Five on Friday: Forty-Eight is Forty-Great!

 It was somebody's birthday yesterday.

Me, it was me.

I'm actually writing this post a few days early (!!) since I'll be taking a girls' trip with a friend, her daughters and my youngest daughter to go see my oldest kids  alleged adults at college. We've got some great meals, museum trips and of course a funicular ride planned. All great birthday outings in my book!

I frequently have partial Five on Friday lists waiting for their fourth or fifth item in the queue, so I took a peek to see if any could be whipped into shape for this week's post. Oh--here's one on ways I've felt old lately, so that'd be PERFECT for my birthday week! (Note: sure, this is a bit of a recurring theme but of course now I can laugh at this post from eight years ago--not a spring chicken at forty? Ha! Sure I was! Also: Eight years ago? Have I really been doing this for that long?)

Anyway, here's what's making me feel like a cranky old lady lately. (Though to be clear, I am perfectly pleased with my age this year because even numbers are superior and additionally, EIGHT IS GREAT!)

But I digress. Here's my list:

1. As a weirdo who used to always wish I'd need glasses for the accessorizing aspect, I'm actually fine with needing drug store cheaters. But rocking this look, well . . .  this just felt like a real (aging) milestone.

2. I recently found myself shopping for clothes and found myself saying things like "don't they have any goddamn cardigans with buttons anymore?" and "Jesus Christ, is this just how they make all jeans now?"

3. Those things (& more!) were said out loud. In public. Also some of them might be more aptly described as being "bitterly muttered" out loud. In public.

4. If you're wondering where I was shopping for my hot new look it was Marshalls. Yes, Marshalls, the discount retail fashion mecca.

5. On Easter Sunday, my Uncle made one of my dreams come true: he finally let me borrow some old home movies so I could convert them from VHS and watch them. There's a circa 1983 (?) Smurf movie I wrote, starred in and directed that I'd really like to see.

I was surprised to learn that a few of them had already been converted to DVD so when I got home I was able to watch them. Not the Smurf movie, sadly, but maybe even better: holiday scenes from Babci's house. It's just the family talking in the crowded living room, laughing, opening gifts, asking who wants a little ice cream? It was comforting, familiar but with the passage of time somehow a little foreign, too. I felt like Scrooge being transported back to witness scenes of Christmas past. 

I got a little emotional watching it, not just for the loved ones lost but maybe more so for seeing myself as a child! It occurred to me--I don't think I've ever seen video of myself so young!

I immediately realized how alien that concept--never seen a video of myself so young--is to my kids, who have instantaneously seen video of themselves their entire lives. So what started out as a lovely, nostalgic and slightly bittersweet moment quickly turned into, "Wow, I'm old."

But I'm an even number again! So all is right in the world. Cheers.