This is not my shoe size, you case you are wondering. This is a time of simple aging. Turning 34 to 35 was a big mark for me. A milestone, if I may dare. But please do get me right: I have no intentions whatsoever to sound melodramatic or theatrical. It is a simple, straight fact. I shall illustrate it with a list of plain, objective examples.

I started taking vitamin C every day. I never sleep with make up on nor do I forget my anti wrinkles cream every night and sun block every day. I now take medical appointments seriously and my lower back and my jaw problems thank me for that. Blood pressure is fine (a little low, which is good and controlled) and what I really need now is to start an exercise practice. Oh… Come on, cut me some slack: things and radical changes obey a certain invisible timing law.

I started drinking caffé latte when I had always been the hot chocolate kind of gal (and had always believed I would be the one adult in the world that would never bend over to coffee – ha! now I can even turn one down for not being tasty enough! who would have thought? – surely not my mother or my sister – nor myself).

I changed my way of dressing – a few things still fit but do not match anymore. Consciousness.

I finally managed to do those movie scenes in which the lady comes home to meet a glass of red wine (drinking alone? nah! I would never do such a thing…).

I cleaned up my entire house (literally… all rooms, drawers, corners, spots, wardrobes were attacked) in a desperate search of making rooms empty to bring whatever new afterwards. It was an interesting process of recognising how much I’ve been through, the number of special people I have near, far, with and forever kept with me. So many experiences, joyful and painful but who made me who I am. In any case, I needed room. I needed clean. I needed to see all I had and all I hadn’t been enjoying. And also all I had that meant nothing and was just occupying something else’s place – even if that something meant nothing.

My biological clock still hasn’t rung but the urge to act upon things might just as well be a synonymous to that: cleaning up the house made me feel like cleaning up other things I had long forgotten about… Maybe this is just aging with dignity, aging according to the real age, not the desired one.

I bought a motorbike because it meant to have a child dream come true. While in the process of having motorbike lessons, I may well find out that I was not born for this. Ok… And what if I am? I was impulsive in buying it without having the license first but not impulsive to sell upon my first (and hopefully last) broken shoulder from one of those motorbike trainings.

34/35…

I started planning more and not just living out of surprises. I am thinking more about the future and some say I am already suffering from midlife crisis. A little exaggerated but ok, I have always been precocious. I don’t know, I just I realised that to get somewhere, I need to plan this something in order to achieve it. Surprises are still very welcome but should I miss something out for the sake of expecting it to happen out of serendipity only? What if I am my own private serendipity?

I am seeking much more daylight rather than nights. I am naturally waking up earlier. My body begged the other day to just fall asleep at 10:30pm on a Saturday evening and no guilt fell upon my shoulders (or head, for the matter). Even stranger was when this same body woke me up with a heavy desire to walk in the park. I ran to the mirror: it was still me. Huh.

I achieved results from my work in 10 months that I hadn’t been able to in the last 2 years in the former 2 companies. That can only mean 2 things: I was either misplaced in the wrong area/job/company or I was not competent enough for either. Whichever case, the 34/35 gave me a quite reasonable amount of balancing “being smart x intelligent” that maybe I hadn’t been ready for in the other ones. Maybe that means becoming wise.

I calmed down… Example? My birthday: I spent the evening with one special person rather than with a bunch and no quality time. I chose to do so even when I had always believed I would always be the only adult person in the world to cherish every single birthday by throwing a party with the dear ones…

I put on a little weight and stopped fighting with it because it actually made me look more like a woman and not a teenager trying to be one – or should it actually be the other way around: a woman trying to be a teenager for the sake of society’s looks? I smile to that thought…

I begin to notice my first wrinkles. Funny enough, I like them. I enjoy looking at myself in the mirror and I do appreciate the way I am aging, even though I always thought of me as not being the pretty one. Silly, I was just being silly… I am pretty. I am. My smile and my eyes cannot deny that. Not even to me.

I was already brave but now I have become also bold.

I made new friends. Some left me. Others were just dismissed – either by themselves, me or the strongest of us all: life.

I question, I don’t just ask.

I am looking for changes. Maybe the desperate housewife moment of throwing away and out almost 55% of what I had in the house compares to freedom, changing, growing up. This may well be my way of changing. I am the only one out of 3 children my parents had that is still unmarried and has no child. I am thus the only one out of 6 cousins that (read previous sentence). I am the youngest of them all and this may be just a good reason not to want to grow up so fast during a certain period of time: while younger, I was always surrounded by older groups and always told that I too looked older than I actually was. My mind was too sharp for someone that age. Maybe unconsciously I chose to remain on my ages after being a little older. I grew up too fast while young. I slowed way down when time came to actually grow up. People started getting married, having children, but not me. And, fancy that, I am now the one people my age look up to and ask how on devil’s name how I manage to look much younger. I too wonder. But I don’t care. Things are how they are. And that is one thing 34/35 also brought. All these years piled up to 3 little questions: may I help you? will my knowing this fact affect anyone positively? if not, why tell me? I don’t care for what does not make me move forward even if that means stopping somewhere for no matter how long.

And yes, in case all the above makes no sense to you, whatever. Cheers to living!