January | 2015 | thejuliemeister

This may date me, or it may be a trait endemic to DJ’s the world over, but I’m fairly certain that every school dance I attended ended with “Baby Got Back” before the gym lights came on. (It was also likely preceded by KC and Jojo’s “All my Life.”) Thanks to Sir Mix-a-Lot, I knew what an anaconda did and did not want before I actually knew what an “anaconda” was.

Innuendo may have escaped me, but the knowledge that I lacked a bodacious behind did not.

My derriere has no curvature. From the side, it’s hard to tell which aspect is front or back. It’s pitiful. I’m confident that whoever invented these panties had me in mind. I’ve written about body acceptance before, and in general, I do make every effort to love my body, but man, sometimes I wish for a bum capable of breaking the Internet.

One of my besties has the opposite problem. She buys jeans that are too big in the waist to accommodate her backside. I asked her if I could write about her butt, and she agreed. There are good friends, and then there are the friends who are totally ok with it when you ask to write about their butts. (This is the same friend who had the unfortunate task of explaining to both of our mothers that Ginuwine isn’t actually an equine enthusiast.)

My galpal doesn’t understand my fascination with big booties. She thinks of it as a curse. She gets teased sometimes. She wishes she had a more even dispersal between breasts and butt. I can’t help but thinking boobs are great, but the poetic accolades attributed to bottoms far outweigh those for milk-makers.

Think about such greats as the “Thong Song,” “Bootylicious,” “Shake Your Groove Thing,” or my personal favorite, “Big Bottoms,” because how could you leave that behind? Boobs feel so tawdry by comparison.

As with most things, I suppose we always want what we can’t have. Despite countless squats and running literally thousands of miles, my fanny has never really shaped up. I’ll live. But I’ll always wonder what it feels like to actually fill out a pair of jeans and get noticed for it.

The other day I was binge-watching shows on Netflix. It was a cop drama, my fave. The lady cop was going through a box of childhood belongings, and I saw a beanie baby in the mix.

My first thought? “She’s WAY too old to have played with beanie babies as a kid! I played with those! And she’s a grown-up cop!”

Wait a minute. She’s probably late 20’s, same as me.

Holy crap I’m an adult.

I have no clue when it happened, or how I managed not to notice. I’m married. I have several nieces and nephews. My husband and I are thinking about starting a family. I pay taxes. How did this escape me?

Somewhere a shift happened. I’m no longer in that “young” demographic. Teenage soap opera addiction aside (I love me some Pretty Little Liars), I have more in common with the parents in a sitcom than the kids. I’m no longer the youngest person in my office. In my head I’m still a teen.

Maybe that’s just how it goes. One day we realize that we’re in the next phase. We can’t stop the world from moving forward, and if we’re lucky, we’ll keep moving with it.

I’m older now than my mom was when she became a mother. Considering how little I know now, this fact is completely terrifying. It’s finally dawning on me that my parents really were making it up as they went along. I had always assumed that they knew everything. Now as I’m thinking of starting my own family, I realize that I’ll be doing the same.

There is no trick to adulthood. There is no one to tell you if you’re actually doing it right. Well, there are jerks who will give their 2 cents, but nobody really knows for sure. Not even Oprah.