Only the Good Die Young
The rest of us eventually have to figure out how to be old. I suck at this.
Howdy Horn Honkers!
I recently had a significant birthday and celebrated with a rockin’ beauty of a time in New York City. Got back to the Gulf Coast in time to meet Hurricane Ida. She beat up on Mississippi, devastated lower Louisiana, then went Northeast and thrashed those good folks.
May blessings find all those who need them.
I finally had time last night to sit and muse on self-stuff, my “big birthday” and this new decade for me. I carefully considered the grief and gratitude. I counted the lessons that piled up along the way.
And I realized a few things.
1.) Being older (what some would just plainly call old) feels weird and I’m rather clumsy with it. Someone asked the other day what my zodiac sign was. I told them I was a Mick Jagger sun, Cowboy Junkies moon. I suddenly realized saying that was like if someone in 1982 had told me they had a Dean Martin rising. Then I realized a Dean Martin rising would be really cool and I wanted that too.
2.) Some “old age” tropes are actually true and it’s freaking me out. For instance, I do now tend to put on my turn signal about a year before I need to turn. (Get off my ass, Speed Racer.)
3.) I need more young folks on my Facebook timeline. If you have cool kids tell them to friend me. It isn’t that I don’t care about your knee replacement (I really do) but I need a little “My bf broke up with me and I drank so much Jager I was arrested by Animal Enforcement.”
You know. Variety.
4.) Older folks don’t tend to talk about their sex lives on social media and I’d like to normalize that we do. Free doughnuts to the first person over 55 on my FB or Twitter to post “Yesterday we bonked so vigorously California thought it was an earthquake and evacuated nine office buildings. Afterwards, even the neighbours had a cigarette.” Just once, my aging friends. Please.
Don’t act like we reach a certain age and stop doing the no-pants dance.
5.) The reason there aren’t Halloween Fright Houses for elders is we’ve already been scared to death by real life. You can’t rattle us unless you suddenly raise our homeowner’s insurance.
Some random ghost drifting over and licking our ankles while whispering “You don’t have the credit score to repel me” is like…whatever, pumpkin spice. We lived through Nixon, two Bush presidencies and unironically wore fanny packs. You cannot scare us.
6.) Overshare, my elder peeps! Why on earth do we stop oversharing at a certain age? Some say “It’s just not dignified.” I don’t know about you but I didn’t go through all the shite showers of life in order to arrive, dented yet victorious, at “dignified.”
I don’t want people to say at my funeral that I was dignified (something tells me they won’t.) I want people to say, you know what that bitch did. She got kicked out of assisted living for hiring male strippers to serve tea and shake their naked ting-tongs to “Stayin’ Alive” by the Bee Gees.
7.) I fully realize I’m expected to be a good example for the younger generation. I have zero idea how to do this. I can’t tell you how to gain maturity or wisdom. Life will instruct you on that.
However, if you need to know how to crash a high-end party you’re not invited to, or balance two full shot glasses on your boobies while doing the Moonwalk, I’m your girl. Call me.
Only the Good Die Young
So much in here...I think you can be fairly sure you will burn and rave at close of day, Therra. I will take you up on your twitter/facebook dare when I can find my reading glasses. I belong to a FB book for women who have had or are considering colcopleisis, which is a procedure for women with serious pelvic floor prolapse. It basically consists of sowing up most of the vagina to hold all our falling bits inside, and is fairly radical but without any of the longterm complications of trying to patch things up (think mesh and scar tissue). What made me ANGRY was an article from a respected medical journal about colcopleisis, saying that it was suitable for frail elderly women who are no longer sexually active. My comment was "I so wish that They, whoever They are, would wake up to there being the possibility of sexual activity without PiV. It's sooo...ignorant. "Frail", "sexually inactive", even "elderly" are all descriptions I reject (I'm 63), yet I am seriously considering colpocleisis. Education is called for." I got my motorcycle license two years ago today, I practise archery and blacksmithing and am going to get a hunting license and I saw the Clash, the Buzzcocks and Joy Division in the 1970's. I have a partner who is six years younger than me and a FWB who is 35. I am not mutton dressed up as lamb, I am mutton dressed up as mutton and very, very tasty.
I love you dearly. The humor and grace you bring to just about everything astounds and sometimes saves me. I spent the night of my 60th birthday doing a night snorkel on Roatan. I wanted to celebrate rather than mourn. That was 2 months before Covid really hit and I have been grounded ever since. I do not feel "old" mentally or emotionally but feel ancient physically. So many of my friends never made it to 50, much less 60, that I try to practice gratitude for being a little old lady. Thank you for sharing your gift with us.