Guess what.

There are girls younger than us.  I know it's shocking isn't it?  Downright horrible, I think.  I didn't even realize it until recently.  Until my friends started turning 25 and then I realized in a few months I, too, will be a step closer to 30.  No, I don't think 30 equals death.  However, I can't say I'm looking forward to the actual number 30 itself.  Thirty doesn't have the same ring as say 21 or 27.  You don't often hear people talking in hushed tones about a younger woman who is "30."  I'm not saying I want to be a tart, but I do want to be of an age where it would still sound scandalous if I was.

OK so 24 is not old.  Neither is 30.  I'm pretty sure I will like life as much at 30 as I do now, if not more so.  But it's just one of those little things that squeaks in the back of your mind.  "Ugh, I actually have to age?!  This is crap!"  Then I go on about my happy life and am thankful for all the sweet ass things that happen every day. 

But isn't there ever a time when you see some 21-year-old looking like she rolled in mud aka tanning bed and she's looking all tarty and fresh and you just want to slap the hoops out of her ears (or if you're here, smash her in the side with the fatty LV bag she's carrying)?  Oh, I know it's bitter and a mildly violent thought, but I'm just saying what everyone is thinking. 

BUT THEN....I remember that I am younger than someone else and that someone else probably wants to pull my little shorts over my head.  Fair is fair.

Besides, I am the youngest today that I am ever going to be.  Might as well enjoy it.  You, too, 21 year old. 

Flights of Faith

I think a great deal of the anxiety-prone population pray at their peak prayer-ness while in airplanes. All of us doom-dwellers are thinking "Oh God, please don't let me freak out before the flight." "Why in God's name must this thing go so fast to lift off?!" "Dear God how did I convince myself I would be fine floating in a big chunk of aluminum?" "Please God, don't let the turbulence make me fall out of the sky to my untimely, and unwanted, death!"

Praying this much either makes me an idiot or an arrogant ass. Probably both.

Don't get me wrong, I believe in God 365 days a year (plus 1 on leap years), but I think I am a fervent believer in religion once I get a few miles up into the sky. It's almost as bad as praying for your basketball team to win the championship game or begging God to change the red light to green when you're late to an interview.

I can only temper the outrageous act of asking God to intervene at my convenience by saying that if I have learned one thing from 12 year of Catholic school, it is that we can turn to God when we can't turn to anyone else. When fear of death and whatever you are afraid of is at your door, where else can you go? I honestly can't help but to pray. I even started thinking of turbulence as angels bumping the plane to be funny. Ha-ha angels. You're hysterical...I'd beat you with your own wing if you weren't supposedly safeguarding me from harm.

If you can't tell, I have to fly soon. And I have to fly alone. Double whammy. I know it's safe, I know I will be fine, but I can tell you that for about six total hours over the next few weeks, I will be trying not to vom, praying my guts out and threatening those fat angels who keep bumping my little tin rocket around.