A Week Before My Thirty-Fifth, I Want to Make a Few Things Clear:

I can deal with the loss of energy, the loss of opportunities, the memory thing.

I learn to live with an uncooperative body. Like an old, dying car, where ice on the wheels means unresponsive breaks and a scratch on the windshield means a defective ignition switch, my body has become random; a decaying mystery. But I can deal with that.

I see myself through the eyes of my society and learn my social identity is shifting. I learn I no longer belong to one group of consumers but to another; a less demanding one, presumably less inclined to fall for the hidden persuaders of advertising. Passively and apathetically I welcome my new identity.

I can deal with all that. The balding hair, the headaches, the goddamn teeth, the strange spots on the back, the snoring, the heartburn, the allergies, the weight gain...

And I welcome it all, because life is a journey and my body adapts as well as it can, and every day is a new adventure, if not an external one, then at least I can find the beauty of it all through my own private transformation. Because after all, thirty-five is the new something-or-other, and maybe I won't be the President and maybe I won't even be Employee of the Month but I'll never forget my dreams and I'll never stop pursuing them, and I will not let a playful body and a confused mind stand in the path of my dreams. Thirty-five means nothing.

But so help me God, the single curly coming out of my ear is unacceptable!!!