When I got out of bed this morning, I felt like I’d been hit by a train. Joints were cracking, muscles groaning, eyes refusing to open properly, the works. I shuffled out of my room after wrapping myself snugly in a fuzzy robe (much like the one I remember my mother shuffling around in when I was a kid), and took care of the baby.
Immediately after getting Baby settled in with his breakfast, I made coffee. While that was percolating away, I spent a few minutes examining the Weather Station- not on TV, mind you; we purchased a weather do-hicky-thingamajig that hangs on the wall and informs us of temperature, humidity, pressure, wind speed and direction, and the future forecast.
The coffee machine beeped three times to let me know it was finished burbling, and I dispensed a cup (my husband, upon discovering that our previous coffee pot had a tendency to leak all over the place, brought home this fancy-looking machine that you have to hold your coffee mug beneath and against and VOILA! steaming cup of coffee is dispensed, not poured) and sat down on the sofa. More cracking and groaning.
After a few sips of life-giving caffeine, my brain began to unfog and the wheels started turning, and a terrible truth dawned on me:
I’m OLD.
And not just OLD, but BORING.
Old and boring.
At twenty-six.
At least, that’s what all the evidence points to. Evidence that I should have realized was there long before now, but for some reason was able to over-look it until just this morning.
Old people are forever consuming cup after cup of coffee, in order to feel even a fraction of that youthful (obnoxious) pep that they lost at some point along the road of life.
I am forever consuming cup after cup of coffee, in order to feel even a fraction of that youthful pep that I lost sometime in the last year.
Old people watch the weather in a hawk-like fashion, waiting for who-knows-what, never losing interest in the ups and downs of temperature and pressure.
I watch the weather in a hawk-like fashion, waiting for the Future Forecast function to predict something like forty feet of snow, and I never lose interest in the subtle changes of temperature or pressure.
Old people, being old, have a hell of a time getting out of bed.
I, being old, have a hell of a time getting out of bed.
Old people crawl into bed by eight o’clock at night.
I fall asleep on the sofa by eight o’clock at night.
The absolute worst part of it all is that old people, having lost the effervescence of their younger days, never do things like staying up all night playing video games, or jumping in puddles just because there are puddles present, or army-crawling through the yard for the sheer joy of having the energy and ability to do so.
I can’t remember the last time I stayed up past midnight.
I can’t remember the last time I saw a puddle and thought, “What a good spot to put my feet”.
The last time I did something solely because I was overflowing with energy was…
When? Five, ten years ago?
Some people say, “You’re only as old as you feel.”
Some people say, “You’re only as old as you look.”
Well, I say, “Today I feel eighty years old, and I’ve just discovered that I have gray hair (which shall promptly be dyed and denied), and I’m developing wrinkles at the corners of my eyes.”
So. If I feel eighty, look thirty-five, and am actually twenty-six…(excuse me a moment while I screw up some calculations)…
I’d say I’m slightly past the beginning of middle age, and a mid-life crisis should be just around the corner.
Disclaimer: I refuse to be held responsible for any repercussions that may stem from any of my possibly negative assumptions regarding people who have reached a certain number of years and/or level of dullness. After all, I’m one of you now.
Cristen's Corner 