So I turned 29. And 29 has given me the heebie-jeebies because 30 is just around the temporal corner. And I still feel young, but not like I used to. I make comments about “kids these days”, and sure my comments are ironic…but not entirely.
My best friend from high school just had a baby. My roommate from college just got engaged and asked me to be a bridesmaid. These things have been happening to peripheral friends for years now, but not to my inner circle until recently. My career-driven friends haven’t had time for weddings and children up until this point. We’ve been too busy awesomely succeeding (she said, tongue in cheek).
But it can no longer be ignored. The claws of matrimony and family, the drivers of the often belittled ‘work-life balance’, have pierced through our golden dome of shiny success and lodged into MY people. I am reminded of a saying from economics class…something about a rising tide lifting all boats. Now I know JFK wasn’t talking about growing up, but the phrase feels strangely appropriate. Everyone around me is morphing into responsible adults. It only follows that I must do the same if I want to avoid a cold, watery Leonardo DiCaprio-esque death aka being the old single woman who doesn’t get invited to dinner parties.
I am so worried about being left behind. I start to count backwards: 3 kids, each 2 years apart, ideally before age 35. Shit. That means I need to get pregnant in the next 3 months. Except a fake accidental pregnancy and shotgun wedding just really isn’t my style. What a conundrum.
These thoughts make me nervous. This is the sort of anxiety that makes people move in with the wrong person, marry the wrong person, and have kids with the wrong person.
I feel hopeful; I think my person is the right person. But I still want to give things time to evolve naturally. I want us to have time to grow together. I don’t want to skip ahead to the wedding scene and miss the scene where we get caught in the rain.
So because I am well-adjusted with excellent emotional coping skills, I decided I needed a plan for coping with my growing-up anxiety. I decided to funnel it into something more productive – fighting aging. If I LOOK like I’m 25, that has to buy me some extra years before growing up, right?
As my birthday present to myself (along with two FABULOUS dresses), I bought a tube of retinol. This is one of the only anti-aging options that actually has good scientific evidence.
I coated my face in a thin layer, expecting to wake up the next morning with a face like a newborn’s tush. Instead nothing happened…until 2 days later when the skin on my face began to turn red and PEEL OFF. Gosh, did I feel young then.
It took my face a week to recover. And you know what I did last night? I put another layer of it on…because I’m a masochist. And also because I have somehow made my face a proxy for my shrivelling ovaries. Retinol is the scuba tank that’s allowing me to evade that rising tide. I’m not saying it makes any sense – I know it’s a little silly. I’m just saying it’s how I’m coping. We’re getting there, but I’m not quite ready to Johnny Depp it up on the deck. I just certainly don’t want to end up like Leo.
The Single Serial Monogamist 