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| This is not me. |
If you've been around me at all this year, you probably know that I am weirdly obsessed with turning 35 next month. I LOVE birthdays (LOVE), and am usually super-embracing of the next levelling-up, but for some reason "35" feels like a lump in my throat. It feels like heartburn and the yes-I-had-a-baby tummy softness always threatening. It FEELS like it should still FEEL young but does not...which is perplexing. And frustrating. And kinda melancholy, really.
I think being a parent has made me feel a lot older. And yet, I have much the same lifestyle I've always had...I freelance. I eat like a college kid when I'm not consistently home for family meals. I work either too much or too little, back-and-forth. So I am the tired I'm used to, plus mom-tired. That's two tireds.
I keep wondering what people behind a casting table see when I stand before them these days. I feel different than before I had a kiddo, and I feel like I look different, too. Like the years started catching up to me after my good genes had successfully staved some of them off for a while. But then, I'll still hear people talk about how energetic I am. And I think...REALLY?!?! And then I think...oh THANK GAWD. Because I am pretty much oblivious to these moments. Do I sleep through them? Are they second nature by now? My body just DOES and I don't even realize? I wonder if that is what makes me tricky to cast...I don't look like a kid anymore but I still perform with apparent high octane. I am an ageless clown.
...you know...I like that.
I'm o.k. with that.
I feel like, instead of betraying me, my body and my nature have given me a niche.
They're keeping me in business.
(Heavy eyelids, squirrel heart. This is almost-35.)
