By Courtney Dercqu 
You’ve had that moment, right?
That moment when you don’t recognize the woman standing in front of you. Her hair is grayer. The skin around her eyes is a bit darker. Even without noticing the small details, that face is different. It’s aged.
And as I stared at her yesterday afternoon, all dolled up and nowhere to go, it dawned on me: My parents will never see this version of me.
My mom will never get to see hands that look like hers. She’ll never recognize the wrinkles or the sun spots. My father-in-law joked about gray hair with my husband—“Took you long enough,” he laughed. We smiled.
Yesterday we were 20. Now, we stand on the precipice of 40.
I thought about what my father-in-law said, because it’s not just my face that’s different; my husband’s face is different too.
And though my in-laws will fortunately continue to make playful comments, I slipped into the dreadful reminder that my dad will never repeat those same jokes to me. I’ll never hear him call out my aging. I’ll continue changing in photos he’ll never see.
When we talk openly about grief, we usually hone in on the things they’ll miss. For me, it was my wedding day and college graduation.
And I’ve thought about the other things. The pregnancies. The births. The late nights when confusion and sleep deprivation and self-doubt sweep in. My parents will never see me fall into self-love, finally accepting the parts of myself that felt like a burden in my 20s (or even my early- to mid-30s).
A lot felt like a burden back then. Pretty much everything about who I was, what I wore, and what I liked. Shame crept through every decision. It felt a lot like being 12 and hiding the fact that I was still playing Pokémon Silver on my berry pink Game Boy Color as my mom drove me and some (much cooler) girl home after school. Back then, all my mom wanted was for me to make friends. All I wanted to do was evolve my Cyndaquil.
It’s a lot like that now, too.
Everyone else wants to break away from their family, sigh at the overbearing motherly check-ins, and complain via text about this, vent over FaceTime about that. And all I see is the life I’m desperate to live.
Like my Pokémon from back in the day, I too am waiting to evolve.
And yet, yesterday in the mirror, it appeared that I had.
I’m older.
And the people I love most in this world will never get to see that. Is there any crueler trick than the one fate’s played on me?
My favorite idiom goes like this: Age is just a number.
And that number continues blossoming, commingling with other terms like orphan and geriatric pregnancy, dictating a world in which my younger years were spent at oncology offices and burial plots.
And somewhere along the line, my face aged while the rest of me is still playing catch-up.
by Marissa Bader 
by Amber Watson 
