Lipstick

Don't you hate when you can't remember what should-be memorable moments? 


Dan will reminisce about a particular meal or movie and I'll nod along thinking "I have no clue what you're talking about. I'll just keep nodding." But then other simple moments are etched so clearly for no apparent reason. They aren't memorable - but they are. Like this little odd-ball: 


A few years ago, some of my old college roommates and I were in Minneapolis for a summer weekend. I can't remember why we were there but for some reason I think it was the 4th of July so lets bank on my rock-solid memory and go with that. So, on some 4th of July weekend, we were laying out at my friend's roof-top pool, drinking cocktails and flipping through magazines. At one point in the afternoon, I looked up from a magazine, cut my friend off mid-thought and blurted "When do you think we'll start to wear lipstick?" 


Where the conversation went from there - one can only guess. But, after feeling like an ass for interrupting my friend, I really did ponder that fact for an embarrassingly long period of time. Like, paging through a People - not US Weekly - amount of time. I landed on sometime in my thirties.

Sometime after I bought a house, or got a dog - or did something responsible. Because responsible ladies wear lipstick and apparently that's the time period when I thought I'd get my act together - sometime in my thirties. 


Profound stuff, really. 

Awkward.

Well, I have a daughter, husband and a dog - and when I wear lipstick it sort of feels like playing dress up. 

I still feel like that young 20-something on that rooftop wondering what grown-up life would look like. Back then, I envisioned that as a grown-up life would look so much different - that bank accounts would be lush, vacations would be plentiful - that somehow I wouldn't trip over things so easily. 

Older meant wiser, smarter and somehow - more graceful.  

Even though 29 looks, feels and isn't how I expected it to be - just like moving into your first non-college apartment, going on your first big trip, getting married and having babies - it's not how you pictured it - it's so much better.