Luck be a lady

I'm a huge age-ist. I'll admit it. Barely a day goes by that I don't commit some form of age-ism in my head or more accurately with a look of total distaste wiped across my face. What is age-ism you ask? A fun word I made up (I'm too lazy to check urban dictionary right now to see if its already been done) and only hyphenated so you could see what I was trying to say. It depicts the act of judging people based on a specific expectation I've assigned for each age. Whether it be through emotional control or accomplishments or gestures toward the future. I am hardest on myself.

I'm comfortable with this because I know you do it too. Without fail at every birthday starting at the age of 20, people seem to relish in the idea of wistfully talking about what they've yet to accomplish or thought they accomplish by now or all the time they have left. EVERY single birthday.

That being said, this is all complicated by the strong idealism I have tied into the 1950s/60s/70s working woman.

When I was younger I always imagined I'd have some sort of magical transformation where I'd be pose and dignified and have beautiful shiny hair. I would wear heels and pencil skirts and drink martinis and generally appear mature to passers by. I would no longer be aimlessly wandering through life trying to figure out what I wanted to be "when I grew up" because I'd already be it. I also imagined it would happen somewhere around 25-30.

So far, no such luck.

Attempting to get into the Master's program for Education is making it more and more apparent. Last Saturday at 7am, I showed up to one of my many required standardize tests. I showed up in my pjs and with a pencil in my hair. I stood outside in the freezing cold with people 7 and 10 years younger then me. Then after listening to announcements inside a middle school social studies classroom about the proper way to fill out scan-tron bubbles, I fell asleep at my desk. It was as if being inside a middle school again pulled me back 15 years. Ugg boots and sleeve marks on my face is not exactly the woman I envisioned myself to be.

What I wonder is, does this woman even exist now? In a current society where we're holding out for selfishness or to live under our parents safety nets longer then necessary, where we're entirely too afraid to make all the choices we're so privileged to have, have we lost sight of our responsibility to act like actual adults? More importantly have I?

What's stopping me from buying fancier clothes, from donning aprons in the kitchen, for getting rid of my sweatshirts and finding the perfect balance between classy working woman and feminine fatale (did I mention I also imagined myself being a badass)? Hell, for having simple pride in myself and the image I project? Have I ever had it in any kind of materialistic shallow way? There's no arguing that plenty of photographic evidence proving I haven't exists, so how do I get there? How do I uphold the expectations that I hold onto so tightly for others as they age, with myself?

Aging and maturity doesn't mean you have to turn off the cartoons (seriously, have you seen Phineas and Ferb?) or give up sprinkles on your ice cream but maybe it should mean you stop wearing your pajamas in public. At least for me at least.