Who you callin' grown up?

I'm turning 38 today and I'm not gonna lie - it's freaking me out a tiny bit. Not the age. I mean, it IS a little hard to believe that 40 is right around the corner when you're still on this side of it. But I wouldn't go back to being in my 20s or even, necessarily, my early 30s. At 38 I know I've still got a lot to learn about life, but I also know a lot more about myself and that's a good feeling.

No, the things that are weirding me out are the crow's feet around my eyes that gather up make-up in them if I put my foundation on too soon after my moisturizer. It's that I bought comfortable shoes and talked myself into believing they're cute - and they are, but they are not the same standard of cute I would have applied even five years ago. It's that my wardrobe is one that belongs to a real adult. It doesn't include anything overly trendy, overly low/short and it definitely doesn't include a single pair of jeggings. It's the fact that the classic rock stations are playing music that I listened to in high school. I mean, what the h-e-double-hockey-sticks is happening here!?

I'm now part of a generation who are the parents/grown-ups on TV sitcoms. I'm the target of ads for luxury cars and peanut butter and laundry soap.

Here's a good example of how shocked I am by my age: I'm working on a series of videos for Shriners Hospitals for Children in which I am interviewing nurses, surgeons, physical therapists, etc. Because these hospitals are such amazing places people tend to stay there a long time, so what I hear over and over again is that people have been there 15 or 20 years. My first thought is, wow that's a long time! My second thought is holy crap, they're my age!

What I've learned is that we all have an age in our heads that we really are, which has very little to do with the age we actually are. In my head I'm about 24. I'm certainly not a grown-up, much less the mother of three children with a mortgage and a business. I'm not sure when everyone around me - my clients, my parents, my employees, my children, my friends - is going to realize that I am not an actual grown-up, despite the crow's feet and slightly sensible shoes.

I'm not sure when I'm going to realize I'm a grown-up. And I'm totally okay with that. Because age is fine, but actual adulthood is totally overrated.