Getting older is weird. I now get excited about new fiber drinks and my last visit to the gyno for my renewal in the Birth Control Club also resulted in a referral for a mammogram. Beez in the trap suddenly took on a whole new meaning.
Dance break…
I’m over 40, not dead.
But along with all the medical stuff, the inability to sleep past 5:50 am, and the love of my minivan, getting older is pretty awesome. I remember worrying all through 29 about turning 30. And then my 30s were so much better than my 20s. My Yoda, Lynne, used to talk about getting your brain at 40 and holy f*ck, she was on to something.
Maybe it’s just a spoil of being the average white, straight, middle-class chick. Maybe it’s because 2016 happened. Maybe I have no idea what I’m talking about.
The thing is, I keep picking up these little things about myself, about who I really am and what makes me tick. And I trust my gut in what I’m feeling, which is something I knew to do the moment I was born, but it was programmed out of me along the way.
Over the past few months, I’ve realized that the worst thing anyone can do to me is to put me in a box and have a singular idea about my capabilities. I have too many dimensions (good, bad, or otherwise) for that nonsense. Who cares if it took half a life to get here? I’ve always done things on my own time. Thankfully, years ago I latched onto dear Lee (walking stereotype as he may be) in East of Eden when he said, “Now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good.”
I know, shocking, she likes Steinbeck.
The point is, I’m plotting. I’m strategizing. I’m figuring out how to not live in a box.
And it’s gonna be good.