Do you feel old?

Age is strange; you always feel the same (it’s still me in here guys!) and yet the world seems to slowly transition around you. The landscape begins to tilt somewhere in your early 30’s where cool music is no longer that cool and fashion feels like a language you once knew but now can only recall a few of the pleasantries.

“Euh non, merci mais on repassera pour les petits chandail bedaine de greluche”

Growing older can be isolating and strange.

My best friends and I went out dancing once when we were 29; when small talk with strangers was sparked, my best friends rounded up and said we were all 30. I remember feeling simultaneously shortchanged and scared of the new decade that was upon us.

When the clock chimed on the dawn of my 30^th (hung over, dry throat from smoking, mascara on my pillow) I thought to myself “I’ve made it, I’m still so young and cool. No problem”.

My confident clench on cool turned into a faint grasp, though, as confusing bombs like Gangnam Style and Vaping chipped away at my hip reality. Not to say that those things aren’t cool (they aren’t though, right?) – just that I didn’t relate to them as cool. It was “cool” that was changing, and I was somehow staying the same, and trying to “get it” just got exhausting.

Like, what the hell is a fidget spinner and WHY? It sounds like your first sex toy; modest and petite and yet it remains clitorally unstimulating. From the wise words of Little Kim, “If you ain’t licking no clits, we don’t want it, we don’t want it”.

My point is the world rolls on with or without you. Cool or not cool, age is always just a number that also happens to wrinkle your face and grey your pubes. I was feeling forgotten about in my 30’s and then I had Otis. I pooped a baby out of my vagina and I became a mum. Before you roll your eyes and assume I’m going to big up the beauty of bonding with my child, you are sorely mistaken.

Babies are alright (feed ‘em, change ‘em, sleep ‘em, look at ‘em) but being a mum has awoken within me a youthful spirit. I have become rejuvenated as a playful and hedonistic creature.

1. Drinking: Otis is only 4-months-old and he goes where I take him. He has no choice. I put him in a stroller and I am free to travel to whatever patio or LCBO I desire. I have had more daytime drinks in the past 4 months than I did completing my undergrad. Beer, Gin and Tonic, Caesar’s, and wine – I have sampled it all.
2. Walking: Not being pregnant anymore puts the biggest pep in your step, short of doing a line of coke or a triple espresso (both of which I have never done). The feeling of being able to walk up any incline now without sweating and telling my husband to slow the fuck down is glorious. So glorious, in fact, that I now love walking. The gift of motor function has returned and I am practically skipping with delight.
3. Food: I am home alone all the time and can eat whatever I want. Who is going to judge me? My newborn? Fat chance; he doesn’t even know that his hands are attached to his body. This morning I ate two waffles with maple syrup and basically a stick of butter. Last week I drank salsa after my nacho chips ran out. I am a pig. I keep a box of Ritz crackers in my night table right now just in case I need a little snack before I make it downstairs. I am also a queen.
4. Being Gross: Having a newborn is a free pass on so many things. I lied to a visiting friend about having not brushed my teeth, “the baby was just so fussy today”. Lie. He was an Angel. I watched YouTube videos of Judge Judy while he napped instead of tending to basic hygiene. I blamed a Cinnabon icing stain on my baby, claiming it was spit up. Lie. It dripped off my hot fingers as I devoured a pastry in the Dufferin Mall like the young goddess of pleasure I have become. I also now poo with the door open during the day, fart audibly, clean myself with baby wipes and scratch all of the body parts I want to simply because I can. This is my house now, I make the rules.
5. No Period: I know it will come back but for now I am just a prepubescent 12-year-old who does not require the assistance of crotch cotton to keep me tidy. I am wearing white underwear to bed at night on my white bed sheets like the brave dare devil that I am. I will continue to pump my breasts until I’m 40 if it keeps the cycle censored.
6. Nudity: Having a baby means it is now socially acceptable to be relatively undressed at all times. When the summer heat hit I was very quick to go sans shirt around the house. What’s the point of putting clothes on when you have a baby to feed? Fly free boobies, feel the sweet breeze of summer against your veiny mounds.
7. Tits: My cleavage is intense. I went to a wedding a few weeks ago and withheld on pumping because my engorged breasts filled out the dress like some kind of bombshell. Lactating turns this cotton white v-neck t-shirt into a traffic risk. Sex appeal aside, lactating is also super hilarious and fun. I woke up my husband by hand expressing milk in his face. I boob-splooged all over that sweet sleeping spouse of mine, I think I may have even said “Oh yeah, you like that, huh?” like some kind of misogynistic porn star. I have marked with tape the distance I can spray; also taking aim at such targets as baby’s mouth, family pets and the kitchen sink. If I could write my name in something I would.
8. Not Giving a Fuck: I believe my midwife said “Erica, now is a time to be kind to yourself. Listen to what your body wants and be very generous to your needs”. You got it, Pontiac. Pleasure is my mat leave mistress. I am keeping a human alive, that I made, and continue to make with my own body. I am taking ALL of the perks without any of the guilt. I am a smart, healthy (even with the extra butter) and kind human being and that means that I feel justified in finding the small pleasures that surround me every day. There may be judgment (“She shits with the door open?!”) but I don’t hear it. For me, becoming a mum made me more impenetrable to others’ judgment. We all do what we can to make it work, no more apologies.

I’m still young and really cool.  I think I always will be.

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Erica Moore is an Interior Designer with a degree in Fine Arts and Literature. She is a wife, and mother to 2 dogs and 2 baby. She is also a very hilarious human being. Check out her blog and keep up with her on Instagram.

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Featured Image: Gisele Bundchen by Michel Comte for Vogue Italia, 1999.

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Do you love Erica Moore as much as we do? Then check these out: The Post about Poo, Losing My Postnatal Virginity, and Fat Mom.