Age...just a number really

Well today, three people asked me if i was still in highschool. One was a school teacher and then the other two were just regular customers who i've always seen but i guess never spoken to. evidently, i appeared younger than i really am. One of them was astonished that i was not in highschool but already had my bachelor's. the other one was a political activist who used the store as a forum for the few minutes that he was in, to view his dislike for the current president. i listened.....don't really like to have those conversations there. and then a guy casually asked me if i was 17 or 18. i had a good laugh....so yeah, maybe i do act young. another customer calls me "smiley." most of them refer to me as "the girl who smiles all the time." imagine what will happen on the day i am not smiling! so yeah, for many people, when you smile a lot, they assume that you do not have responsibilities and that you are therefore, young and carefree. well the latter is true for me. i guess i will always see myself as a girl (well duh!!!) because i feel sometimes that i can just reach over and tap the shoulder of the little girl i used to be. guess i didnt come far. but as for the responsibilities part, maybe i do not have a family of my own, but i do have a family and i do have other things on my mind at any given moment...but it is my decision whether i let them bog me down of whether i will put on the smile and mean it.
and there's something i learnt a long time ago....there is nothing as powerful as a smile. it makes people feel appreciated and in the end, you feel good about smiling. about the wrinkles, who gives a sh*t! and then again, if one really cared about wrinkles, there's botox now. the genius that is science is always coming up with something for society. that will never stop. i once knew a friend who got braces to have a perfect smile and when the braces were removed, she could never quite manage a real smile...always seemed as if she was accomodating the metal of the braces.
furgie (the great philosopher that she is...and social observer, etc...cough, eh hem!) once said that if someone was coming towards you with the intention of killing you and you smiled, maybe they will not kill you and hence, you will end up saving your life....that was her reply to someone who asked her why we smile at people all the time. (yeah, and furgie, i do listen to your theories....). so in all that, i have figured that even though i've gotten a few laugh lines and i can see crow's feet around my eyes when i smile, i like them...and i am proud of them and they really do not make a person look older because to me, seeing a smile is like having a little bit of God smiling down on you...since He exists in everyone....therefore, theoretically, one will look younger instead of older.
and back to the little girl i used to be....i was telling my friend in the store the other day...."you know, everything you need to learn in your life, and everything that you will carry with you throughout your life comes from the things you learn when you are between the ages of 2 and 7. otherwise, things just expand from there. " we were talking about her son, who has just begun to talk...
"goodnight and goodbye!" he he he