Getting older

I used to love my birthday. I loved making a big deal out of it and I wanted everyone to know it was my birthday. When I was 16. As I got older, well I started to realize I was getting older, and every year I started to think, oh I used to think so and so was so old when they were this age. And you know, it really wasn't that cool any more to expect the world to stop for my birthday. When I turned 20 I remember thinking, there is no way Star Wars can be 20 years old, I saw it in the theatres. Yeah I saw at least one of the Star Wars movies in the theatre, when I was 3. The original came out the year I was born. And there were all these kids I knew that coudln't believe I had seen it in the theatre, because it was SO LONG AGO. After that it didn't seem like I should make such a huge deal out of my birthday any more. Now granted I still liked to go out with friends for a few more years. But now I would really not do anything outside of just Jeff and I going out for my birthday. It's just another reminder to everyone out there that yes, I am a year older. And although I don't mind when people tell me I'm young, I do mind when they tell me I'm old.
Well today I had a moment. A moment when it wasn't my birthday, but someone made me feel really really old.
We took Malcolm to get his passport picture taken. We go to the store and a nice girl takes probably 40 pictures before we get one that should work. As I'm paying I made the comment that I was so glad we have digital cameras now. Could you imagine doing this with a film camera? The girl working there said, "oh I know that would be hard. My mom was telling me you didn't used to need a picture for ID. Could you imagine that? Like even for a Saskatchewan drivers license, you just had to give your signature, and it was on the honour system. Could you imagine that?"
I looked at her in disbelief and said "no, no I can't". Then I left the store thikning, this girl who looks like she's about 18-20, just equated me with her mom. Because you know what, I had a SK drivers license when you didn't need a picture for it. Now what this girl probably didn't know is that it really wasn't that long ago. It was only in 2003 that it was mandatory to have photo ID with your drivers license in SK. Before that you had just the card that you signed. I think starting in 2001 or 2000 was when they started phasing in photo ID. I think you could get an "optional photo ID" around 1997 or something. And of course I got one right away, since there were certain places that would prefer you had it. But really it's only 6 years ago that it was made mandatory in our province. I won't tell you when I got my first license, however, it was beofre 6 years ago. And some girl in a photo store can't remember that far back anyway.