Hello Darling Ones,

It’s a little after 5 p.m. as I type and I’m so hungry I’m considering eating dinner. This is 2-3 hours earlier than I usually eat dinner. I’m denying myself sustenance because it’s too early to eat and I’ve got two weeks before I can start being an early bird kind of eater.

That’s mostly a joke. I’m denying myself because I want to type some things about turning fifty, also I don’t feel like making dinner right now, and right now the breeze is wafting in exact right way to bring the smell of lilacs into my living room.

So fifty is growing ever closer. I’ve entered the final fortnight of my forties, and it’s starting to hit me some kind of way.

I’ve never really been one to lie about my age. However, I did spend the entire year I was 29 telling people who asked I was 30 because I didn’t want to deal with the bullshit. I know women are supposed to be ashamed of aging and lie about how old they are, but I’ve never been ashamed of aging. I can either age or I can die. I’ll take aging, thank you very much.

For the first part of my life people thought I was much older than I was because of my height. This was never a blessing and always a curse. I got handed much more responsibility than I was emotionally equipped to handle because I was a 5’10” ten year old.

When the Sister Club threw a surprise party for my parents’ 30th anniversary in 2003 we put together a slide show. At one point, while going through all the photos, Sister #3 pointed at a picture and asked, “who’s the blonde babe?”
“Me,” I said. “I was nine.”

I’m not entirely sure when the switch flipped from looking older than my actual age to looking younger. Maybe in my 30s? I know for a few years in like 2003-2005 I would tell people I was 37 (so old, so so so so very old, positively ancient) and enjoy their shocked reactions because I didn’t look 37. What does that even mean?

Then I turned 37 in 2009 and it wasn’t funny anymore. People still think I’m way younger than I am, mostly because I’m not that wrinkly. Much like Black, fat doesn’t really crack either. When people say, “wow, you don’t look 49.” I shout back, “THAT’S BECAUSE I’M FAT.”

Or sometimes I just say, “I’m really immature for my age.”

What I want to say is “What does my age look like? I’m curious. I really don’t know. I’m not just being a dick.”

I’m really fun to have conversations with.

This weekend, SNL did a bit about adult grey pigtails. At first I thought rude, I’m being personally attacked. The more I watched it the more I thought, “oh, these are young people imagining what quirky old people are like.”

From the Indigo Girls & Bonnie Raitt background music to the Cranberries shirt to the actual adult grey pigtails, this is me.

Is this what Millenials think aging GenXers are like? That our hair goes grey and then we become weird retro hippies who look like they should be teaching pottery classes at some sort of artist collective in Madison, Wisconsin in 1994. As far as I can tell, that’s not what’s happening.

I’m not entirely sure what’s happening, but I got two weeks to figure it out.

Soon to be a woman of a certain age, I think,
Jodi