Saturday, March 3, 2012

Getting Older

So this is typically my work out time….but for the past two days I have had to skip it because of a pain in my hipL Which is making me feel really old…I turn 45 this year…I will pause a moment while you gasp in disbelief…I know! I can’t believe it either! Now I know what a lot of you are thinking….especially those who have already reached that milestone…you are thinking “age is just a number”….”you look really good for you age”…blah, blah, blah….nothing you say can change the fact that I have a pain in my hip!

Now I have never been one to shy away from my age….I have celebrated mightily for years the day of my birth with weeklong celebrations, tattoos, tequila shots and the occasional naked girl…and of course this year won’t be any different I am sure.  But I am definitely more pensive about this one than I have in past years.  Funny thing is the last one that really hit me was when I turned 25 (OMG – that was freaking 20 years ago…WTF!) I remember having the same feeling approaching 25 as I do now…that somehow my “life” isn’t where it is supposed to be.  At 25 I was a stay at home mom with two young kids with a longing to be anywhere other than where I was.  I felt like at 25 I was finally a “grown up” and I should have a much better grasp on life than what I did.  I felt like a complete failure.  I won’t bore you with the story of what I did in this blog but I did change my life completely with a lot of regrets and guilt but also with a lot of hard work and persistence all of which got me here 20 years later.

I turned 30 and 35 nine months pregnant and about to give birth any day so those milestones passed without much thought or revelry…I really started celebrating with my 36th birthday…my first one single in decades….that one was epic with the naked girl storyJ I went to Vegas to celebrate my 40th and even though we melted every time we went outside it was awesome! There has been dinners at Sushi O and Don Pepe’s and nights at Babes and Have a Nice Day that were spectacular….if there is anything I know how to do it is too celebrate! I never much thought about it…I had hot young guys who were interested in me so I figured what was the big deal…it was just a number.  Even having grandchildren didn’t make me feel old…I actually got a kick out of when people asked who’s picture that was on my laptop I could say that is my grandson or granddaughter….the look on their faces were always priceless.

But this year is different…it isn’t so much that I feel “old” which I do….it is more the feeling that I am running out of time.  There are only so many birthdays left….and while I am lucky that I have crossed off most of life’s “expected” events I feel like I am supposed to be somewhere else than where I am.  And for the first time it doesn’t have anything to do with the externals…I like my surroundings and the people who make up my life.  But I feel like I should be different “inside”. 

At 45 you should not be crying over someone who broke your heart.  One would hope that by 45 you would have finally figured out how to not get your heart broken. 
At 45 you shouldn’t be dating.  If EVER there was a process better suited for the young it is definitely dating.
At 45 you shouldn’t still be questioning how you ever got to be in charge of anything living.  Experience and a proven track record of keeping people alive and well should be an end of self-doubt.
At 45 you shouldn’t still be caring if someone doesn’t think you are pretty or smart or whether or not they like you and want to be your friend.  You should have worked all those issues out in high school.

I hope I haven’t offended anyone older than 45 or scared anyone younger than 45 – these are just my thoughts at the moment.  It is possibly in the next 6 months as the big day approaches I will feel better about things…I would hate to think that I am shallow enough to be this apprehensive because I am currently still single with no chances of that changing any day soon.  I hope it is deeper than that – a reflective time to look over the past 45 years at what I have done well and what I haven’t and to remember that because there isn’t as much time too waste as before that I need to make better choices and live life each day to the fullest.  I do know that I have been stuck in a major rut for a very long time and  I am open to any suggestions as to how to get out of it….Sharing my thoughts with the universe helps…hopefully the pain in my hip goes away soon