A Real Life Benjamin Button.

At eleven years old, I was roughly 5'6". This posed a predicament for me, because my family hadn't yet discovered the 'junior' sizes at clothing stores.  We only knew about kid sizes and women sizes.  Growing up in a small town, you had limited options as to were you could acquire clothing.  In our case, K-Mart was our go to place to shop.  Every year in my family, the girls would get new Sunday dresses for Easter.  It was an exciting time.  My mom drove me and my little sister to K-Mart, and we started looking around for something suitable.  My sister was still short enough to fit into the kid sizes, but I (obviously) was not.  I moseyed around the women's section for awhile, and came out with something I thought was absolutely darling.  It was a deep green shade with some sort of African print.  Ankle length.  Short sleeve crinkle jacket, with shoulder pads attached.  It also had a wooden necklace attached to the front of the dress.  It was totally boxy on my 11 year old frame, but I picked it out and wore it to church on Easter Sunday.

As I walked into my Valiant 11 Sunday School class, I casually sat down next to my teacher.  She looked over at me and winked, saying:  "I like your dress, Chelsea."  I looked over at her and noticed:  we were wearing the exact same thing.  And oh yeah . . . she was in her early sixties.

At age 11.

When I was twelve years old, my mom and aunt took my visiting cousins and myself to the local beauty school to get manicures.  I was so excited.  I loved getting my nails done, and always felt so proud after.  As the nail technician filed and polished my nails, she asked questions in an effort to make me feel comfortable.  After we chatted for a bit, said technician asked me a bold question:  "How old are you, Chelsea?"  I replied, honestly, "Twelve.  I'm in sixth grade."  She gasped in unbelief--and proceeded to call all of her friends over and have them guess my age.  One woman guessed 20, another 25, and another 15.  After revealing my actual age, one woman said, "No way.  You've got to be kidding me!  I would have thought you'd be at least twenty four, and have a couple of kids!"

At age 12.

It was 2003, and I was thirteen.  In middle school, we'd celebrate the holidays in the cafeteria.  For thanksgiving, our parent's were allowed to come to the school and eat with us.  My friends and I didn't have our parent's come . . .we just sat by ourselves at a table.  As the end of lunch hour drew near, the lunch ladies went to each table to remind us kids that it was almost time to head back to class.  When the lunch lady got to my table of friends she said, "Oh, you guys are okay.  You have your mom here" (looking at me).

 Me at age 13.

Last week, as I handed my supervisor my work schedule I noted that I would be coming in on a weekend day because my husband had to work. He replied,  "Sweetie, you look like you're about twelve. How young do the marry them off around here?"  I laughed and said, "I'm actually twenty one."  He said, "Well, you sure don't look it, Chelsea."

Me at 21.

Contradictory?  I think yes.

At this rate, I'll be a baby in a few years.