5 signs you’re a grown up now

The small moments before the milestone of ‘30’ that make you realise that you’re no longer a teenager.

1. You actually start avoiding junk food

Double-decker burgers with cheese oozing out of them make you cringe rather than drool. You no longer trust your metabolism and on those not-so-awesome days you feel like a female version of Jack Black. If you’re already overdosing on exotic tea blends and trees and plants look like food to you because they don’t add to your already protruding pouch, know that the age monster has finally taken you in its claws.

2. Your choice in make-up changes

You avoid that red lipstick with specks of purple glitter and that transparent roll-on gloss like you avoid your over-possessive ex. You realise that the red lipstick screamed “Attention Seeker!” and the reason you were such a hit with kids was probably because you looked like Bozo the clown. Out go the candy-flavoured lip balms and in comes the odourless, mentholated Blistex.

3. Concerts don’t seem cool

Gone are the days when ear-deafening concert performances were your idea of a ‘cool’ Saturday night. Now lying lifeless in front of the idiot-box in your dirtiest/ softest pajamas or listening to soft rock on your iPod in the balcony is the way you want your Saturday to go by. You actually start considering the ‘too loud’ warning sign on your iPod and the overall health of your ears is important now.

4. From Eidi-taker to Eidi-giver

Children start flocking around you like greedy vultures at Eid parties just to get their share of the moolah you earn after a month of slavery. You obviously feel like tripping all of the rug rats but your age doesn’t allow you to do any of this. So you smile,  hand over the crisp fresh notes and swallow that lump in your throat. There goes your Saturday overtime money.

5. Married/pregnant friends

Half of your school friends are getting married and the other half are already en route to motherhood. Most of them tell similar stories about how their baby kicks when they overdose on Coke and how their husband is so in love with his Nazi mother. Suddenly, you start recalling the faces of all those men who asked you out when you were an androgynous 16-year-old.

Published in The Express Tribune, Ms T, October 7^th, 2012.

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