The possibility that I will turn 26 is at an all time high.

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I went through this same thing about a year ago.  In fact, each year after my 21st birthday I have had an annual freak out prior to my date of birth.

This year was no different. My quiet moments are now filled with the following thoughts:

"It's coming, you are going to be 26, the apex of your twenties is coming to a close, only 4 more years until you're 30."  

I have accumulated a list of things that I have read about ageing and looks, and I recite them in a Rolodex like fashion when I am sitting on the train being jostled to and fro. "I still have almost 10 years before I really start to look bad though, there was an article that says your looks begin to fade at 35." Then I think about what the hell my life will be like after I turn 35, and I cringe in the horror.

When I was 12ish I used to lay in bed and think about being 25, where I would be, and what my life would be like.  I used to calculate my parents ages and attempt to discern if they would still be alive or not.  I was kinda morbid. 

I am afraid of standing underneath a light and of the shadows that will play cruel tricks on the lines of my face. I am afraid of coloring my hair, and after only a week the grey piercing as sharp reminders that I am kidding myself.  As the day wears on, my make-up will fill the creases of my face, and people will notice, and they will think less of me for it.

I fear being invisible. I don't mean to say that people notice me now.  There are those women, I see them on the train. They are in their mid-thirties to mid-forties, they wear a button up shirt and work pants.  They have two bags, one of them filled with work things (including a lap top), the other is smaller and has a make-up bag and cell phone inside. They put each of these bags at their feet in a last-ditch attempt to save space for other riders. Yet, somehow the bags appear to grow in volume, cramping their legs and annoying the passenger next to them.

There is always a book in one of the bags, if not a physical book there is definitely a Kindle.  They haven't purchased a new spring coat in 5-7 years, it is outdated and stained from years of use. Their hair is short, if it isn't short it is up in a messy pony-tail, an afterthought. These women, they wear lattice work loafers that they bought from Payless years ago.

If they are sitting next to a friend on the train all they talk about are petty work things:

"I sent her an e-mail, and I just couldn't believe she didn't respond, you know Karyn from accounting says she does that to her all the time, and I just don't get why people put up with it, you know?"

...or petty home things . . .

"I'm thinking about changing out the wallpaper in the bathroom, I am going to go for a more spa like theme, but I can't decide between a smooth satin finish, or a straw weave finish..."

The ones that smoke, smell of the four to seven cigarettes they have had that day, including the one they hastily inhaled prior to boarding the train.

They will call their husbands to make sure that everyone was picked up and deposited at after school sports/ dance practices okay.  They will think about what to make for dinner, how to prepare for their evening, how to eke out thirty minutes to do the laundry or clean the cabinets. 

The men on the train don't pay any attention to them, no one pays attention to them, but I watch them knowing that one day I will be like them.  Girls younger than me get on the train, each of them are impossibly pretty, which just leads me to believe that they will always be impossibly pretty.

As the army of middle-aged women collect their belongings to deboard the train. They look down at their feet and shuffle along to finish another day of doing the same thing, to go to sleep, to do the exact same thing tomorrow. The days will melt into one another, and time will pass by too fast, and they will realize that there isn't enough time to do everything they wanted. 

That is what I fear the most, the monotony of it all.  Maybe this is just something that occurs in the suburbs? This is my hope.

As someone who is not a mother, and who has trouble conceptualizing motherhood, it frightens me to think that I would have to give up on my aspirations to provide for others.  I have no desire to stay home all day, I feel like if I did, I would end up resenting my children. I think about everything my Mom sacrificed to stay home with us.  I am sure she had dreams at some point, I am sure she wanted more for herself than to work in retail for thirty years.

There are women who are older that I think are beautiful, but I bet when people talk about them they say "She looks really good for her age." I can't think of a phrase I would rather hear less. I contemplate how much time we spend being 'middle-aged' and how our looks get progressively worse. 

I consider these things at least once a week. I know it makes me petty,  immature, thoughtless, and inconsiderate to the things that really matter in life. These moments of self-doubt, of worry, accumulate, and account for wasted time that I know I could have spent doing more constructive things.  

The irrational part of my brain, the part of myself that is vein, the narcissist, doesn't care about rationality.  I know that realistically the best is yet to come, but I spent decades telling myself that the best part of life was looking good and having people notice how good you look. 

I still hope for many more birthday's, and for the wisdom to see past this nonsense. 

That being said, I am still accepting gifts on my birthday.