A few weeks ago, Hubby’s older daughter came to visit for a few days. Normally, that would have been perfectly fine—if not for the reason she came: her 30th high school reunion. Yikes! How did I end up married to someone with a daughter attending her 30th high school reunion? Because Stepdaughter is not my biological child, I like to cling to the illusion that I’m still young. That little fantasy works just fine until Hubby gleefully reminds me I am technically a cougar, a fact he loves to flaunt at every opportunity. You see, I am fifty days older than Hubby, and he never lets me forget it. To make matters worse, my birthday is in November, and his is in January, which puts him in a whole ‘nother year.

Okay, fine. I begrudgingly admit I am old enough to be Stepdaughter’s mother, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. After all, since Younger Son is only eighteen, I’ve been happily deluding myself into thinking I’m still young enough to be the mother of a teenager—even if he is adopted and people assume I’m his grandmother.

But you know what? I’m not the only one trying to deny the passage of time. To my MATURE readers, see how many of these quotes hit close to home:

1. “Every man desires to live long, but no man desires to be old.” – Jonathan Swift (paraphrased)

2. “Old age is always fifteen years older than I am.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes

3. “Men do not quit playing because they grow old—they grow old because they quit playing.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes

4. “Old age is like everything else. To make a success of it, you’ve got to start young.” – Theodore Roosevelt

5. “Birthdays are good for you. Statistics show that the people who have the most live the longest.” – Larry Lorenzoni

6. “There is still no cure for the common birthday.” – John Glenn

7. “If I’d known I was going to live this long, I’d have taken better care of myself.” – Anonymous

8. “Age is a high price to pay for maturity.” – Tom Stoppard

9. “Life is a moderately good play with a badly written third act.” – Truman Capote

10. “Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional” – Chili Davis

11. “You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely.” – Ogden Nash

12. “We’ve put more effort into helping folks reach old age than into helping them enjoy it.” – Frank Howard Clark

13. “There is no pleasure worth forgoing just for an extra three years in the geriatric ward.” – John Mortimer

14. “You can live to be a hundred if you give up all things that make you want to live to be a hundred.” – Woody Allen

15. “People ask me what I’d most appreciate getting for my eighty-seventh birthday. I tell them, a paternity suit.” – George Burns

16. “Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.” – Mark Twain