I'm old. Old, old, old.

I am old. I am one of the old people now. I am no longer one of the young people. And I know this is true because today I went to the mall. And at the mall I discovered, to my dismay, that there are several stores that I am now too old to shop in. And I discovered THAT because when I went in them, the 16-year-olds who work there gave me "the look." You know, the one that says "Hey old lady. You must have wandered in here by accident. The old people clothes are next door."

It's not like I was going to buy them. I'm visibly pregnant and would obviously not fit into them. But I only get a morning off about once every 6 months, and I was in a mall and I hadn't gone shopping in awhile and I just wanted to look. But everywhere I went, I kept getting "the look."

Perhaps it wasn't so much because I am old, but that these days I dress more for comfort than for style. I'm wearing a pair of maternity jeans that are very comfy but won't stay up for longer than 15 minutes so I constantly have to hike them up as I'm walking. And since the beautiful winter jacket I bought last year no longer does up, I've been wearing an old polar fleece jacket that I used to curl in. It's in good shape because I only wore it for a few hours once a week, and the reason why it still fits is that I bought it big enough to wear several layers underneath while I curl -- so definitely not in style anymore. But I just can't justify spending hundreds of dollars on clothes that I'm not going to wear for very long, so I'm doing my best to make do with what I've got.

So I guess that means that I'm not exactly stylish at the moment. Which makes me old. Because young Denice would not have been caught dead in public in some of the things I've been wearing, no matter what the reason. And that is how I know for sure that my 20s are definitely behind me. When you have a husband who is still in his 20s and no kids, you can fool yourself into thinking that you are still very young and hip for 32. But I think it's time I faced reality. I'm old. That and 20-year-olds probably don't use "hip" to describe themselves anymore.

Hey - come to think of it, what are 16-year-olds doing working at 11 a.m. on a Thursday anyway? Is the Calgary labour shortage so great that kids are skipping school to make the big bucks at Le Chateau? Seriously?