Monday, April 1, 2013

The Best and Worst Things about Getting Older

You no longer have a "bedtime", which means that you can stay up as late as you want.

But if you stay up as late as you want, the next day you'll be like Frankenstein's monster and end up knocking people over and walking into walls, because that's what often happens when people are sleepwalking.

You can eat ice cream for dinner.

If you eat ice cream for dinner, you'll either obsess over the number of calories you just consumed or you'll spend the next two hours at the gym trying to make up for the fact that you ate ice cream for dinner.

You don't have to pretend to know how to dance at trendy night clubs where everyone else is dressed in tight clothes and you're wearing baggy clothes to cover up the fact that you kept eating ice cream for dinner.

You end up having to do the chicken dance at your friend's wedding, because apparently no one has the nerve to say to the bride and groom that the chicken dance is stupid. (And when was the last time you saw a chicken dance, anyway?)

You don't have to concern yourself with worries of who's going to invite you to your school's biggest dance.

You do have to concern yourself with all the invitations to your friends' engagement parties, weddings, and baby showers, while you are still single and continue to go on dates with guys you're not really interested in but you date because a small part of you is afraid that you'll never have your own engagement party, wedding, and baby shower.

You don't get carded if you want to buy alcohol.

It makes you wonder if you really look that old because no one asks to see your ID anymore, which makes you contemplate plastic surgery, except then you'll have to tell people that the only reason you got it was so that you would get carded when you buy alcohol.

You don't have to go to school anymore.

If you're like me and you choose to go to grad school, then you will be in school FOREVER. (Or at least, that's what it'll feel like.)

If you're optimistic or idealistic, then you can look at the successful people who are your age or younger than you and think, If they can do it, then so can I!

If you're pessimistic or as neurotic as I am, then you will look at those successful people who are your age or younger and think, Why is it that they're so successful and it took me more than a month just to figure out how to use all the apps on my cell phone?

It's my birthday today. I'm thirty-two years old. I realized that I'm the same age as several of the women in the romantic comedies that I like to watch, like Carrie Bradshaw in the first season of Sex and the City and Bridget Jones. I don't have the kind of life that so many of them lead, though, partly because they apparently only spend about 10% of their time working and the rest of the time obsessing over the hot guys that love them for who they are and not for the fact that they're ten years younger than the guys or the fact that they're a size two (in Carrie's case, not Bridget Jones').

I'm not where I thought I'd be at age thirty-two (married with kids, successful, and at least ten pounds lighter), but on the other hand, at least I'm living in a city that I love, I haven't given up writing (my last act as a thirty-one-year-old was to submit a story I wrote to a literary magazine), and I refuse to "settle" for a guy just so I won't have to be alone. I'm living my life on my terms, despite the fact that there are still several people who try to get me to live, work, and date the way they want me to. And that is something.

But I still wouldn't mind meeting a great guy who doesn't mind the fact that I'm in my thirties (so many guys my age or older only want to date women in their twenties, though I know not all of them are like this) and also doesn't mind the fact that I will never be a size two. Maybe I'll meet him before my thirty-third birthday. Here's hoping!

What about you? What do you think are the best or worst things about getting older?

16 comments:

  1. At 46 almost 47, this is not where I thought I'd be - sitting in dorm taking classes to get an English degree. I already thought I' have at least one book published and working on a second. But life got in the way. But thank goodness I can still pursue that dream and goal because my love and passion have not died, I still love writing. As for being in school forever, I can relate, there are days - like now when I should be writing a paper for class and I am here "defusing from class" before I start homework. Plus I have classes in the evenings three nights a week. This being one of those nights.

    Getting older means I look forward to those naps I used to dread.

    I can look back at the advice my parents gave and see * they were right* ( shhhh, don't tell them I said that).

    I can choose my destiny instead of have it chosen for me.

    And lastly I can get to know me and find change and mistakes are good things.


    Debi

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    1. Hi Debi,
      I like taking naps too; they can be very refreshing, especially because I have a habit of waking up early every morning. I especially like your point about how mistakes are good things; I grew up believing that mistakes were bad and that they could ruin me, yet I've made plenty of mistakes and am still standing (mostly).
      Maybe you could write a book about what it's like to go back to school in your forties; I bet a lot of people could relate to that.

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    2. I've been thinking of that, have been keeping journals, and thinking of just that. After all right now I think I'm the only 40 something women here. there are a few close to my age. There are days it is a challenge.


      Debi

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  2. Happy birthday! We're nearly the same age :-) Your list is so true - except for one part (in my experience). I love coming down to the States because I get carded all the time, mainly by 15 year old cashiers at grocery stores. Makes me feel so young!
    I feel guilty taking naps - I should be editing!

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    1. Hi Deniz,
      Thanks! I used to be a teenage cashier at a grocery store; the rule was that we had to card anyone who didn't look at least 35 (or maybe it was 40, I can't remember), even though the drinking age is 21. People never seemed to mind if I asked for their ID, because in a way it was a compliment that they looked young.
      You don't have to feel guilty for taking a nap, because it'll give you more energy to edit later.

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  3. happy happy birthday!!!
    (We're never where we thought we'd be)

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    1. Hi Lynda,
      Thanks! Yes, and I guess that's what makes life so unpredictable. I wish that I'll be where I hope to be by the time I turn 40, though.

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  4. Happy birthday!!! To me the thing that I most notice about getting older is realizing how little things matter, things that I used to obsess over and fret about and freak out over. Now I watch others fretting and I smile condescendingly because they're so silly to worry about not getting invited to so-and-so's party or that they're boyfriend didn't buy them flowers or that they spilled pasta sauce on their jeans.

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    1. Hi mmarinaa,
      Thanks! I never really liked going to parties, because it's usually just people standing around, checking each other out, and making small talk; I'd rather go to a get-together that focused on something fun, like watching a play, going out to dinner, or playing Frisbee or something.

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  5. Hope you had a very happy birthday! This is a very funny list. I'm also really sad to realize Carrie Bradshaw and Bridget Jones were both 32! Where I stand now, they seem older! Well, they've been saying 40 is the new 20, and there's some truth in that.

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    1. Hi New York Cliche,
      For my birthday I treated myself to a Shakespeare play; I watched Measure for Measure at the Goodman Theatre downtown. And the ticket only cost ten dollars, because I got a student discount! It had been so long since I'd seen a play, so it was fun.
      I used to wonder why Carrie Bradshaw and her friends seemed so cynical (except Charlotte) in their thirties. Now I'm starting to understand. :)

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  6. Happy Birthday! A few days late, but I'm glad to read in the comment above that you had a good one. :) And your latest list was entertaining as always.

    I'd been bummed that in the last few years getting carded has become a rare treat, but I recently had to renew my driver's license and didn't realize that the process would required a whole new picture. So unshowered me covered the unsightliness with a baseball hat & went to the DMV - and they made me take the hat OFF! Now I hope I never get carded again.

    Not settling is a brilliant move. Checking off boxes by a certain age is fulfilling in a way, but trust me, being with the wrong person is often far more lonely than being alone.

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    1. Hi Nicki,
      Thanks! My driver's license picture is okay, but it's one of the only pictures of me where I actually do look okay; I don't like the way I look in other pictures, which is why I don't have any pictures of myself on this blog.
      I've read blog posts (and even the occasional dating profile) and articles from guys who whine about "superficial" girls who don't want to date them and how the girls are so mean because they refuse to settle. (On the other hand, I'm willing to bet that many of those same guys would bend over backwards to get a date with a girl who looked like a Sports Illustrated model.) I admit that there are some girls who are holding out for an impossible ideal (I am not one of them, though), but I do think it's okay to hold out for the right person rather than a jerk who complains about superficial girls.

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  7. Happy belated birthday!

    You're making me laugh and feel for you at the same time. Yeah, all that kind of stuff sounds great when you're young.

    This is for you: http://www.buzzfeed.com/whitneyjefferson/32-is-the-realistic-parody-of-taylor-swifts-22-youve-been-wa

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    1. Hi Theresa,
      Thanks for the link to the video! I loved it, especially because I could relate to it; it basically described my life, especially the part where she said that the only thing she was going to do that day was work. I saw on the comments section for the Youtube page that someone wrote "I hope 32 isn't like this"; all I could think, "Yes, it actually is like that."

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    2. I'm waiting for the 42 version.

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