Love your 20's while you've got them!

I have the gift of being able to pass life wisdom on to quite a few young people, eager for guidance and knowledge from their wise elders. Ok, I'm getting old, and many of the people I know are not yet.

It is a responsibility I take seriously, letting them know what's ahead. I'd like to think they greatly value my wise advice and come to me with wide eyes and eager souls, enthusiastic to drink in all that I can impart, having been there, having seen what life can throw at a person.

As it turns out, no one listens. As the youthful do, they hear what might happen and deny it will ever happen to them. I know because I was that way too.

How many times did we ignore the adults occasionally taking our ballet classes recreationaly who said, "Never stop dancing. You can't pick it up again like you once were able to." "Pshh!" I thought. "That's ridiculous! I take breaks for holidays now, and get right back into it when I get back." Of course, here we are, having stopped dancing for happy hours, career aspirations, finding a social life, and the body revolts when I try and go back to ballet classes.

I want to shake that previous me and say, "Foolish kid! Things change! Your body changes! Love what you have now; it will never be like this again!"

And so, I share with my friends still in their twenties what will happen in a similar spirit of preparedness and appreciation for what I know they're taking for granted, as I previously did. It's not until they hit a milestone I've warned them about do they start to take heed of all I predict, though, and then they get scared. They should be scared.

Timeline:

At 27 and a half, you start to notice a difference. It's subtle. Things just aren't the same as they used to be. Hangovers are a bit worse. Metabolism slows almost imperceptibly. Gravity starts to let you know she exists, and she sees you over there.

At 30, you hit the wall. Gravity proves she's a little bitch. You realize you probably shouldn't be eating or drinking as manically as you used to. Maybe, if you don't have kids yet--or maybe even if you do--you'll try and hang on to the drinking and partying of your 20's, but you might hate it more now the next day. Or the next 3 days.

Every year after 30 increases the rate at which you slide down that wall you hit at 30. It gets ugly. And, it gets faster and faster with each passing year. You clamor for footholds to stop or slow the meteoric descent: trying to wear the same clothes you used to, taking a trip to the hard-partying locales you used to frequent to try and re-grasp your youth. But, it all ends in the same way. You wake up one day and your perky, round, full boobs--once your pride and joy--seem, well, deflated (and that's without kids!). All your pants are a little tighter in the waist, even if they fit the same everywhere else. And, you think you might actually die after your youth-reviving getaway. For an entire week afterwards. 

It's a sad, sad day when you make such decisions as needing to wear "age-appropriate" clothes, that maybe all your bras should now be push-ups, that Mexican food is no longer a daily option (perhaps the hardest of them all!)...

It all hits home in small but significant demonstrations of your disappearing youth. You can no longer charm the boys at the Genius Bar into loving you and giving you preferential treatment. The guys at the Mexican restaurants no longer give you extra sour cream in heart shapes on your food (not that you should really be eating that extra sour cream anymore. Oh, all the sadness!). No one notices when you walk into a bar anymore and aren't clamoring over themselves to buy you drinks. You can't actually remember the last time you were in a bar. Well, not past midnight, at least.

I hear it only gets worse, too, as we get closer and closer to 40 and then to 50. So, seriously. Listen to me, kids. Live it up now, while you still can! Let go of your body-image hangups and love your body before it gets a little harder to and you reminisce about theses days you're in now. Unfortunately, it's coming. It's for real coming.