I turned 32 a couple of weeks ago.
32.
Sigh
I know 32 is not old, but it is the oldest I’ve ever been. J Plus, I had not even grown accustomed to being 31 yet and had only gotten used to be 30 about 6 months ago – so the years are starting to pile up.
But, as I have been reflecting on my decades on this planet, I have come to notice a few things. These are not opinions, these are observations. And there is a difference. An opinion is attached to an emotion and that emotion is almost always negative. As soon as you hear someone say, ‘Well, in my opinion….’, you can almost guarantee that what comes next will be something like, ‘she is white trash and a crack whore.’ Usually if it’s not a negative statement, than the person will use the word, ‘believe’.
‘I believe that Erik from ‘TrueBlood’ would make the best Christian Grey.’
‘What?! No way! In my opinion, Erik is too old to play Christian Grey.’
‘Well, anyone would be better than Robert Pattinson. I am sooo tired of him and I think he’s not even cute; he looks creepy. But, that’s just my opinion.’
See how that works.
So, like I said, I have compiled some observations. Observations are neutral. They stand in the middle of Ms. Opinionated and Mr. I Believe. An observation is just stating the obvious; it is what it is. Well, at least in my opinion, that’s what it is. Lol. Hehe.
Here we go.
- Grey hair happens long before you are ‘old’. I always thought that the greys started coming in sometime in your early 50s. And even though my own dad was already getting salt and peppered in his late twenties, I still had a mini breakdown when I discovered my own silver strands right around the 30 mark. I think I even said to my husband, “Hey, look! I’ve been coloring my hair so long, I didn’t even realize that my real color is still blondish. Look – right here by my temples – my hair is blonder.” My husband laughed and then pointed out than in addition to going grey, I must also be going blind.
- Pimples happen long after you are no longer ‘young’. In fact, I think I get more pimples now that I’m older than I did when I was younger. But someone explain this to me. How is it that you can have pimples covering your chin – but then your cheeks be so dry that nothing, short of mayonnaise will bring moisture back into them? Maybe because, just like everything else on your body, the slowing down of your oil production is a very gradual thing. Maybe in regards to your face, it starts at your scalp and works its way down? I don’t know. I used to believe that old adage that if you had pimples as an adult, than your face would probably retain its youthful elasticity. I estimated – based on that – that I shouldn’t see my first wrinkle till right about the time I saw my first grey hair. Early 50s. I spent last Friday night getting my grey colored and sitting on the couch with a Biore strip covering my chin, anti-aging cream around my eyes, and mayonnaise on my cheeks.
- People will tell you that life isn’t easy…..but they won’t tell you it sucks ass a lot of the time either. Someone might say their life sucks (which you then attribute to something they have personally done to themselves) or someone might say that, ‘life isn’t fair’. The problem with that statement is that you can’t help but recall being a child and whining because your brother’s piece of cake had more confetti sprinkles on it than yours did. It’s just not the same as whining because your insurance company won’t pay for your prescription medicine and you have to decide between being able to go to the bathroom without pain or your daughter being able to attend cheer classes. And in the end, it doesn’t matter anyways because one way or the other, you are going to suffer your decision. If your bladder doesn’t kill you, your daughter will.
- If someone does tell you that life sucks ass (for everyone, in general), they usually won’t tell you why. Maybe it’s because it’s different for everyone and my bladder could be another woman’s handicapped child, or sexist boss. It’s all relative, right? Or maybe it’s because there are white elephants that no one wants to mention. Maybe the term ‘marriages go through cycles’ is really code for, ‘I go through cycles where I want to back over my husband with my car.’ But, you can’t really say that of course. Actually, I think I did say something to that affect one time, but my mother-in-law failed to see the humor in it.
- And speaking of those ‘elephants’….’raising children is hard.’ Code: There are days that I do not like my children – at all. Go ahead and gasp, but there are days that the only thing that’s keeping me from packing a bag and moving to the beach all by my lonesome is the fear of what others might say. Ironic. I’m not worried about the irreparable damage to my children, but the irreparable damage to my reputation from the ladies of the PTA. I’m sure when I was a child, there were days when I ‘hated’ my mother and imagined running away and finding a new mother. That’s normal. Everyone says so. So, I don’t take it personal when my son, ‘D’ packs his baseball bag with all of his toys and marches out the front door screaming, ‘SEE! THIS IS WHY I WANT TO GO LIVE WITH MY DAD!’ Likewise, my son shouldn’t take it personal when I grab my purse and march out the front door screaming, ‘SEE! THIS IS WHY I WANT TO GO TO THE BAR!’
- ‘Being Happy’ is over-rated. Or, I guess I should say it’s over-emphasized. Happiness is just like any other emotion. It comes and goes. You can be happy one day and sad the next or both all in the same day. You can go through weeks being in a pleasant mood or a whole year in your doldrums. It’s like the weather and in as really the only thing you can do when it rains is to grab your umbrella or stay inside – but you cannot make it stop raining. Happiness like all the other emotions is affected by so many variables. Sometimes, it comes down to the simple fact that a certain hormone has shat on your parade and even though it was sunny the day before, you are going to have a shit storm that day. I guess the prevailing thought is that overall you should be happy. As, in you should have more happy days than sad ones. But, what about all the other emotions out there? I know I’m not limited to just two. I’ve had days where I was anxious and days where I was giddy, days where I was a woman on a mission, and days when all I thought about was going home and holing up in the bedroom with my husband for the whole night. To me, horny is a whole lot better than happy. J Maybe, instead of happy and sad, it can be broken down into positive and negative. Your life should be positive overall. But, if your life isn’t positive overall – does that mean your life has less value? I’m not an overly religious person, but I’ve read the bible and it seemed to me that many of the great men in the bible did not have ‘positive lives’. Men that were sainted and revered by us today were beheaded, tortured, enslaved, crucified…. I wouldn’t necessarily call that a positive experience. I don’t tell my children, ‘All I want is for you to be happy.’ For starters, my son, ‘D’ would be most happy sitting naked on the couch, surrounded by all of his toy guns, and eating candy. Every day – all day. And that’s not what I want for him. I don’t want him to grow up and have a singular goal of being happy and doing whatever he wants to achieve that goal. It’s perfectly ok to just be ‘marginal’ sometimes.
I hope my ‘observations’ do not cause any one to have a ‘negative’ day today. To end on an enlightened note, here are some observations that are very random and really don’t make a whit of sense.
-For the most part if you eat a cheeseburger and then eat another one, someone will almost certainly comment on it. ‘Wow! You must be hungry!’ But, if you eat two or three pieces of pizza, usually no one will notice. And I find that to be true, no matter how big or small the slices or burgers might be.
- The same is true for soda. If you drink a can of soda or a bottle of soda (8-16oz), then you usually feel kind of bad if you reach for another. At least, I do. I hear myself say, ‘I can’t believe I just drank 3 cans of Dr. Pepper.’ However, when I’m at a restaurant or I get a fountain drink from 7-Eleven, I think nothing of getting the ‘Big Gulp’. That’s 46oz of Dr. Pepper and 0% remorse.
- I don’t know why, but I always have these little impulses to do something shocking in totally inappropriate places. If it’s a place where I’m supposed to be quiet (like church or the library), I totally want to just start singing and dancing around. If it’s a meeting with my boss, than I want to just blurt out something crazy while he’s talking. ‘And my little nipples do the cha-cha…cha-cha…..cha-cha’ – Bruce Almighty. I’m constantly afraid that one day I might actually do something like that. Hopefully it’s when I’m old and then people will just say, ‘Don’t mind her; she’s old.’
- I’m convinced that the ‘middle’ is the devil. In any equation, the middle is always up to no good. Think about it. When you’re young you can say crazy things and people will just blame it on your youth. When you’re old you can say crazy things and people will just blame it on your Alzheimers. But, all those years in between – you better just shut the F-up! There’s Medicaid for when you’re young and Medicare for when you’re old. And uninsured for the rest of us – if you can’t afford insurance. Welfare for the poor and nanny’s for the rich. And poverty for the middle class. Beauty in your youth and wisdom in old age. Maternity jeans and anti-depressants for your time in between the two. Your first born received all the attention before the siblings came along and the baby is cherished because he’s the last. The middle child is almost certain to have ADHD. And of course if either the young, old, rich, or poor is in need – it will be up to the middle to provide. God said he was the Alpha and the Omega. First and Last. Even God wanted no part with this wretched piece of the pie!
- I’m so glad the Nook came along because I felt so guilty buying books. I love to read and it would usually take me 1 to 2 nights to finish a book. But, then what was I supposed to do with it? I don’t have any book shelves to display my books and even if I did, I just don’t think I want ‘Virile Rogue’ to grace it.
- Greeting cards and photo Christmas cards confuse me. Like the books I used to buy, I don’t know what to do with them after I’ve read them. Obviously I want to keep some of them for sentimental reasons, but the b-day card from the office where I worked 5 years ago does not bring a tear of nostalgia to my eye. I display the photo Christmas cards during the holiday season, but then what do you do after? I know I’m going to get another one next year from the same family – so am I supposed to bring out the old one to display alongside the new one? Will I have wreaths hung up displaying all the photos throughout the years? One for each family? ‘Here’s the Smith Family Wreath. They are my parent’s next door neighbors. You can see in the first one that Kate was about 16 and in this most recent one, here is Kate with her brand new grandbaby.’ I do like receiving cards and photo Christmas cards; they just confuse me.
That’s enough observations for now. It was probably more than enough three observations ago….but that’s just my opinion. J
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