Six years later, I no longer have that problem. I recently renewed my driver's license and was shocked to discover that the picture smiling back at me looks just like my mother. Worse, my hair has started turning gray--something that didn't happen to my mother until she was in her late 40s.

What happened in those six years to turn me from a sixth-grader to my mother? It's simple: I had a child.

I'm only partly kidding here. I recently read a book where the authors, two experts on aging, claim that the price we pay for reproduction is death. (I'll explain more about that later.)

Meanwhile, I am left to wonder why my hair is turning gray, and why the wrinkle between my eyebrows--caused by repeatedly making my "concentration face"--now never leaves, even when I'm relaxed.