No promises!: My early-to-mid life crisis

Thursday, July 27, 2006

My early-to-mid life crisis

So I turned 31 yesterday...whoo hoo! Frankly, I never really expected to be alive at this age...not that I was some wild-n-crazy teen or something. I just never thought about what it would be like as a "thirty-something". I spent the day at Camp, running around, sweating like a pig, and screaming and yelling at my kids out on the driver's ed range. It turns out that two of my students were also born on the 26th, and so we wished each other "happy birthday" all day long. One of them said, "I'm 15 now, Mrs. Smith! How old are you?" Shoo...well, twice your age, and then some. They all guessed between 23 and 28...though I'm willing to bet that they were hoping that a little brown-nosing might get them out of the sun a little sooner.

Anyway, back to my crisis. A month or two ago, some of my long-haired friends lopped off their hair and gave it to Locks of Love, and have been pressuring me ever since to do the same. I've resisted, and hadn't really entertained the idea until this week...yes, the first day of Camp. Those of you that don't know, it's hot as the surface of the SUN out there on the asphalt. My band practice uniform consists of the following:

tank top (to minimize the band tan on my chest and arms)
shorts
low-cut socks
running shoes
my Florida Trail hat
my hair pulled through the back of the hat and wrapped into a bun

I decided at some point in the nastiness of standing out there that I was tired of the bun, and tired of taking the bun down to find handfulls of hair broken and falling out. My hair obviously wants to be short-that's why it's breaking, right? So, I decided that the hair had to go. I talked it over with the guys (one of which is a girl...and my sister, but there's no better way to word that...sorry Val!) at work and we decided unanimously that it was a good plan, and even found a style to try out. Hair is a democratic process here. :)

So THEN I decided that if I'm going to get my hair cut short, I ought to put some color in it-not all-over color, but some streaks or chunks or whatever it's called. I really wanted purple...not like THIS purple, but something more like THIS purple. I don't want people 3 blocks away to go, "Wow, her hair is purple!" I'm going for something more subtle...sort of a "Wait, did that woman have purple in her hair?"

Then there's the matter of my birthday piercing. All the piercings I've gotten recently were done on or around my birthday. This year, I decided I want to get another one in the cartilage of my left ear, only a smaller gauge (bigger jewelry). Nothing freakish or alarming. I had a very, VERY weird dream about getting my nose pierced a few weeks ago (I think I told some of you about that) and have actually been entertaining the thought...my only concern is that I'll never get a "real" teaching job with a pierced nose. Eh, really, it doesn't matter to me. I'm probably just going to go with the ear. I dunno.

Anyway, so there's the hair cut, the color, and the piercing...multiply all that by the fact that I've lost over 50 pounds and have almost a completely new wardrobe...I told TX Jen that all I need now is a trophy husband and a convertible sportscar and I'll be living the classic American mid-life crisis. Tally Jen and I were talking about how we don't necessarily want to go back to being 17...however, if we could pick and choose we'd take the body from high school, the brain and experience from NOW...then mix in a perfect credit rating, perfect GPA, the requisite trophy husband with a big wallet, soft heart, and to quote her: "rock hard abs". :) Great Jens think alike!

Anyway, that's the story of my birthday gifts to myself this year. As for my other gifts, I got a DVD/VCR for the bedroom, an ENORMOUS bird feeder, and a new lightweight sleeping bag to take camping, and a gift card to REI to get MORE camping stuff. Woo hoo! Barb got me an Eeyore bag stuffed with $1 bills. There's still the family party on Sunday, so there's still more to come. Heh. ANYWAY...

All in all it's been a very interesting year. This year promises to be no different...onward and upward, and see y'all on the other side of the hill. :)

posted by Jen @ 8:23 PM

1 Comments:

At 10:33 AM, Anonymous said…

Purple...I like purple...

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