Almost every day, I’m reminded that I’m not 20 anymore. As much as I don’t have my shit together, I have to start timing when I have my last coffee of the day (no later than 5:30pm) so that I don’t wake up repeatedly during the night. My face has lines now and I have several different pots of moisturiser in my bathroom in hopes that one will help keep them from getting worse in a hurry. I *may* have found a grey hair recently (but I only spotted it the once, so it might have just been blonde).
(The latter I don’t mind that much, and I’m curious to see how things go. My great-grandmother was only a little bit grey in her 90s, her daughter (my grandmother) went totally white, and her daughter (my mother, who I take after in a million ways) didn’t really get very grey (she did have a bit at the temples) until after she started chemotherapy in her 50s. What will happen to me? Will I try to fight it? Probably not. I can’t even commit to henna.)
One thing that I like about getting older is my ceasing to give a damn what other people think about every little thing. I mean, I obsess about a lot, it’s in my nature, but crying on the subway in NYC (I was reading the last chapter of The Road)? Who gives a shit. Putting on a frizzy red wig and ‘acting’ in a low-budget short film? Why not? Everyone else I know is in the film and they are having fun. Not liking (most) popular music? Absolutely fine and saves me from the commercial radio stations I almost universally loathe.
Realising that it’s okay not to like things is one of those life lessons that people need to learn early. I don’t mean at the expense of not trying new things ever, but why keep having one night stands if it makes you miserable? Why would you regularily (and reluctantly) agree to go out for Thai food if you hate the stuff? Why watch that tv show with that actor you hate just because everyone else does? Why would you keep trying to ‘like’ coffee just because you feel like it’s something you should do?
Yes, doing/eating/participating in some of these things might make other people happy; I mean, I’ve sat through a few movies that I wasn’t super-invested in because ‘everyone else’ wanted to see it (I mean, I saw Sex and the City in the cinema, for Pete’s sake), but that should be the exception, and not the rule, right? Just be your damned self and don’t be afraid to say “Yeah, I don’t want that. Let’s try this other thing instead.” It will probably save you a lot of misery in the long run.
Of course, this might be why I’m doomed to spinsterhood, since, in my experience thus far, being opinionated and tough about it kind of intimidates people. But eh, time will tell. At least I get to decide where to go on my next vacation, right?