I will wear what I want

You know that question that has gone around Facebook where you tell everyone your age without using a number? Okay, here goes.

I’m mix-tape years old.

Love’s-Baby-Soft years old.

Simon-LeBon crushing, MTV-watching, Calvin Klein jeans and shoulder pads and big hair years old. Plus 1. Because today is my birthday.

I am trying to wrap my mind around what 50 means. Some of you have been there, done that, while others survey it from a safe distance or, like me, are on the cusp, wondering what shape that number will take, for you.

You see, for most of my life, fashion has been my only form of rebellion. I loved to push the envelope. I wore body-con dresses and striped eyeshadow and armfuls of jelly bracelets and the kids in my itty-bitty private school didn’t know what to make of me. And neither did my mom. In a small school in a small town, I saw myself as a trailblazer. A trendsetter.

And a couple of decades isn’t going to change that. After all, aging makes you more of what you were, not less.

I will not suddenly start wearing quiet clothes and comfortable shoes.

Sure, lifestyle and location have required some accommodations, style-wise, but when the opportunity arises, I am still the girl in the crazy dress with the killer heels.You may see me more often in skinny joggers and moto jackets and other trademarks of mom-style, but inside, underneath it all, I’m wearing striped eyeshadow and jelly bangles, and all the neons, all at once.