Where's the 2003 me?

My friend Becky tweeted this yesterday: "saw my reflection in the window and thought "who is that old lady staring at me?" . Amen sister! I don't know what I am doing in my sleep but every morning I look like I have been run over by a Mack truck. Wrinkles, crazy hair, and sagging skin greet me as I wonder what the hell happened to me.

Then what happened starts hollering from the other room to let me know that they are ready to get up and be served their breakfast. Motherhood has done a number on me. Fourteen months of broken sleep left a permanent wrinkle under one eye, the not so happy hour drinks and the desperate visits to McDonalds because the kids will play on the playground and leave me alone (they get yogurt parfaits but I end up eating fries) have added an extra twenty pounds. And the general screeching of two two year olds has caused a permanently tense body.

But in my head I am still twenty seven when I slept nine or ten hours a night, worked a nothing job or not all, and did whatever I wanted with my time. I felt I was at the height of my attractiveness and actually told my husband, with a straight face, "you're lucky to be married to someone who is getting more attractive the older they get". Oh how the mighty have fallen! My vain self did not realize that what I said was true, just not for my husband but for me.

Because as I head downhill, my husband just gets hotter. And I know the key: he spends around an hour with our kids during the weekdays and works out every afternoon. Oh, and his skin seems impervious to wrinkles. It is annoying really, he should have the decency to have a potbelly. Aren't wives supposed to be the hot ones in a relationship?

Last night driving to a meeting, I realized I was in the car alone and could actually listen to real music. My husband had the latest Kings Of Leon cd in and as I listened to it, windows rolled down, I felt kind of hot again. It might have been the lyrics "always mad and usually drunk, but I felt like the song was calling out to me: "2003 Guavalicious, come back". And for a moment I was.

The 2003 may be lost forever in my reality but it is totally back in my head. Perhaps the answer is not diet and wrinkle creams but instead rock music and low lighting. And picking up some Chubby Hubby ice cream for my husband once a week.

BTW, the "2003 me" phrase is totally and shamelessly stolen from my friend Amy who is still looking for the pre marriage version of her husband. Perhaps he is out having a beer with 2003 me.