On the Myth of Becoming 13!

“Tomorrow you will see me for the last time as a twelve-year-old because at midnight I will be regenerated as a teenager!” My grandson, the one who watches way too much Dr. Who, said this to me! It threw me into a reverie that I didn’t speak out loud but brought one of those smiles I spoke of yesterday to my lips. How well do I remember thinking (dear Lord I would have never said it out loud, mother would have locked me in my room for a week if I had voiced it) the same thing when I was on the “verge of regeneration!”?

I had an aunt/friend who was only 15 months older than me but oh how she held those 15 months over my head! I was eight for three months before I turned a tiny more respectable nine as she turned ten. From September 17 until December 25 the two years between 8 and 10 were huge! She told me how important it was to have TWO numbers in your age…I believed her. But the worst birthday ever in the history of my life was when she turned 13 and I was still a humble 11! She was suddenly very grown up and wanted to sit in the room with the “other adults” during after dinner conversations, she had “become a lady” and I was still a mere child. Oh how I hated it! She told me how my life would change, how very different I would be and many other wonderful facts of life that she shared just had me blown away, and green with envy. As an aside it was a little joy to me that I began to develop and when I finally quit trying to hide my budding assets behind layers of clothes and got my first bra my uhhh assets were already larger than what she referred to as her “fried eggs”. I didn’t think much of it until a boy at school asked if I were wearing a “camel-hair sweater”, being dumb and mystified at why he would wonder that I fell into the trap, “No, why?” His answer left me as red in the face as a person with my olive complexion can get…”Because it has two humps in it!” OK so back to the point, I waited anxiously to become the magical regeneration (of course at that time not knowing Dr. Who I wouldn’t have thought about regeneration exactly) and the year finally arrived. I was a little sad that we were going to California for the holidays to visit daddy’s kin because that meant that Joan would miss the big transformation where I would suddenly be the pin-up girl of every pimply faced, buzzed hair cut boy in school! Armed with my first pair of real high-heels, never mind they were only about 2 inches and were the fashionable “thimble heel” which meant it had a little dip in the already short heel which gave it the look that, according to my dad, much to my chagrin, that they were “worn down” and a new pink wool dress, I was on my way to Los Angeles to wow my California cousins and the ones I wanted to impress were already older by months anyway so no big deal! The day arrived, Christmas Day but more importantly my great coming out, I was 13!! OH JOY!! I went to the mirror in the little motel room and looked at myself and much to my surprise I couldn’t see any difference in me from yesterday! My hair was still curly in the wrong places, I still was not allowed to use any type of make-up, and no one seemed to notice that the child who had gone to bed only a few hours before had emerged as an adult ready to be allowed to hear things only whispered behind their hands, or have a boyfriend… well my friend neither of those things happened either. I was still just old me, nothing had changed at all except my age, my heels weren’t any higher and no one was around to herald this change with lights and cameras!

Now, was I going to be a “party pooper” and tell my grandson all of those things? Not at all, I simply smiled at him and said, “I know it Gabe and I can’t wait to see your transformation!” I hope that he doesn’t feel the same disappointment I had, the only revenge being that while I was still 38 Joan turned 40!