I knew I was getting older when…

I knew it would come one day…but not one day SO SOON. Nowadays I would stop dead in my tracks and realize… WAIT! Was that time that just ran over me without my knowing it?

I would be first to admit I was scared of becoming “old” because I was one of those naughty adolescents who smirked at parents who tried to be fashionable, who tried so hard to be “uso”. Don’t get me wrong! It’s just I myself, eversince, did not believe in purposefully dressing, acting, talking, or (god forbid) dancing a certain way to be “cool”.

And it happened.

I became Mommy.( And well, becoming Honey also ages me a bit…hehehe)

And suddenly I understand.

I know I had gotten older (aka uncool) when…

… suddenly time seemed to fly. I look at Jylianne and I wonder where my baby had gone. And imagine she’s only three! When I was in my teens, it always seemed such a long time until my crush called again, or until next Saturday to go to Hard Rock, or the months you had to wait until Grad Ball.

… I started using the sentence “ When I was in my teens” or “when I was your age”

… I started asking people about the clothes I wear --- whether my arms looked humongous, or my belly was jutting out… and making a conscious effort not to look too Mommy-ish. ( “Mukha bang nanay?” or “Mukha bang loshang?”)

… I started acquiring an even faster version of my mom’s machine gun mouth (no offense, Ma!) Even my own mother, who would laugh when I tell her I was becoming like her, would shake her head a little at the slightest RAT-TA-TA-TA-TAT, most of the time at messed up toys, a spilled glass of milk, or food that wasn’t eaten

… I started having discipline words of “ If Mommy says you do this, just do it! I won’t make you do anything bad for you!”

… I’m listening to music (Evanescence, Beyonce, Maroon 5, Avril, the like) and I’m thinking that those are the genres Jylianne would smirk about when I’m forty and listening to it only on Sundays, on programs dedicated to oldies music

… I remember my childhood crush Nick Carter and think my daughter will probably think “Eww, sino yan? Ang baduy ni Mommy.”

… I start wondering what I’ll feel if Jylianne does suddenly grow up and she acquires friends, does her own things, gets her own life. I feel sappy when I wonder if she’ll still need me

… I wanted to spend the rest of my life with ONE MAN ( and he wasn’t even a man yet when I thought that)

…I woke up one day and I changed my mind about that

… I woke up again one day and thought I was a mature woman, and when I make decisions, I stick to it (only old people think that way, di ba? Trying to convince themselves the mistakes they made weren’t actually mistakes)

… I had admitted my mistakes to myself

… I actually knew what my mistakes were, the right from the wrong

… I knew the right from the wrong, but remained adultly hard-headed enough to maintain the wrongs I liked…hehehe

Hay, whatever. Doesn’t really matter whenever, wherever, whatever ages me…this heart will never age.