The big aging panic

Last night I was back in bed, a mere few hours after I'd woken up because I had worked a night shift Tuesday night which I was still buckled from and I had to be up at silly O'clock this morning for work. I was really tired but I had spent most of my day sleeping or trying to sleep so I was struggling a little. As I lay in bed despairing of how tired I was I had a sudden thought about how on my next birthday I would turn 36 and then just continuously get older. My hair needs to be dyed more often now (for grey coverage), I am starting to see traces of visible lines on my face and even though I am most definitely in the age bracket for anti aging creams, I have never ever bought one. I am single and childless (admittedly by choice) but I had chosen this moment to panic about the possibility that I might want and not have children in the future (you'd think at my age I would know if this was something I should be panicking about but nope). I am finding it is taking less time for me to steadily to become less fit upon taking a break from the gym and much much more time for to me to catch up after said break (which I am still on but hopefully not for much longer). This is what sleep deprivation does to me. Now last night I put my anxiety at bay by breaking out my secret weapon (and no it is not the long list of men on snapchat who want to show me their willies - despite my haggard, almost 40 year old head), my body scan meditation app. Body scan meditation is actually supposed to be used to relax you so that much later on when you go to bed you don't have tension in your body and this done by a soothing voice which talks you through relaxing your entire body from your head to your toes. I am a cheaty cheater so I use it when I cant sleep and usually find I don't get beyond the head before I am off in the land of nod where my worries can't touch me.

I know that this is a very temporary solution because the aging isn't anything I can seem to slow down or at least if someone has come up with a not horrifying/surgical approach to this then they are not sharing. Even if I could find some sort of pixie magic that would keep me perpetually younger looking then it really would only solve half my problems. The bigger issue I have is this fear that I am not where I would like to be in my life and I am not sure I will ever reach this mystical place. Will I remain alone, well its probably a bit soon to say. The only thing I know for certain is that I'm not much of a cat lady. Perhaps I could become a crazy book lady instead, books make better company and shed less.

I  am also only getting started in social care. It took me seven years post degree to finally get my foot properly on the ladder and this makes me feel a bit unattractively sweaty. I know there's nothing more I can do at this stage because I like my job and there's no sneaky way to get myself into a position higher up the ladder without putting the work in. Also if there was I sure as hell would not be ready for whatever that entailed. All the same I am a naturally anxious person so I will probably go on to feel a nagging sense of unease about where I am versus where I think I should be in all of my life, work not excluded. 

I am not sure what the purpose of this post is really except to blurt out all my fears on the big wide interweb and hope that this lessens them somehow or perhaps someone will tell me the secret to looking young is actually naps and netflix and if that's the case then I already have it nailed.