There are certain milestones in life that feel huge even though they are relatively minor in the scheme of things. This is especially true when it comes to aging.
Some people age gracefully, slowly accruing just the right amount of wrinkles, gray hairs, and gravitas that our culture has deemed appropriate for a given age bracket.
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And then there are people like me who seem stuck in time until one day they wake up and the teen barista calls them “ma’am.”
I’m not kidding. If you look at my four student ID photos from high school, they are almost identical, save for haircut and shirt.
When I was being fitted for my senior prom dress, the seamstress literally gushed over how beautiful my eighth grade graduation dress was.
I was 18, but I looked 12, and my lack of height did not help.
And then one day, only a couple of years later, I went to grab my driver’s license to prove my age like always… and wasn’t asked for it.
I swear, I felt like a fugitive even though I was legally old enough to be there.
Ten years later and I’m fully transitioned over to the world of “ma’am.”
It’s been a long time since I’ve been carded for anything, my gray hair looks like Christmas tinsel in the sunlight, and “kids these days” are more annoying than ever.
Even so, though I have mostly come to terms with the fact that I am a woman in my thirties now, “ma’am” still makes me twitch.
I’m sorry, but “ma’am” feels so old . Still, besides “miss,” which I also feel weird about at 35, there isn’t really a good alternative for when you are trying to be polite to a stranger.
And so, I am a “ma’am” and I guess I have to just own it?
