It started, I think, when I had Tessa. I stopped sleeping. Even when I do sleep, it’s not good. I’m in a war zone; at any time, a bomb could explode. (Meanwhile, Nekos sleeps like a dead man.) Some recent study determined that new parents lose six months of sleep in that first two years. That’s sort of hard to believe, but maybe I just don’t want to believe it. The bags under my eyes say, Believe it.
All of a sudden, when people look at pictures of me from a few years ago, they say, You looked so young! My own mom says that sort of stuff to me. I’ve started using eye creams, dabbing and dotting them on—not rubbing—like the sales ladies say. One cream for nighttime and one cream for in the morning.
It’s not just the eyes. The fact that I’m a parent just makes me feel older. During my pregnancy, I thought, Well this is it. From now on, I’ll always have a kid. Any time a guy ever thinks of me in a romantic way, he’ll think, Nevermind, she has a kid. Gross.
There’s this Cee-Lo video that I love where he’s covering a Band of Horses song that I also love, but the video makes me feel old, too. Because I’ll never get to take a road trip like this, not ever. There won’t be skinny-dipping or tangled hair convertible rides or cliff diving. I have a kid to take care of. On my road trip, there would be a kid strapped into her car seat screaming her head off. I watch the video and think: Must be nice.
Coincidentally, my mom gave me Nora Ephron’s book I Feel Bad About My Neck And Other Thoughts On Being a Woman (which I actually gave her two Christmases ago, which she didn’t remember my having done, because she is old). Seriously one of the best book titles to ever happen to a book. In the title essay Nora says, “Every so often I read a book about age, and whoever’s writing it says it’s great to be old. It’s great to be wise and sage and mellow; it’s great to be at the point where you understand just what matters in life. I can’t stand people who say things like this. What can they be thinking? Don’t they have necks?”
This book is rocking my world. On the back cover, Nora has a turtleneck pulled up to her nose, peeping over it. She’s in her sixties, so she’s dealing with some far more troubling age issues—like watching her dear friends die. But still, in the end, she determines: “Of course it’s true that now that I’m older, I’m wise and sage and mellow. And it’s also true that I honestly do understand just what matters in life. But guess what? It’s my neck.”
I feel like I need to add a million disclaimers to this. Like, I know I’m not really old. I’m only 28. And why do I need men to think of me in a romantic way? I’m happily married. I love my kid, and I wouldn’t trade my life for anything and blah blah blah. It is a good life. I am happy. I just wish my eyes weren’t going to hell.
Also, the title of this post comes from a John Mayer song and I’m not scared to say it. I Like John Mayer’s Music. That probably makes me sound older than anything else I’ve said here.
