Maybe We Ain't That Young Anymore

"So you're scared and you're thinking/ That maybe we ain't that young anymore." - "Thunder Road" by Bruce Springsteen

Yesterday my little sister, Jenna, turned 25. A quarter of a century. Man, that makes me feel really old. I was told last year by then four-year-old Riley that I was almost 30 (I was 26 at the time), and both Riley and Alana have asked me if I am as old as their mother and grandma, which I quickly assure them I am not. They think I'm about 100 years old. Nice, huh?

So, that is a scary thought, being old enough to be considered 100 by preschoolers. I know I have to consider the source, but if Jenna is 25, I must be old. I feel old, but then again, I always have. There's a line in "It's a Wonderful Life" when George Bailey's father tells George, the eldest son, that he was just born older. That's me. I was just born older.

But still, I refuse to get old. Not in a creepy Peter Pan, Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch way, but in an endearing Lucille Ball kind of way. In one episode, Lucy said that she was turning 29, which she had done for so many years that she had forgotten how old she actually was! With my memory and my obsession over numbers I'm sure I won't have the gift of forgetting, but it's still a nice thought. I will just stay 29 forever, but right now I'm still 27! Not 30, not 100, just 27. Right now that feels old enough to me.