Under the Hill - The Age of Appropriateness

I was recently enjoying my favorite past time, shopping, when I realized that I was in the Junior Section. This is a place that I have been at home in for as long as I can remember, but I was thirty now and there couldn’t be anything in there for me, could it?

The first time you pick up a short skirt and realize that you are too old to wear it can be a traumatic experience, not so much because you really want the thing, but because for the first time, you have to think about yourself in a more mature light. I know that a thirty-something wardrobe is suppose to shout out to the world that you are all grown up, but as I looked at the trendy threads that belonged to my past I had to wonder: Is 30 the Age of Appropriateness?

When you turn thirty people look at you differently. There seems to be more scrutiny in what you say, what you do and what you wear. It’s like people expect that one-year to make a man or a woman out of you. Club hopping? Fun when you are in your twenties, but everybody knows that the thirty-something year old brotha at the club is an object of ridicule. Chronic unemployment? Understandable at twenty, but pathetic at thirty. Bike riding? Great if you’re at the beach, but if you’re riding down a major street you are going to get talked about. Most men seem to love a feisty young girl, but as a woman ages that same attitude seems to grate on the nerves, since some men find that what is attractive in a young women is inappropriate in older one.

So, here we are fellow thirty-somethings slowly learning that the way we have lived our lives up until now no longer flys and you know what, it shouldn’t. The truth is if you’re still acting the same way at thirty that you did at twenty than something is wrong. A decade is a long time and our life, be it our clothes, speech and lifestyle choices, should reflect that. I am getting older, but as I paid for that little skirt, which I am going to tastefully pair with stockings and a blazer, I realized that being appropriate is more about getting wiser than it is about getting old.

till next week…