old. At all. The circle of life gets clearer and ever more present as the years slip by. And here in my 30's I feel myself longing for the ignorance of my 20's and dreading the arrival of my 40's. Age is indeed just a number. It is the awareness of the ticking clock that changes. As we sit around the table at my house for holiday dinners I realize that we are next in line for being the oldest generation and holy shit is that a scary thought?!

So looking in the mirror at this 30 something year old face with my blondish bob that screams "mom in her 30's" I suddenly had the urge to cut it all off. Cutting my hair was not going to turn back the hands of time or make me younger but that boring blah blonde hair that suddenly made me feel like Kate Gosselin was making me anxious. I mean is this is it?! Am I resigned to dressing. Looking. Acting my age. What the shit does that mean anyway?! As we age are we just to maintain the status quo because we have surpassed the time to live out side the box. Is this blonde bob the last haircut stop on the way to having a standing appointment at the beauty parlor once a week so I can get my thinning hair set in rollers by someone who dreads my appointment because I am an old bitter particular pain in the ass that talks about the weather and my grandkids?! Fuck I need this hair off my head... yesterday! So I call my sister in law in the midst of my quarter life crisis because she is the answer to all hair prayers. I assume she can sense the urgency in my cracking voice as she tells me to come over in 15 minutes. I left her house 3 hours later with an espresso colored faux hawk. And never felt better.

I looked in the mirror when I got home and there it was... the change I needed. A new person looking back at me. Feeling refreshed and slightly less panicked about the future I decided to go out enjoy the rest of this beautiful day. I could not have anticipated the amount of attention this new look would get. To everyone else I looked not just like a new person but.... a gay one. If you did not know cutting your hair short... boy short... is synonymous with being a lesbian. Which quite honestly I don't mind. I like lesbians but it makes for awkward conversation when person after person is calling you one in front of your kids who have no idea what a lesbian is. And over all just an odd thing to tell someone.

The next day I go to pick Aidan up from school and while I got a lot of compliments on the new do I knew there would be at least one of the you look like a lesbian commentators lurking around. And I was right. One of the grandmother's that regularly drops off and pick ups her grandkids. The type that is nosey and gossipy and knows everything about everyone in town... comes up to me and says "Why would you do that to your hair?! You look like a lesbian!!". Funny coming from a 70 year old woman with hair as short as mine which I guess is acceptable for only her. Apparently once you pass ab certain age short hair loses its lesbian-ness and is just understood as the hair cut that says... I'm fuckin old. I can't deal with that shit anymore".  Knowing this I should have just smiled and walked away. Taken the high road. But no. No high road. Not even the road less traveled. I took the low road and told her she looked like a lesbian too. Her 70 something year old grandma friend broke out into riotous laughter like a hyena. The one I called a lesbian... not so much. She was strangely offended by hearing back the same exact thing that she just said to me.

Oh jeez this new hair cut was making me look like a lesbian and act like a teenager. Which is some strange way felt good. I decided to tone down the attitude and update my wardrobe before I became public enemy number one amongst the senior clique in the school yard.

30+ is definitely a strange age... for me anyway. One second I find myself contemplating another baby and the next wondering if I could ever go through with a tummy tuck and some major boob work since we are done having kids. I get dressed and think am I too old for this kinda shirt? Take it off and realize those are the only kind of things I own. I go shopping for a more sophisticated wardrobe and after putting on 10 floral print 3 quarter sleeve flowing tops  think I am not quite that old yet and go back to the stuff I already have. On a rare occasion I long for my 20's. On those nights I will call a friend to go out for a drink. Once at the bar I realize how incredibly annoying 20 year olds are and want to go home. One day I am sporting the typical mom blonde bob and the next posing as a lesbian with an espresso faux hawk. 30... the age of schizophrenia.