Thirty-seven is the new seventeen

Angelina and Carrie going somewhere fancy. I think we later got harassed by one of the scariest people I've ever met; a peer named Porche. A lot of people are not aware that I used to frequently dress in men's clothes. (Just when you were beginning to think I was as wholesome as a Happy Meal.) Though it looks like a lesbian prom picture, we were only best friends. I'm seriously wondering where my snazzy hat got off to though, I wonder if I could pull off wearing it now?

I have to confess that I'm a little tired of popular culture constantly trying to find ways to make us all feel better about the fact that we are all getting older every day, (because if we're not getting older, we're getting dead). I always see the media declaring "Forty is the new thirty!" or "Fifty is the new twenty" and it's only a matter of time before I see one like this "One hundred is the new thirty!" Nothing stops the clock from ticking but death. And that only stops your clock, not anyone else's. I get, I get it...it's to help us feel cheerful that with new technology we can feel like we're twenty years old when we are really turning fifty.

I could use some of that today I suppose. My hip hurts from getting exercise yesterday. Which makes me feel like thirty seven is the new fifty. This is beginning to happen every time I get some moderate exercise, so if I can't do any cardio, how will I ever shed the pounds? Get me out of this god damned box of torture!

Since yesterday's post, I've been thinking about how different my life turned out than I thought it would. How much happier I am than I ever believed a person like me could become. In fact, I was thinking about how I'm actually alive at thirty seven, which probably doesn't surprise anyone but myself. When I was seventeen (as pictured in the above photo) I honestly thought I'd be dead before I turned thirty. So turning thirty was a little bit of a surprise, but not freaked because I couldn't spend any time worrying about wrinkles when I was just so damn pleased to not be dead.

What I was worrying about at the time the above picture was taken:

• How I hadn't gotten more than two hours of sleep a night for three weeks. This was not a drug induced insomnia. It was a constant menace.
  

• How my mom was moving away and I had to choose to stay in trade school and make it on my own, or move to the armpit of California with her. (I'm talking about Stockton)

• How I was still a virgin and getting really tired of being teased just because there wasn't a decent guy around that I hadn't already scared half to death with my uber-coolness. Just kidding. What really scared them was probably that fact that I was so obviously flippin crazy. And so obviously a prude unlikely to put out.

• Worried that people other than my best friends would discover the bloody self inflicted cross-hatching on my arms.

• worried that I was going to flunk out of pattern drafting class. Which turned out to be a valid concern as I went on to get a D and had to take it over again. I'm happy to report that after that I got A's in pattern drafting and have excellent drafting skills.

• Worried that there wouldn't be food in the fridge.

• Worried about my brother.

• Worried that my hips and thighs were bigger than everyone else's. As a point of interest, this isn't something that obsessed me. It never occurred to me to diet back then. I knew I wasn't fat. I knew that I was going to have proportionately bigger hips and thighs even if I was skinnier than anyone I knew, because that is how my body is made. I complained about my pear shape to friends sometimes when we sat around scrutinizing ourselves in the normal way teens do. But I rarely gave it any real energy. Unlike now when my size is taking up way too much of my brain space. I never ever worried that I would get actually fat.

• Worried that my other best friend, James, would die of an overdose of something. (No need to be specific, if he had access, he would do a lot of it.)

• Worried about the self loathing that would constantly blindside me like a spiritual rapist in a dark alley of my brain. I would be feeling fine one moment and the next I would feel the black loathing crawl through my veins til it reached every blood cell in my body. I worried that I desperately needed help but had no health care and my parents were so checked out on their own trips at the time that they had no idea.

But hey, isn't being seventeen a blast?!

I don't have fewer worries today, but they sure are different.

A new one just occurred to me: what if the new people we had over for dinner on Sunday who we really like read this and avoid all contact with us in the future? I mean, I already told them I was crazy. I always like to get that out of the way immediately. But I'm pretty sure that my openness about it leads people to either think I'm kidding, or that it's a euphemism for being a fun-loving-wacky-ex-Californian. Everyone knows how "crazy" Californians are.

In spite of deciding I didn't need to do anything more than get myself to bed by ten, I managed to accomplish seven things on my list. Including getting into bed by ten pm. Then I had a night of fitful sleep with frequent awareness of not being entirely asleep. And bad dreams. You may believe me or not, but having less beer and an earlier bed time often remind me that I can easily fall back into a paralyzing insomnia. Mostly I sleep really soundly these days because if you drink enough beer you will sleep heavy. And if you go to bed only when you're so exhausted you can barely hoist yourself out of the living room chair to drag your sorry-ass to bed, you won't have a chance to know what it feels like to not be restful. You will simply crash into oblivion.

Even though I didn't sleep well, I will once again make myself get into bed by ten pm. And if I get other things checked off that list as well? Good for me.