【正文】 it’s just a fact of who we are. I enjoy growing older and wiser and learning from my mistakes every single day. I’m happy, for example, that I no longer eat paste, like I did when I was twentyfour. And I’m happy that in a few years I’ll be able to get halfprice tickets to movies and museums. Considering how often I go to the movies and museums, I could save upward of thirty dollars a year. When we were kids, all we wanted was to be older .When we were seven and a half and someone said we were only seven, we were furious. We probably even cried bout it. Can you imagine doing that now as an adult? “This is Marsha. She’s fortytwo.” “Fortytwo and a half! You always fet the half! I’m practically fortytwo and three quarters!” I don’t know at what age people stop wanting to be older. People seem to enjoy their twenties and thirties. It must be around forty, when you’re “over the hill.” I don’t even know what that means and why it’s a bad thing. When I go hiking and I get over the hill, that １５ means I’m past the hard part and there’s a snack in my future. That’s a good thing as far as I’m concerned. People seem to be shy about their age through their fifties and sixties, but then once they hit seventy or eighty, they start telling people again because it’s such a huge victory to have made it that far. No one gets to one hundred and tells people they’re only niyfive. So I don’t know why anyone has to lie about those middle years. We should celebrate every year that we made it through and every year that we’re happier and healthier. Because honestly, that’s the bestcase scenario. And the bottom line is we are who we are—we look a certain way, we talk a certain way, we walk a certain way. I strut because I’m a supermodel, and sometimes I gallop for fun. When we learn to accept that, other people learn to accept us. So be who you really are. Embrace who you are. Literally. Hug yourself. Accept who you are. Unless you’re a serial killer. I know it seems easy and breezy for me to say, but trust me—it’s okay to be you. If you had called me fifteen years ago and told me I was going to end up being a Cover Girl, I would have said,” No way” and “How’d you get this number?” But look at me now. I’m totally myself and I’m an internationally known, widely sought after supermodel. I even went to Paris one time. １６ Chapter 2 I don’t like clutter. I firmly believe that there is a place for everything and everything should be in its I know there’s a name for people like me: neat. It is astounding to me how much stuff we all have. Our closets are full of stuff. Our drawers are full of stuff. Our stuff is piled on top of other stuff. And the older we get the more stuff we have because over the years we buy more and more stuff and we never want to let go of anything. Nowadays people are a little more aware of how much stuff they have because there’s a bit of a social stigma if you have too much stuff. There’s even a name for the people who have the most stuff. They’re called hoarders. Back in the day they were just called grandmothers. If you want to clean out your house and get rid of stuff, you can always do a good spring cleaning every year. Or you can do what I do. Move. I move a lot. I’ve moved about ten times over the past fifteen years. I don’t move for the sole purpose of getting rid of stuff. I’m not crazy. I also move so that I never have to wash any windows. “Is that a smudge? Time to pack it up. Let’s go.” When you’re packing up a house, you’re forced to decide what you really need versus what you can get rid of. You might have been holding on to cases and cases of empty glass jars, but once you have to pack them up and move them, you realize maybe you’re not going to harvest your own honey. My mama is similar to me in that she also likes to move a lot. Mama has moved thirtytwo times since 1952. It’s so funny because I remember sometimes I would e home from school and there would be a note on the door that said, “I moved. Try and find me!” And I would spend hours and hours trying to find the new house. Sometimes I would find it by nightfall but sometimes I wouldn’t. Actually this is really funny—one time she accidentally fot to leave a note and I had no idea she had even moved. I was living in the house with a beautiful Mexican family for about three months before I realized they weren’t my cousins visiting from out of town. They were so nice. They called me “Quien es, quien es,” which I thought was a beautiful name. Anyway, my mama might be similar to me as far as moving around goes, but as far as clutter is concerned she’s a little different. When she moved into the house she lives in now (I １７ think she’s gonna stay there for a while—they say the thirtysecond time is the charm), she made it a point to tell me how excited she was because she was going to downsize. She was getting rid of all the stuff she didn’t need anymore and starting fresh in her new house. I was so proud of her. I went over to help her settle in and I assumed when I got there I wouldn’t have to unpack much more than a pillow and a spoon. Not so. Let me share with you all of the items Betty “I Am Downsizing” DeGeneres asked movers to wrap up, place in a box, seal up in the box, put in a van, and move into a whole new house so that I could cut open the box, take out the items, and unwrap them: 1. A threehole punch. 2. A singlehole punch. 3. A VHS tape of Abs of Steel. 4. An unopened VHS tape of Hip Hop Abs. 5. A harmonica. 6. Another harmonica. 7. A third harmonica. 8. A rusty sifter. 9. A colander from 1953. 10. Biscuit cutters. Many of those items have moved thirtytwo