I mentioned the other day that I’m no longer the young whippersnapper that I was when I started this blog in 2009. Aging is one of those things that still happens to every human, so I thought I’d talk about some of the good and bad things about it. First the cons…

Cons

Your body doesn’t work as well.

This can be a problem, even a life threatening problem in some cases. In my mind, I still think of myself as a younger person who can pick up a 50 lb. bag of dog food like it ain’t no thing. Well, it’s a thing… a heating pad thing.

Everything slows down except time.

Time speeds up. A year seems to take only 6 months. A week has about 3 days in it and a weekend last exactly 9 hours. Everything else slows down including your walking speed, mental processing, and your metabolism. Time speeds up, but your ability to do things during that time slows down.

Men become more like women and women become more like men.

Men lose testosterone as they age; women lose estrogen. On a long enough time line, there are no genders; just androgynous, wrinkly, flesh sacks. Women: no matter how girly you are now, you’ll end up with whiskers growing strange places. And men, you’ll grow boobs.

Your brain doesn’t work as well.

Humans were never designed to live as long as we do now. Our brains have tremendous processing power, but we only have so much RAM and storage space, and it’s not upgradable. It’s like trying to use the same iPhone for your entire life. At first, it’s shiny and fast, but after a few decades, it just can’t keep up. If you live to be 100, that’s 100 years of data with maybe 60 years worth of storage space.

 

There are more cons I’m sure, but this is getting quite depressing, so I’m going to move onto the pros now.

Pros

Less anger

As I mentioned the other day, I’m way less angry than I used to be. This applies not only to the trauma from my past, but also to the world around me (except the news, which still infuriates me).

For example, not long ago, I was walking my dog down the street. On the other side of the street was a woman and her dog who is never, ever on a leash. I gave a very slight disapproving head shake (the side to side one) and kept walking. This woman apparently saw my very slight disapproval of her scofflaw dog and started yelling at me. I can’t remember everything she said, but I do know that “YOU THINK YOU OWN THE FUCKING STREET!” and “BITCH!” were among the things she yelled. I was so terribly proud of myself, because my reaction was to just keep walking as if I didn’t hear her at all. Bye, Karen! 10 years ago, that would have ended differently. I would probably have yelled right back. Every time I see this woman now (she lives just down the street. derrrr.), she avoids me in embarrassment. Haha!

Not caring what people think

I don’t care what people think of me anymore. I haven’t really given a crap about people’s opinions of me since high school, but there was always a small part of me that cared a bit. Even 10 years ago, I would have gotten presentable to go anywhere just in case Idris Elba was in the grocery store or something. I do live in Los Angeles after all and people gotta eat.

These days, I still put on a bra when I go anywhere just out of common courtesy, but I have no compunction about walking my dog in my pajamas. I just don’t give a fuck. It’s nice.

No mo’ FOMO

As a 20-something, I wouldn’t have survived the Covid quarantine. I mean that most likely literally since there’s no way I could have stayed in my house for a year or more. I would have been one of those idiots out there whooping it up. I probably would have gotten Covid and died. Nowadays, I never have FOMO (fear of missing out). In fact, this past Saturday night, as I curled up on the couch, it occurred to me that not having to go anywhere or give excuses not to go anywhere makes me very happy. Plus, I save a ton of money not going out all the time.

Excellent credit

There was a time right after Monster #2 took out a bunch of credit cards in my name that I didn’t even know about, that my credit was abysmal. If you have terrible credit, everything costs you more. After diligently working on it, I’m happy to report that my credit score is between very good and excellent, depending on which credit reporting agency you ask. This means that anything I want to finance costs me less and lenders are fighting over who will get to service me. It’s good to be king.

Discounts

I’m not talking about the early bird special or the senior citizen discount. I’m not quite that old yet, though those will be nice once I get there. I’m talking about the ones I get now even as a middle-ager. On my car insurance, I get a good driver discount (no accidents) and a discount because I’ve been driving for a helluva long time. Sweet!

Experience

My mom is in her 70s. She can make a pie without even getting the recipe out, because she’s been doing it so long. I’m not quite there yet, but I don’t measure things as much as I used to. I eyeball a lot. That looks like about a half a cup… that’s about a foot… and I’m usually pretty close. Though the measurements will be pretty close to correct, sadly, my pies will most likely always look as messy as this:

Wisdom

Wisdom comes in all shapes and sizes. It can mean anything from knowing obscure words to being able to easily convert metric into the dumb system of measurement that America uses. Wisdom is knowing when not to yell at the idiot lady who is yelling at you from across the street. Wisdom comes only with age and experience. You cannot get it any other way.

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What are your favorite and least favorite things about getting older?