Musings on turning 35

I am going to be 35 years old tomorrow. 35. Thirty-Five. Trente-cinq ans. This is the first year where my age feels like a canker sore in my mouth. It stings when I run my tongue over it, but I can’t seem to stop. 35. Halfway dead. Okay, that is not exactly true. According to Statistics Canada, the “real” halfway dead, statistically speaking, is 40. We live to an average of about 80.9 years. But if you round up the number 35 it becomes 40 so same diff.

What is really affecting me though is the memory of when I was pregnant with my kids. In BC, the cut off date for having a midwife without causing ire in the medical community was 35. Because apparently 35 is the year where all of a sudden your reproductive organs start to deteriorate. You become less fertile than you were at 34. Risks of having babies harmed by your oldness increases. I am now picturing my uterus shrivelling up in anticipation of my birthday tomorrow.

I know, I know. This is stupid. Many women have babies after 35- in fact, that seems to be the norm. And I don’t even want more babies. I just can’t help thinking that if it is all downhill from here for my reproductive organs, than everything else must follow suit. Soon, gravity will win out and I will be just a giant sag: sagging boobs, sagging buttocks, sagging eyelids, sagging underarm flesh, sagging…well, you get the idea.

So. Never one to dwell longer than a blog post, I will celebrate my sag fest tomorrow night by doing something I have hitherto avoided like the plague: I will be reading my poems in public.

Here is the info for anybody that is interested:

April 22nd, 2009 Reading at Le Cagibi

5490 St. Laurent, Montreal QC
8 pm

Readings by: Arjun Basu, Lina Gordaneer
Alice Zorn, Kathleen Winter, Julie Paul,
and Danielle Devereaux

Music by Bryan Highbloom

Everyone welcome. Free.

So there. Proof that there’s life even if you are beginning to sag around the edges…