Age is a state of mind joke:

A woman makes an appointment with a new dentist. She goes to her appointment on the scheduled date and time but still has to wait in the waiting room for a short while. To amuse herself she looks at the frames displayed on the walls. There is some art, some dental hygiene posters, and the dentist’s license and diploma. She notices the dentist’s first and last name, Raymond Wellworth. She’s thinking, "Wow, I went to high school with a Raymond Wellworth. I wonder if it’s the same guy?" She starts to look at the dates on the diploma. If she adds the years he would have been in dental school the age is about right. She’s really excited about seeing her old classmate. Finally it’s her turn to go to the examination room. The hygienist gets her ready and tells her the dentist will be in shortly. When the dentist walks into the room, she looks him over. He’s got salt and pepper hair, laugh lines around his eyes, and a few extra pounds around his middle. She’s not sure it’s the same person so she asks, "Did you attend Green Valley High School back in the mid 1970’s?" The dentist smiling says, "Yes I did? How did you know?" She says excitedly, "I’m Susan Deacon, we were at Green Valley High at the same time." The dentist looks her over, his face showing much concentration as he tries to match the name with that time so long ago. He finally says, "I’m sorry. I can’t seem to place you. What class did you teach?"

Age is a state of mind experience:

When we had our remodeling company we would do something for the employee’s every year. One year we had a clam bake, another year we went to a water park. Our last year, before we bought the restaurant, Steely Dan was set to play at Blossom Music Center. We had to convince the two college aged employees that they knew the music of Steely Dan. We would yell out, "name that band," whenever a Steely Dan song would play on the radio station. Pretty soon the two youngsters recognized songs that they had been hearing all their lives but hadn’t equated with a particular band. They were looking forward to the concert, and the barbecue we would have before hand.

The evening of the concert was warm and clear. No sign of rain, which makes an outdoor concert much more enjoyable. The five of us, three middle agers and two college grads, piled into the only car available to our work truck driving set. We all told stories of concerts past on our drive to Blossom Music Center. I noticed as we were in line to find a parking spot how different the cars were from concerts of my past. Long gone were the muscle cars, micro buses, party vans, and Swiss cheese bodied junkers from the concerts of my youth. Today’s concert goers were riding in style. Mini vans and mammoth SUV’s with back seat video systems, along with Audi’s, Beamer’s, Lexus, and Caddies were this generations mode of transport.

We parked our car and as we were getting out I noticed the people spilling out of their Corinthian leathered interior luxury auto’s. Suits, button down shirts, Dockers, pressed jeans and new Steely Dan T-shirts passed us by. The predominant hair color of most who still had hair was gray. If hair was long it belonged to a female. Body types were mostly round especially in the middle, and there were more wrinkles than this designer set had trendy Sharpei dogs.

I stood outside the car with a look of utter perplexity on my face and said, "Holy Shit! Look at all the old farts." Our carpenter and X turned to me with a look of annoyance on their faces and X (eight years my senior at 47 years of age) said, "I’ve got news for you, you aren’t any spring chicken yourself!"

Here I sit 9 years post Steely Dan concert thinking, I still feel like that twenty year old I was twenty-six years ago, and where the hell did the past 9 years go? I feel a quick fleeting pang of jealousy when I look at a picture of Honey with his arm around some woman until I realize that woman is the "mature" me. In some of my pictures I look like my Aunt Rosa. My Aunt Rosa was a beautiful woman but it confuses me thinking I have so many pictures commemorating her life until I realize it’s me. Those are MY memories. They all live in my perpetually 20 year old brain, I just don’t recognize that almost 46 year old body I’m trapped in.

Honey’s friend was telling us one evening around dusk he passed a mirror in his house and in a moment of panic almost went racing for his rifle because he thought some old man had broken into his house. He went through a period of depression, after the initial laughter died, because he couldn’t balance his outward appearance with the feeling that he was the same in his mind as he had been 30 years previous.

I want to say my brain has made peace with my body, but they were never really at war. If we all were to examine our thoughts we would find that we don’t think the same way we did 25 or 30 years ago. I think I’m a much different person than I was long ago. I remember always struggling with my shyness, of being uncomfortable with who I was, of trying to exert who I was and what I wanted with everyone else’s expectations of me. I’ve enjoyed getting older. I’m more comfortable and confident with who I am. I have more life experience and education than the me of long ago. I am a more complete and complex person. And I’M not done!

So I’m looking at that picture and remembering wearing the cap and gown, just like it was yesterday. My eyes are wandering over to that woman standing next to the boy and I’m thinking and voicing how does a size three girl have all that chin? And I’m shouting out that there’s a reason you aren’t an underweight size three girl. You are a size six woman who needs that extra space for the person you’ve become. You’ve raised two children to adulthood, you are a grandmother, you are a former business owner, a traveler, someone who likes to experience everything life has to offer. I’ve earned those gray’s, and a little extra padding. I’m just not going to worry or beat myself up anymore because my youthful mind tries to cram my middle aged body into it’s twisted vision of who I should be. Besides, who is going to keep those stores in business that cater to mature women instead of string bean girls? Me, for one.

I like who I am. Honey likes who I am. Peace.