Remember when you were a little kid how great it was when someone thought you were OLDER than you really were?

Yeah, that didn’t happen to me. It was just an annoyance when I was little, but it was nearly devastating to my self-esteem as I got to be a teenager.

All my friends had boobs, but MY “training bras” were all lined with padding because there was nothing there to train. Is that TMI? I didn’t think it was since my little sister told EVERYONE at church that I stuffed, so it was already pretty well advertised.

Of course, my attitude toward looking so much younger changed when I hit my 30s. It’s kind of sad that phase of my life didn’t last longer.

Now that I’ve reached that “What the hell is that?” stretch of my life (no pun intended), I’m no longer egotistically enjoying people’s underestimation of my age. So I’ve come up with a new strategy.

I’ve decided I’m going to start telling people I’m five years OLDER than I actually am. That way people will look at me and say, “Wow, you look at least five years YOUNGER than that.”

I’ll be back to people thinking I look younger again!

I was explaining this new tactic to Dave when I said, “I started out wanting people to think I was older, and now I’m BACK to wanting people to think I’m older.”

“Eventually, you’ll just want people to think you’re not pooping your pants while you’re talking to them,” he said.

Eventually? I thought.

Wow, I’m further into this stage of my life than I thought.