Act Your Age

Confession:

I am not as mature as I pretend to be.

My dreams at night are not full of sugar plum faeries who dance to Wagner while waving around spreadsheets charting the progress of my 401 k.

I do not always talk about unrest in the Middle East and I don't even know my blood pressure numbers.

I'll admit it, my humor has elevated to a higher plane (I don't think I'll ever understand what makes Family Guy funny), and I am also guilty of signing up for a $100 k life insurance policy just because. Otherwise, I suppose I'm a typical 31-year-old chick.

I know when I need to play dress-up and pretend I'm a big girl in front of the grown-ups. But I also tend to indulge my youthful streak.

Lately I've been wearing some sweet gloves I picked up a few months ago at Target. They're black and they've got this awesome skull-and-crossbones logo knitted on the dorsum of the hand. I guess I thought they made me look a little more young and punky.

Some people find youth in a bottle - I find youth in the $1 bins at a big box score. Go figure.

This is the decade when we're expected to come into our own - some people will make their mark in the boardroom. Others will establish themselves in medical journals. And still others will come into their own while in a newsroom.

This is the decade when we're expected to live by that work hard, play hard mission statement. Most people are too young in their 20s to realize what's at stake professionally and spend more time then they should (at least in my case) having fun. By the time the 40s roll around, some people end up having a closer relationship with their career than their family, and that usually means they don't have any time for fun.

I guess that's the torment of the 30s - carefully balancing between the levity of yesterday and the stalwart impression of tomorrow.

And right now I don't want to have anything to do with stalwart.