I’m 39 and convinced that I’m middle aged.
Which is fine by me. In fact, I like it. It’s kind of like I’m floating around in the middle of a lake in an inflatable tube. There’s lots of water on all sides. My feet are trailing in the water while my head leans back onto the perfect cushion that is the side of my inflatable tube.
I’m not sure what the tube symbolizes. Possibly just that I really like floating around in inflatable tubes. I think the water may be time. And my feet are probably standing in for “actions considered but not taken.”
Anyways, however the imagery shakes out, it’s really not a bad place to be.
I’ve been asking my fellow 35-40+ year-old friends what they think the last few days — “Are we middle aged?” — and many of them seem pretty sure that we have a ways to go. “Didn’t you get the memo?” they ask. “40 is the new 30.”
But I don’t know. I’m not so sure the 30-year-olds are ready to sign off on that.
Vintage CV! I fully expect to see it in the Collected.
FWIW, I turned 38 last month. I grew a beard. I grew it because it makes me look older, the staggering amount of white in it dazzles everyone I meet who knew the 37-year-old me, and I was tired of worrying about passing as 35. I’m middle aged, dammit, or at least on the lip of the vortex. And there’s some beautiful compensations in that. Like, for instance, not having to be 35.
Tube on, Cecil. I’m trailing right behind you.
40 is so totally the new 30. I’m not 35 yet but I’m a knockin’ on the door. I don’t know what “middle aged” is supposed to feel like. But I feel like I know myself best now, and that I like the person I have become. I’m not facing some monumental “who am I?” kind of crisis as I did in my late 20s. So if middle aged means feeling good in my own skin, then yeah I feel that way and it’s good. Maybe the tube means contentment?
“middle aged”: squeeze the cultural juice out of it, and what’s that mean?–just that you’re half the way there, optimistically speaking.
for most of the rest of it, feh: my 50+ friend got carded the other day. carder’s head exploded when the numbers sank in. my friend wears her adventures well.
but yet still: youth–i miss it on the days it doesn’t seem that long ago.
turned 42 today. at the office cake ‘n’ ice cream party someone told me i didn’t look that old. “clean living” i chalked it up to, lying.
to reprise a line from six years ago when 36 felt old and someone guessed i was “in my late 20s”:
“what do you want? i’m going bald as fast as i can!”
Lately, I’ve found myself saying, “Thirty-eight and a half,” when people ask my age. (Thank god people can comfortably ask a woman her age these days. Different thread.) It comes out; I cringe a little, not sure why I’ve let an inside thought escape to the outside. All I know is it’s like being a young kid again—anxious to reach that next big milestone.
Forty sounds good. Actually, now is good, too, Cecil. Ripe. Juicy. Perfect fit in your own skin. Definitely middle-aged. Definitely time to float.
I can’t help you on the middle-aged thing, but I think that the inner tube represents the internet since, as you know, the internet is a series of tubes.
Well. I will say this… at 30, I announced that I honestly feel YOUNGER than I did at 29.. which, if all goes accordingly from here on out, will mean that by 40, I will feel younger than… 19. Right?
So, I think the new expression SHOULD BE “Forty is the new 19.” Which, in turn, would lead us to the inevitable truth…. 15 is the new middle aged.
It certainly was for me.
I really don’t believe that middle-aged people ought to say, in public, that they feel like they’re carrying an inner tube around their middle. Get my (a)drift?
Vintage CV! I fully expect to see it in the Collected.
FWIW, I turned 38 last month. I grew a beard. I grew it because it makes me look older, the staggering amount of white in it dazzles everyone I meet who knew the 37-year-old me, and I was tired of worrying about passing as 35. I’m middle aged, dammit, or at least on the lip of the vortex. And there’s some beautiful compensations in that. Like, for instance, not having to be 35.
Tube on, Cecil. I’m trailing right behind you.
Can you repeat that last entry, I can’t hear, huh?, wha, for christ’s sake, did you bring any danish?
40 is so totally the new 30. I’m not 35 yet but I’m a knockin’ on the door. I don’t know what “middle aged” is supposed to feel like. But I feel like I know myself best now, and that I like the person I have become. I’m not facing some monumental “who am I?” kind of crisis as I did in my late 20s. So if middle aged means feeling good in my own skin, then yeah I feel that way and it’s good. Maybe the tube means contentment?
“middle aged”: squeeze the cultural juice out of it, and what’s that mean?–just that you’re half the way there, optimistically speaking.
for most of the rest of it, feh: my 50+ friend got carded the other day. carder’s head exploded when the numbers sank in. my friend wears her adventures well.
but yet still: youth–i miss it on the days it doesn’t seem that long ago.
turned 42 today. at the office cake ‘n’ ice cream party someone told me i didn’t look that old. “clean living” i chalked it up to, lying.
to reprise a line from six years ago when 36 felt old and someone guessed i was “in my late 20s”:
“what do you want? i’m going bald as fast as i can!”
happy dang birthday xian. For your birthday you made me laugh. Like blowing out some kind of comedy candle.
-Cecil
Lately, I’ve found myself saying, “Thirty-eight and a half,” when people ask my age. (Thank god people can comfortably ask a woman her age these days. Different thread.) It comes out; I cringe a little, not sure why I’ve let an inside thought escape to the outside. All I know is it’s like being a young kid again—anxious to reach that next big milestone.
Forty sounds good. Actually, now is good, too, Cecil. Ripe. Juicy. Perfect fit in your own skin. Definitely middle-aged. Definitely time to float.
I can’t help you on the middle-aged thing, but I think that the inner tube represents the internet since, as you know, the internet is a series of tubes.
Well. I will say this… at 30, I announced that I honestly feel YOUNGER than I did at 29.. which, if all goes accordingly from here on out, will mean that by 40, I will feel younger than… 19. Right?
So, I think the new expression SHOULD BE “Forty is the new 19.” Which, in turn, would lead us to the inevitable truth…. 15 is the new middle aged.
It certainly was for me.
I really don’t believe that middle-aged people ought to say, in public, that they feel like they’re carrying an inner tube around their middle. Get my (a)drift?