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I went to Anchorage for a journalism conference a few weeks ago, leaving the kid and the husband and the household behind. It was like high school. I crashed in a friend’s hotel room, where we stayed up too late eating junk food and talking about boys. Whole stretches of time were unclaimed and available for adventure.

Bonding with a young colleague at a bar one night over ‘80s songs and current fashions, we realized that what was cool when I was in school — pegged pants and long shirts, the B-52s and Duran Duran — was in again. Even that old fogy Henry D. Thoreau would understand. “Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new,” he said.

Eventually, I noticed something different about this cross-generational relationship. Maybe it was the way she gushed about her mom, who’s only a few years older than me, practically inviting me over for a mom-date.

My closer-in-age friend Lynne and I are both in training for half marathons and relay-a-thons, our spring migration of resolutions. Lately our exercise dates have ended with creaky joints and jokes about us being old ladies. That used to be funny, when we were in our late 20s. Now the label sticks, just like those lines around our eyes and mouths, even after a full night of beauty rest.

We see signs of our moms and grammas in every handed-down habit. The way we scold our offspring, a little dog named Bailey in her case and a human kid in mine, and take them everywhere with us. The way we save our grocery bags for garbage liners and flock to special holiday sales, because you never know when you’ll need a bulk package of Post-it notes or a biscuit jar with little dog paws running all over it.

The more we examine these routines, the more we know what we will look like when we’re really old. “I know one thing,” Lynne said. “I’m never going to knit a sweater for my dog.”

Sure, but she’ll knit one for everyone else. We’re knitters now, cranking out homemade gifts with the ferocity of World War II-era volunteers serving in the home guard. We look for bargains the way we once scoured record stores for picture vinyls featuring the Smiths. We even clip coupons.

That’s something my stepdad did when he was my age, filling legal-sized envelopes, one with weekly promotions and another for the deals with longer term expiration dates, the golden tickets of coupons. Now my husband hoards them, reminding me to use a coupon if I’m going to buy coffee when I announce another grocery store outing.

Lynne remembers her grandma sending anything that looked remotely useful along with her care packages. Coupons for cat food and snack cakes, even cleaning products. “At least I don’t save those plastic bread bags,” she said. “My grandma used to have them hanging up all around the kitchen.”

Later that night, back in my own house, I buttered the last piece of bread for my son’s dinner and then washed and dried the thick plastic wrapper, tucking it away because I thought it would make a good bag for my husband’s lunch the next day.

These hobbies and habits don’t necessarily make us old. I always thought I would know when I crossed that line, reaching the moment in this marathon of a life when I became not young anymore, but young at heart. Not an old person, but an older one. Turning 30 fooled me into thinking it would be easy, since I still looked and felt the same. Now that I’m 39, something’s changed.

For as long as I can remember, there have been people younger than me to pick on and babysit, even encourage sometimes, but I only had to turn my head and look the other way to see a long line of those who had been here, where I am, before. Now the column of people behind me snakes out like I’m a Sunday driver holding up traffic.

On the last day of my lost Anchorage weekend, I went out for coffee with my new young friend. We giggled over some of the stories we’d collected, remembering the funny parts in carefully rehearsed quips. She reached into her bag, saying, “I have something for you. I hope you don’t mind, but they were free.”

“Why would I mind,” I said as I took the sample-sized tubes of face wash and moisturizer, getting excited over the fancy label. “Thanks, that’s so sweet of you.”

I sniffed the goods and proclaimed them delightful. Then I twirled the tiny tub of moisturizer, holding it up close to my aging eyes so I could read the small print. “Youthtopia,” it said, “For younger looking skin.”