Turning 36 soon and getting vaguely neurotic....

[Aisling]

Now, I'm guessing that many of you are probably going to :roll: at this one but hey, your input is good too! Every year since my 30th birthday, I start assessing myself in a mildly neurotic manner. ie Do I have any wrinkles yet? Any gray hairs? Very vain stuff but this year is taking the cake. I'm questioning now whether or not I actually need to ::gasp:: grow up...

Here are some things that have been percolating through my head non-stop. Yes, they are ridiculous but aren't all neurosis ridiculous on some level? My birthday is in August and, hopefully, I will have resolved whether or not these are okay behaviours to continue for my age or whether or not I need to grow up. My hubby (very well-trained) says that it's all fine because it's me and I look like I'm about 26 years old. Like I said, he's very well trained... Honest and unbiased input, however, is wanted here.

1. I like wearing ponytails. No great surprise considering my char in game is wearing a ponytail. Ponytails on a 35 or 36 year old woman are fine, imo. It's pretty much par for the course for any half crazed, exasperated mothers of toddlers. Here's the dilemma. I don't just like wearing single ponytails. I like wearing PIGTAILS. To make matters worse, I enjoy stealing my daughters cute little plastic ball ponytail holders and using them for my ponies. I'm beginning to wear my hair like this less and less because I think I'm getting too old and they are for little girls only. Input?

2. I frequent Hot Topic alot because my son loves some of the tshirts there. I love the store myself and have seen many a tshirt that I would love to own myself. Particuliarly the ones with that malicious little bunny. However, my mom (albeit 1500 miles away) has been sending me clothing that she has picked up from Nordstrom's and has been growing increasingly conservative. Is she trying to give me subtle hints that I am a woman that is relentlessly approaching her 40's and should be wearing tshirts with garden implements on them as opposed to evil bunnies? I haven't been able to pick up a single mean tshirt because of this mental dilemma. My god, I even picked up two floral blouses from Old Navy a few weeks ago...FLORAL! Something I'd prefer not to be caught dead in...Are tshirts that with evil bunnies okay for me still? Where does one draw the age line for such things??

3. Painting my nails with the same little girl polish as my daughter. Okay, I love the Hello Kitty fingernail polish colors. The Strawberry Shortcake colors are cute as well. True, they tend to be obviously little girlish but there is something just fun about putting these colors on myself after I put them on my daughter. Okay, so maybe bubblegum frosty pink isn't very adult. Neither is letting them chip away so that my fingernails really start looking like a little girl's where the ends of the polish are all worn off. Is it okay for me to still put on my daughter's polish? Or would I be better of just abstaining from the whole matter entirely (since I'll just chip at it anyways...). :roll:

4. Okay, nm...I am NOT parting with my clunky funky shoes. Over my dead body. :x They're black so they're fine, right?

As I said...all very stupid, all very trivial but alas, these are my "OMG I am getting old" neuroses. It probably doesn't help that I live in an isolated conservative town where I see all the other mothers either looking like ragged messes (me anyways half the time) or like they just stepped out of an Eddie Bauer catalog. Is it socially acceptable for a 36 year old woman to wear Hello Kitty merchandise in the rest of the world?:lol: I don't know...that's why I am asking you guys!!!

 

[Excim]

Maybe a bit late, but I do nothing but work for three days straight every week, and am just getting to this forum. So sue me. :?


On topic: Screw what other people are thinking! Lets say you go into Hot Topic for a reason other than your son and his choices of clothing. You see a shirt you like, you buy it. Chances are the cashier isn't going to care anyways, since if it's Hot Topic it's some distraught teen who thinks the world revolves around them, not you.

The only time you really need to stop doing the things you like to do are when you become selfconscience doing it. If you want to wear those shirts, then you should wear them. If you feel uncomfortable wearing them, then you shouldn't be wearing them. Your age really isn't a factor, is what I'm getting at I believe.

As far as the "pig tails" go... as a personal preference, I really don't think women are very attractive like that. But again, who cares? If you are happy that way, then you should go for it all the way!

Just my thoughts...

 

[Aubrie]

I have to agree with Excim here...if you like it do it. Don't matter what age you are. Ok so maaaaaybe you'd be stretching things a bit if you like painted your nails....green or blue or something ( )

As for Hot Topic, my ex boyfriend's 50 yr. old dad had half the store on his Christmas list a few years ago. You are NEVER too old for Hot Topic. And those Evil bunny shirts rock. :twisted:

The pig tails, personally I hate, but that's because I was forced to wear my hair like that when I was younger, but hey if you like your hair like that, wear it!

So to sum my post up..If you like the way you're dressing/wearing your hair/colors you paint your nails..do it! Don't let anyone stop ya.

I'm 18 now, when I hit 40s I guarentee I'll still be walking around in my blue and green nail polish, ICP/KMK/Evil Bunny/Rude and Sarcastic comment shirts, and probably dying my hair random colors. If not for myself for the sole purpose of embarrassing kids I plan to have in the future. :twisted:

This the bunny you're talking about? :lol:

 

[Aisling]

No worries about late replies. I've been buried knee deep in abstracts about predynastic cultures of Egypt and carved stone balls of Scotland for the past several days. :shock: My brain hurts.

Thanks you two. I know it all seemed really petty but the older you get, the more weirded out one can get about the smallest things at times. The duo ponytail thing started when headsets and voicecomms for gaming came out. I'd game and the headset always would get caught in my hair so up the hair went. Funny how gaming can make a change in a person like that, huh? Imo, my hair is too long right now for the duo ponies anyways but my hubby loves it when I wear my hair like that.

I've never been able to maintain a "conservative" look for any length of time beyond corporate dinners and even then I get a little cheeky (like at Christmas, I used chopsticks in my hair). So far, I don't embarass my kids at all though there was this one time...

I think the problem is my mom, to be honest. Although she's 1500 miles away, wears birkenstocks and has hair that is about 3 feet long (always up though), she's always commenting on me being too old for this or that or even what I should do. I've been finding long white strands of hair (apparently, I'm not going gray--I'm going pure white!). Her response? Hair dye, which I don't really want to do. In my husband's culture, a woman welcomes the gray hair and I've been out here long enough to see the beauty in it. She thinks I'm nuts. Ironically enough, she says that my hair is too long right now...she should look at her own hair, huh?

If I go pure white, I don't think I'm going to need to really dye my hair any particuliar color to look on the funky side...though hot pink tips might be rather cool looking....gray faster, hair!! gray faster!! :lol:

And yes, that's the evil bunny!! OMG, I love that bunny!!!!!

Thanks again.

 

[Carth]

i know how to pronounce your name correctly

 

[Kat]

:lol: I'm sorry but I'm just lmao here. Don't worry bout it. You can't stop it, just go with it.

I have to say turning 30 was God awful for me. My husband (bf at that time) even went so far as to post "Happy 30th Birthday, Kathi" on the main drag Neon Sign at one the restaurants in town. I worked in the office complex next to it at that time. Ughhhh I horrified!!!! But when I hit 40, pfffftttt, no biggie. And, as of right now, I'm good with turning 45 in 2 years and then onto 50.

 

[Aisling]

Proper pronounciation should be rather like "Ashling", which is another spelling variant. It's sometimes pronounced more like "Iceling" or "Aceling" as well.

Was to be the name of a daughter that wasn't to be. She ended up being what I had intended to name her--just a dream. I did end up having a daughter born but she was too much of a fireball to be named the same.

So, we named her Kaitlyn. :lol:

 

[Aisling]

:lol: I'm sorry but I'm just lmao here. Don't worry bout it. You can't stop it, just go with it.

I have to say turning 30 was God awful for me. My husband (bf at that time) even went so far as to post "Happy 30th Birthday, Kathi" on the main drag Neon Sign at one the restaurants in town. I worked in the office complex next to it at that time. Ughhhh I horrified!!!! But when I hit 40, pfffftttt, no biggie. And, as of right now, I'm good with turning 45 in 2 years and then onto 50.

I was fully expecting some laughs because I enjoy making fun of myself when I get like this so no worries. Every year, I come up with some new pre-birthday neuroses that are generally pretty ridiculous. Age happens and I'm bound to grow old. I'm just glad that I still get asked for my id. (Must be the pigtails ).

Irregardless of my acceptance of the inevitabatility of aging, I have managed to evade all birthdays since 30. I get presents from family but they all know to just not go there...My husband knows all to well that a neon sign declaring my age on my birthday in town would probably find us in the papers with some title like "Crazed woman slays husband on her birthday".

 

[asiamise]

<---- 32 yrs old and gives less than 2 shits what the world thinks of her clothes, hobbies, lifestyle or preference in foods.

Live your life in a manner that makes you happy, or you will wind up old and bitter about the years lost trying to conform to what the world thought you should be.

 

[Zaltana]

you should send your mother a few Happy Bunny t-shirts

 

[Carth]

So, we named her Kaitlyn. :lol:

You could have went with Naiose or Grainne

 

[Mishaela]

Asides age being a number....in the Precambrian ages, you'd be about 30 right now! =P (Precambrian years were about 424 days)

(your age, years) x 365 / 424 = Precambrian age

 

[Carth]

And you'd look like anomalocaris. An excellent tradeoff.

 

[Mishaela]

Well, at least no one can say you can't make good use of you mou~*shot*

 

[Veteran]

And you'd look like anomalocaris. An excellent tradeoff.

lmao!

P.S. Yeah it's a bit of thread necromancy but it was still in the top half of the first page so meh.