i drew you a heart

So I never thought I would be this kind of girl. (I never thought it possible to stay sick for a month and not have mono or TB or pneumonia, so apparently I have a lot to learn). I have become, for better or worse, a woman who finally accepts and understands that I would never, ever, ever go back to being the girl I was in my early 20s. I actually like my later years. My girlfriends of the 30 set. We're so much smarter, and wittier, and enjoyable. Our beauty is insurmountable because it evokes experience. Our experiences topple mountains. My girls concluded that we actually feel sorry for girls just now reaching their 20s and the way the men we are around treat them.

That's not to say I would trade older men for anyone younger. But the whole idea of ten years is not something to toy with. We can go out and watch and smile and think fondly. How we now know what you never say to a man, ever. Laugh at the times when we did. Laugh at how desperately we thought we needed to be married. Laugh when we did finally get married. Laugh when we didn't. We look at these men presenting themselves to us (and by us, I mean not me, obvs) and they're never 20s anymore. They're always 35+. They have concerns with dating women too young. "I don't want a daddy-issues girl" a friend of mine was told. "Well I don't want to date my daddy," she told him back.

And then we look at these single men in our lives (of the 30+ range) and their choice of 25- women is just almost too much. The humor that is. I used to think it was all part of the He-Man Woman Hating Club, or whatever that is. Turns out the younger set, even, gasp, us, in our younger set are just easier. All around. To talk to. To have low expectations. To appear smarter, more handsome, more impressive to.

Now this is in no way to hate on my men friends. And it may just be the tide right now. Fall and duck and deer season. Seems to make manly men more manly. But we think it's funny how simply our expectations have changed. When I was 20, I didn't care if a guy had a job. Just how hot he was. And what shows he could sneak me into. Now, as my girlfriend put it, "How soon he'll get me into bed is inversely related to how near he stands in the bread line. I'm a big enough girl to know now that poverty is in no way ever attractive or romantic anymore. Especially when I can pay my own way."

I just wish there had been a way for the younger me to have friends in this older me set. Friends to help explain away the mysteries of men and help me figure out that it's never me. It's him. Ha! At least allow myself to be comfortable in that. Older women to smile at my "revelations" and wince at them too. To look at me and think, "those were the days?" But that would also mean that I, as this older set, would have to do the same to some dopey eyed girlf (girl of youth). Which I'm not. I just can't stand them.