Give Me What I Want And I’ll Go Away
For today, I wrote a post about an asshole misogynist white male corporate executive that involved dying plants and explosive stomach distress that was equal parts funny and horrifying. Then I decided it was a bit much, so I’m going to save that one for the weekend and maybe start a Short Story Saturday. Instead, I'll talk about how much I’ve been thinking about aging lately.
By “lately,” I mean “since yesterday morning” when I noticed crepey skin on my thighs AND ARMS while I was in exercise class, so now I have that to add that to my list of the usual aging suspects - droopy jowls, eye wrinkles, the magical ability to gain five pounds after eating one donut - I’m battling.
In my head, I’m convinced I still look and act 35, but over the weekend, when I was around actual 35-year-olds, it was pretty obvious I’ve entered old lady territory.
For instance, I caught myself saying, “I need to go to Walmart and get a cute pill organizer!” and I started a conversation with “The other day” when I was referring to something that happened 10 years ago.
I also made small talk about my last nap and then bitched about the humiliating micro-injuries I suffered sleeping on the wrong pillow, sneezing, yawing and drinking water too quickly. Embarrassing.
On a side note, last night Bill and I started watching Stephen King’s Storm of the Century miniseries (which was released several decades ago when I was really 35 years old.)
Later, when I woke at 2 am, I spent a lot of time lying in bed deciding whether to get up and pee or to try to fall back asleep with a throbbing full bladder because…I don’t know…I DO know…and I’ll just say it and sound like the whiney coward I can occasionally be: I was freaked out, frightened and expected Andre Linoge and his scary-ass, wailing, face-eating walking stick to be in the bathroom waiting to hypnotize me and force me to write “Give me what I want and I’ll go away” on the mirror in my favorite red lipstick before violently chomping off my wrinkled, drooping facial features. So I turned on the light, blinded myself, forced the pee out as quickly as possible, ran back to bed, and jumped under the covers, where we all know it’s safe.
It’s like my brain is a cross between a frightened horror movie watching teen and a senior citizen who grumbles about her decrepit body parts at parties, and OMG!, some middle ground would sure be nice.