AUBREEVISION - Observations from the far side of the dial

Last night at work, sarsar saw fit to remind me that I look significantly younger than I am (damn you, woman! ) It's long been the bane of my existence, and one that people with "age-appropriate" looks tend to dismiss with comments like "Oh, when you're 40 you'll be glad you look young!"

My appearance has never matched my age. I've always been small and flat-chested and blue-eyed and apple-cheeked. In the orthodontist's waiting room when I was 11, two women sitting across from me loudly debated my age."She can't be more than 8," one insisted. They eventually asked either me or my mother, I can't remember which, and loudly expressed their surprise. Clients at work labour under the assumption that I'm barely legal, then change their entire demeanor when they discover I'm closer to thirty than twenty. The process is often a funny one, though -- it usually starts with "So you're in school?" and when I say I'm finished, I swear they think I'm a high school dropout. My girlish looks are definitely genetic -- when my mother was twenty-one, an older woman actually thought she was twelve. 

I think this whole issue is why I've always welcomed birthdays and the associated age-change -- a nice, solid number that I can trot out as proof of my tenure on Earth. My birthday is in May, but I usually make the mental transition every January -- in my head I've been 27 for some time.

What makes it most frustrating is that I've always felt my age, and more, probably due in part to being the smart kid in class and the product of a fundamentalist Christian upbringing. I've already dealt with the "big questions" -- at 4 I was running around asking people if they were saved, and at 8 I lay awake terrified the Rapture would leave me behind. By my teens I was emotionally middle-aged. I've since left the faith, attended university and college, had a hum-dilly of a breakdown, moved halfway across the country, tried to be a rebel and failed miserably, found my passions in writing & fitness and am finally finding my peace. So it burns me up when someone sizes me up, assigns me an age and a presumed life experience, gives me a look that's the visual equivalent of a pat on the head and lets loose with something akin to "Oh, you wouldn't understand, you're just a kid."

"Cute" is another thing that gets me -- I realize there are worse things than being called cute, but sometimes you'd kill for a "hot" or a "sexy." I once went into work on Halloween dressed as what could best be decribed as a "goth fairy" -- slinky black dress, knee high black vinyl boots, long black wig, smoky makeup and black and gold wings. I thought I had vamped it up big time until my boss took one look and said "Oh, aren't you cute!"