By: Darcie Thom, Citizen Staff

Last week, I received an e-mail about a Nationwide contest for women who lie about their age. “The Best Lie About Your Age Contest” is looking to find the most creative and outrageous lie about a woman’s age and will reward the winner with a $1000.00 credit for a day of pampering and services and will be featured on DefineYourself.ca.

With age comes knowledge, beauty and grace, right?! So I question why people are so scared to admit their age. My personal belief is that age is only a number, it doesn’t have any play on life, how to live it or how to enjoy it. Embark on those years that you have accumulated, the knowledge that you have gained and the beauty that you have become.

I’m not ashamed to admit that I turned 24 for the fifth time, and the sixth time is soon coming! I enjoyed that number, that age. I had some of my most-fondest memories at that age, and to be honest, I think that’s when I really started living and not just surviving.

When we are teenagers, we can’t wait to grow up and when we grow up, we want to let loose. Sometimes it feels like maybe we read the “life manual” wrong, like we are doing things a little out of order, kinda like ordering the dessert first.

I still shake my head when my Mom says “one day you’ll understand” because, well, deep down inside, she’s right. I definitely appreciate the input but I’m the type of person that has to experience things on my own, like many do. It’s a part of growing and becoming the person that you want to be, that comes with age, with that crazy number.

The phrase  “over the hill” almost sounds good! After years of having to climb that hill, you finally reach the top. Maybe it’s all downhill from there, but you can roll down, run down or even just stop for a rest and take a full-view look around, enjoy every past moment and look ahead to the future. Why does that part have to be the hardest?!

It seems that there are so many more rules and guidelines when a certain age has been met. Of course, not everything is acceptable at an older age, if it were, then I would throw myself on the floor and kick and scream whenever I felt the need to, when things aren’t going so smoothly! I’m almost positive I’m not the only one that feels that way!

The phrase “when I grow up” is so overrated. When are we really grown up and why do we have to act our age? Life would be incredibly boring if all we did was act our age, our lives would be so predictable.

It really doesn’t matter how old you are at the end of the day, it matters most the kind of person you are and if exaggerating helps to keep a person feeling good about themselves, then by all means do so with grace!