I need an icon for "tired" if not precisely "old"

[veronica_rich]

I've been trying not to feel old lately, as I often have a penchant of doing - after all, I'm only 38, which isn't old at all - but the world is conspiring against me. For one, the other night we went to see a movie and there was a preview for the remake of "Footloose." At first I thought it was superfluous (well, okay, it IS), but then I realized it's been almost 30 years since the original was made. I had not kept track that that much time had passed; I remember when the original came out, being in junior high!

Nevertheless, no matter how young I might still be, I am at that "old" that I and my peers saw as old when we were teenagers. People our parents' age, with responsibilities and bills and nearly mid-life crises (can one of those hit in your mid-30s? I think mine did). People we didn't really understand and who were vaguely mysterious in their adult knowledge and activities. Or, you know, at least we thought they knew and did a lot more than we did - after all, they could drink directly from the can of chocolate sauce in the fridge without anyone yelling at them, since they paid for it.

Thus, I present, at 38, what I think are the two hardest parts of getting older. I'm sure it'll change when I'm actually OLD, and involve actual hardships of aging:

1. Being able to continue defining yourself. Figuring out what you want to do. I write much less than I used to, and it worries me. I was always a writer - not the best one, not the most prolific one, but a writer. Well, what does a writer who stops writing call themselves? I imagine this is the case for people who do other things, like teaching, painting, construction, etc., too. How do they handle it? (Now I know why Mom always seemed like she was no fun and had no hobbies - she was too busy shopping for groceries, cooking them, doing housework, working, and paying bills. Ugh.)

2. Deciding when other people can tell you what to do. This one is hard, since we spend our entire childhoods having people order us around, and as we enter the workforce, the same holds true. After all the years I've spent in my career doing what I do, you'd think I'd be an expert at something about it. But I've learned you should never start feeling too good about the job you're doing, because somebody will always be able to point out how you could be doing it better - and at least sometimes, they'll be right. The trick - the one I'm still figuring out - is when to accept that someone is right and I am wrong, and when to call bullshit. When I was 22, I let an awful lot of people who knew nothing about my daily job make me think they knew more about it than I did (which, they would've, had they been in the same job themselves, because I was so young). Once in a while I still have the tendency to start thinking that way, when there are times I shouldn't. Largely I know who to listen to and who to ignore - but whereas when I was a teen and figured people this age had figured that out, I know better now.

Comments

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I wish to be old before I really want to be, just so I can be even more caustic than I am now, but get away with it. When you're in your 30s and do that, people frown upon you as antisocial or bitchy, but when you're older, you can get away with it as a normal part of life. :-)

[hippediva.livejournal.com]

That's absolutely true! It really is. Once you get post-50, you can practically tell someone to 'fuck off' to their face, and they will just shrug and figure "cranky old bitch" and try to get away from you instead of engaging the battle. *snerk* Age trumps manners for the most part----if you're old or very young, you can get away with a lot. (not that there ARE any manners anymore to notice in the general population....but I digress. *giggle) I'm wondering now what differences I will see post-60!