No, I'm not dead.

I was just on hiatus from blogging for awhile. But, ahhhhh, it's good to be back in the blogosphere, where nothing is as it appears and there is much fun to be had peering into the little windows of other people's lives.

Yesterday was my birthday. I am an indeterminate age, at least to my growing body of students. When I taught my first class at Atlantic Cape this fall, I assured my all-freshman audience that I was indeed old enough to be teaching the class. No one believed me, but rather than entertain a discussion about my actual age, I pointed out that it was irrelevant anyway because someone thought me experienced enough to teach the class and someone thought they were intelligent enough to be in the class, so in our own respective ways we both hold critical roles and age has nothing at all to do with them. Yeah, it was a weasel's way out, but guess what? I adore them and I think they like me pretty well, so in the end it doesn't matter much.

I caught myself reflecting on age yesterday, as birthdays are wont to make me do. It's strange to spend so much time working at a college and to feel so far afield of what students like these days. It wasn't THAT long ago I was one of them, was it? But there's a lot of difference between then and now, I guess, because I can't make heads or tails of guys wearing skinny jeans or girls bringing back the absolute worst trends of the 80s. (Look, kids, I was there and although I will never get tired of The Breakfast Club or Pat Benatar, from what I remember, I can assure you there's an absolutely valid reason that side-ponytails and leg warmers went the way of the dinosaur.) But that's okay because they don't get my pop culture references, which at least in my own age group, are still funny and, dare I say, even a little kitschy. (Can you believe that kids born in the 90s don't even KNOW about She-Ra?! And I will never get over the fact that they don't know about the 50-lb "cell phone" Zach Morris looked so cool using. Don't even get me started on Carmen Sandiego...broke my heart, that one did.)

But then, in the midst of my contemplation, I started thinking about how my parents probably felt the same way as they got older. And maybe my grandmother and her mother did, too. I guess this is what they meant by "getting old."

I don't really feel old. I mean, except every time I sit in class as a too-old pre-med student surrounded by freshmen who wear silly bands and had AP Calculus just last year. But other than that, I'm a spring chicken...

Probably the hardest thing to deal with as I get a little older each day is the fact that I am now THAT woman - not that cute girl in the back of the class who wore a size zero; oh no, not THAT girl...ever again, sadly. Nope, now I'm THAT woman who sits in the front of every class so she can take copious amounts of notes and actually SEE the board. Yes, I'm THAT woman who gets aggravated at the incessant tap-tap-tap of little tiny Droid keyboards all over the classroom, transmitting messages from desperate 18-year-olds making plans with other desperate 18-year-olds to get hung over for class tomorrow morning.

I'm THAT woman who talks about her husband and her stepkid and her dog and her cat and her adorable little suburban house with a green lawn and a picket fence (okay, well actually it's a split-rail, but do THEY know the difference?).

I'm THAT woman who until now didn't really know what she wanted to do with her life but who, now that she's decided, is hyper-focused on making the dream a reality and trying her best to enjoy it along the way. Do you know, I think I might actually be learning to LOVE science? After years of studying soft disciplines like literature and philosophy and counseling, I am actually becoming passionate about molecules and amino acids.

So I guess what I'm saying is that it's hard sometimes to sit with people much younger than me, whose lives are so very different from mine, and think what all those "old" people probably used to think about me:

"Don't be so desperate to have people love you. Enjoy your time on earth without giving your integrity and self-respect to people who don't respect themselves, let alone you. Don't let someone who broke your heart destroy your ego or your joy. Because one day, you'll wake up and find that you've matured, that you're actually a grown-up with grown-up thoughts and a lot less time to worry about what other people think, and that even though you're not that old, you're finally old enough to know better. You might not want a picket fence or a stable life or a dog - you might want a life on the road with a pet iguana to keep you company - but you'll find SOMETHING that you want enough to drive yourself all the places you wouldn't (or couldn't) find the energy to go as a younger person, and all the rest of it - the drama and time wasted and hours spent in misery over some person or other - just doesn't mean what it used to. You might even be happy."

I suppose this might be my way of saying to my elders, "Thanks for all the advice I didn't trust you to give when I was a kid." And I'd probably also agree that yes, 50's the new 20 and you're only as old as you feel and age is just a number.

t.