In order to tell this story I need to confess that I got my haircut and styled on the day of my class reunion because I have never been able to make my own hair look decent, and I didn’t want everyone I’d graduated with to know that I hadn’t learned how after having ten more years to practice.  There, I said it.  How cliché am I for trying too hard for my H.S. reunion?  My haircut wasn’t the only offense.  I also dressed my husband and hand selected an adorable picture of my daughter to bring in which you can’t tell that I cut her bangs myself from the crazy ones in which you can.  I guess those things are relatively harmless, though, compared to the plastic surgery I’m planning for my 20-year reunion.

Anyway, I was sitting in the hair-cutting seat (is that the technical term?) when the stylist started asking all sorts of personal questions.  I always sort of feel like I’m being interrogated in those situations.  I really don’t want to talk, but the person asking the questions is holding scissors and harmful chemicals so I feel obligated to tell her anything she wants to know.  It’s usually pretty awkward with me yelling my answers with as few words as possible over the music and hairdryers all around.  From time-to-time I realize she knows me pretty well, but I don’t know her at all so I try to think of questions for her that aren’t exactly the same as the ones she asked me.  For example, she may say “Are you married?” and I follow up my answer with “Are you single?”  Like I said, awkward.

Somehow she made me tell her that I had my 10-year reunion coming up (I couldn’t admit to her that it was the same day because she would have probably gotten that knowing look in her eye that says “oh, that’s why you’re here.”)  When the teenager who probably just lost her last baby tooth cutting my hair extracted this information from me, she got a surprised look on her face and said, “Wow, you don’t look that old.”  At first it made me feel good.

But as I’ve had time to mull it over, I started wondering, is twenty-seven (almost twenty-eight) old?  Sure, I can’t put in a full day of school/work after just two hours of sleep anymore, and sure, I can no longer eat an entire bag of popcorn for dinner.  And sometimes I watch the entire 35 minutes of news, even the weather.  I’ll even admit that I refer to every contestant on American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance as a 'kid', but does that make me old?  Probably.

Fortunately for me, Dan just celebrated his 31^st birthday, and it really forced me to put things in perspective. 

At least I’m not that old.  Hah!