This is 36

Today I inch (leap?) one step closer to 40. Last year, I posted that I liked being in my 30s. Now that I'm 36, I can say with confidence that I still do, though the closer I creep to that big hill, the less sure I am about aging.

Once you become a parent, especially a parent to kids in school, I feel like in kids' eyes, you kind of morph into adult person of indiscriminate age. It doesn't matter. You could be 29 or 49 - it's all the same to kids. Sometimes I like to fancy myself a young and hip mom, but I know that when my boys and their friends see me, I'm just another generic adult.

This realization is so odd to me. Somehow you never think you'll get there, and then suddenly there you are, and there you remain for the rest of your life. I think back on all my teachers, many of whom were the age I am now or younger. Yes, I suppose I recognized that some were younger and some older, but they were all on the other side of some enormous, invisible divide, one that I didn't give a lot of thought to crossing.

It's also strange because I don't feel old. I know it would be specious to claim that 36 is old - it's not. I guess I mean that I don't feel my age. I suppose this is the case for most people. I can easily see now how after a certain point, the years just pile on top of one another, how someone can wake up one morning and suddenly they're 50, and for the life of them, they can scarcely understand how they got there.

It's been illuminating, to say the least. I always had set ideas about when things were supposed to happen. The first gray hairs would arrive around 40. I would be in the prime of my life in my 30s. My skin would be luminous and wrinkle-free, and I'd no longer have to contend with acne. Here I sit with crow's feet around my eyes, probably more breakouts than I had as a teenager, and coarse gray hairs appearing regularly.

At my birthday facial yesterday, I cringed a bit when the aesthetician turned on her 300-times magnifying light and examined my skin. Freckles, age spots, dry patches and oily, broken capillaries, I had them all.

This age is a bit of a crossroads, and I have a hard time deciding which direction to go. Again and again, I find my vanity duking it out with my principles for control of my decision-making. Part of me wants to do all I can to look youthful, and part of me wants to embrace "aging gracefully."

I suppose there's a middle ground here, and that's what I'll take. Mark me down as a yes for hair dye and taking good care of my skin. As for things like Botox, ultra-expensive face creams, and even laser treatments the aesthetician said I could get to repair those capillaries, they're a no. At least at this point. Those are my choices, but I'm all for women doing what makes them feel best about themselves.

Everything is changing, there's no doubt. After Mark and I go for a run, you'll likely hear moans of, "oh, my knee!" (him) and "oh, my hip!" (me). Chalk those up as another inconvenience I thought was reserved for later in life.

On the whole, though, life is pretty great right now. We're in the sweet spot with our kids. They're young enough to still like to spend time with us but old enough to sleep through the night. I'm savoring it.

There's no fighting against aging. It's happening whether I like it or not. I try to keep in mind this quote from Tuck Everlasting, "Don't be afraid of death; be afraid of an unlived life. You don't have to live forever, you just have to live."

As I cross the threshold into another year of life, this is my entirely unoriginal goal: live each day to the fullest.