Ma'am

I'm 29 years old. Still young, I guess. Still really young, I suppose. It all depends on who you ask. I feel good in my skin. I know what I like, what I don't like. I know what I know and what I don't know. I have enough life experience to understand most of what folks go through. Hell, by the time I was 24, I'd lived more life than some folks who are 42 - even 82! Not bad, I guess. You pick up lessons along life's path and you put them in your pocket to keep them with you. I've long ago filled all my pockets and now carry around a back pack and a huge purse to carry them all. I don't let things pass by me. If there's a lesson to learn, I learn it, no matter how hard it is.

Today, I learned a gnarly lesson:

I am a Ma'am.

I spent a few dreadful hours dragging my poor sons through department store after department store trying on dress after dress for my BIL's wedding.

I made my way to the ladies sections and the women's sections and I found WONDERFUL, BEAUTIFUL gowns, also on sale. They would have made Milton Berle gorgeous as they were about his size. I looked like I was wearing a lovely silk beaded tent. Honestly, no need to book a hall for the reception - the party could have been in my dress This would not work. While it may have been terribly fun to have a party in my dress, I don't think there's enough time to change the invitations to read, "Reception to follow in SIL of the Groom's dress."

So, we schlepped on.

Before I go any further, my kids deserve a million gold stars. The behaved, made friends with the sales ladies, and said, "Oh Mama, you look beautiful" over and over again. But they were lying. I did NOT look beautiful. I looked like an 80 year old woman in hot pants and roller skates.

While I didn't have my quads on my feet nor did I wear shorts or satin of any kind, I was, actually, dragging dresses out of the Junior section now to try on. After all, they were on SALE!!!! And, being about as tall as a mailbox, it truly is hard for me to find clothes that fit me that aren't from the Jr's department (okay, yes, there are petites, but sincerely, all I can find is stuff that my grandmother would like and she is decidedly not petite, nor do I any longer have a relationship with her, so you know, it's a waste either way.)

As I spent countless minutes trying to find the zipper on dresses, trying things on, sucking this in and pushing this out and telling my boys a million and twelve times a second, "DO NOT LOOK UNDER THE STALL TO ANOTHER ROOM!!!!," I had to face the facts. I am not a Junior. Not when it comes to dresses.

Yesterday morning, I spent a delightful few hours with my best girlfriend and her daughters. Over the summer, she has regularly brought her daughters (who are the same age as my sons) to go swimming with us. The kids all play in the water and we talk. Yesterday we spent a good amount of time discussing the fact that I am no longer 18 and neither is she. We both have spider veins on our legs ("it can be taken care of for $100 and an office visit,") I need an eye lift, she has a Hillary Clinton 'do. But we both see ourselves as early 20's. We still feel young and vibrant and alive and young. We feel like Miss's. But we are not. We are Ma'am's.

OH DEAR ELVIS, we are Ma'am's.

This is a hard thing to face, I'm telling you. I'm the "baby" in my family, the same age as the "baby" in my husband's family (although, the baby is getting married to someone who is 5 years younger than us, so now, looking at this 24 year old all the time, I really am faced with my Ma'amness.)

Upon deep reflection, though, I think I can handle being a Ma'am. There are things that come with age that I wouldn't trade for ANYTHING in the world. I am comfortable in my body, in the most part, and it hasn't failed me so I've learned to not fail it. I am comfortable with my sexuality - I know what I like, what I don't like, and I'm not afraid to say the words I need to say in order to get it. I DO NOT HAVE TO DATE. I am past puberty - LONG past puberty. I know who I am, regardless of what I look like on the outside or who I am with. I am constant and consistent. I know what I believe about religion, politics, ethics, literature, freedom, human rights, sexuality, social sciences, education, power, media. I have reasonings for all my beliefs and I can back them up. People can say whatever they want about me because I know the truth - if they're wrong, they're wrong. I have learned to not be a doormat, but that I also do not have to be a brick wall - there's room in between the two and it's called an open mind. I have two children who I believe that, while it will it be hard, I can raise them to be respectful and conscious and aware.

I sat down in the dressing room and looked at my children. One of them was saying how lovely I looked (I'm sure - my jeans were around my knees and my shirt was stuck over my head as it got tangled in my hair clip,) and the other one was busily exploring my lip glosses while singing, "I just can't wait to be king" at the top of his lungs. This is my life. This is my age. This is me.

I packed up the kids, got all my clothes on in all the right places and left without buying a single thing from the Junior or any other department. I grabbed my kids some Wendy's (also part of being a Ma'am means understanding that the drive thru is occasionally fine dining,) cruised through the Taco Bell for myself, and happily decided to wear something that I, GASP, already own. It's NICE, pretty trendy, can be dressed up, I don't have to wear the most evil contraption ever invented, it's comfortable, sexy as all hell, and age appropriate. Wahoo.

So I took my dress money and spent it on one of the most important thing a Ma'am can buy - a proper fitting bra. Yep, I have found the most amazing gravity defying device. I bought two. I can handle being a ma'am, as long as my breasts are in the right hemisphere of my body and are not tucked into my jeans.

That's right. I'm a ma'am and proud of it.

But I still have my girls. Heh heh heh.