In which I write a timecapsule missive to my younger self.

Hey, dingbat, remember when you were twenty-something and you saw that disgusting old man in his driveway caring lovingly for his hot little convertable, and you wondered how he could possibly be unaware of how painfully stupid he looked?

Remember how you assumed he had to be aware since he was at least twice your own age, and you decided – because you were still young enough to believe that an adult was a cleverer, more mature creature than you – that he was probably polishing his convertible with more irony than your young little head could possibly perceive?

Remember walking by, not looking at him, not looking at his car, and hoping that he wasn’t stealing inappropriately lusty glances at your hot little bod (because that would just be pathetic and gross) and thinking, That HAS to be irony, a fat old man in a sports car, because there’s just nothing at all attractive about an expensive little fuel-injected COCK EXTENSION in tandem with those jowls and that beer belly! Jesus! Ick!

~+~+~
I walked by that guy again today, eighteen years later.

He had his little red convertible in his driveway with the top down. He was hand-polishing it. It was a cute car, too expensive for a younger man to afford. I sincerely doubted that it was comfortable for him to drive, since the cabin was so small and the bucket seats so narrow. He’d probably lusted after it in the back of his mind for twenty-five years, and had just recently found himself in a position to afford it.

That “old man” is no longer so old to me. He’s essentially my contemporary. I mean, he’s still old and he’s still fat, don’t get me wrong, but not as much as he used to be. In fact, I probably would have been flattered if he’d eyed me, but he didn’t – he only had eyes for his car.

I know now that he never meant for his skin to sag, his waist to disappear, or his belly to stick out. Those things just happened while he was doing what he was supposed to do. For all we know he may have been toned and fine and healthy once, back when his self-image was originally formed. The way he looks now is not necessarily the result of unchecked gluttony after all.

He does what you do, you judgmental little twenty-something. He sleeps, eats, works, and plays. It’s just that he’s been doing it now for fifty years, and this is what he looks like.

He has the little hot rod because he’s been a good dad and and good husband and he’s always wanted it and it’s his turn to have something frivolous. He doesn’t enjoy his toy with irony; he enjoys it with the same innocence and entitlement that you enjoy glitter lip gloss. It makes him happy, and he’s proud of it because it is an expression of who he feels he is. He knows what he looks like, yes, but he also knows that inside he feels just like he did in college.The only difference is that now he can remember more days, and he doesn’t have as much stamina as he once did.

He still expects himself to look, feel, and move like he did when he was twenty-something, but he doesn’t and he knows that he doesn’t. He bought the car for himself, not because he thinks he’s going to win your twenty-something adoration with it. Of course he’d most likely bed you if you asked him to, but he doesn’t think the car will make you want him and that’s not why he bought it.

In fact, the car doesn’t have anything to do with you at all, or women in general. It’s just a cool toy he’s always wanted, and you’re really a nasty little bitch for thinking you’re all that or that you have any idea what the phrase “mid-life crisis” means or feels like.

~+~+~
When I was in college I ate and slept and thought and felt, just as I do now.

I judged the excesses of my elders, while indulging in excesses myself and having every intention of continuing to indulge in them for the rest of my life. I didn’t even notice the dichotomy; it never occurred to me that the old drunk guy at the party was once young and fine too and that the only difference between us was time.

I used to look at those older people and think that they were gross, that they should have grown up already and learned some self-discipline. That there was really no reason for them to be hanging out with people so much younger than they were. Didn’t they have someone their own age to hang out with? How stunted did they have to be to prefer the company of people so much younger than themselves?

~+~+~
For me another year passed, and another, and another. I did stuff each day, just like everyone else. I had birthdays but didn’t feel different, didn’t feel older.

Eventually I moved to a new town – this town – and I wanted to make friends. So where did I go? To bars, where I could socialize and drink and smoke. Because that’s what people who are out of school do to meet people, right?

I made some friends – girls younger than me. The rest of the people seemed old, but I started to perceive that they weren’t old – they were my age. Those people standing around looking old were my contemporaries. Which means that the people I identify with as being my contemporaries in thought and action are no longer really my age, and that my self-image is off. By, like, at least a decade.

And I looked in the mirror and my skin was wrinkling and my teeth were yellowing and my hair was turning gray and my waist was gone, even though I hadn’t done anything to deserve those changes other than endure a particular stretch of time, doing what people do.

What the fuck?

~+~+~
I’m not properly age-fixed, it seems. When I was growing up, my friends were generally older than me, and now that I’m grown they’re generally younger.

In fact, it turns out that I must be stunted myself because I generally prefer the company of people who were born after me. I don’t particularly want to hang out with people my own age, because I don’t have much in common with them. I don’t have a house, or kids, or a husband, or a timeshare, or any of the things they have. I haven’t been through the same experiences because I really didn’t quite do the householder thing, nor did I dedicate myself to a proper career.

Instead of building a regular life like most people did, I hared off to the Midwest for fifteen years to pursue meditation and Eastern philosophy.

I spent a lot of time doing what I wanted to do, not finishing things that were boring, and pursuing happiness and personal evolution. I also spent a lot of time being drunk. I spent a lot of time working stupid jobs because I didn’t want a career. I spent a lot of time being happy, some time being sad, and all the time learning.

~+~+~
So now I’m an adult, yes? I should possess certain qualities, right? I should have self-discipline. I should behave in a manner befitting my age.

I should have control of my desires, and I should not do embarrassing things like wear clothes better suited to a body half as old as mine or talk like a kid. Right?

Right?

Well, I don’t feel like an adult. I’ve learned a few adult-type behaviors (like paying my debts, and getting up on time in the morning… most of the time) but my self-perception really hasn’t changed very drastically in the past fifteen years. I’m still thinking about what I want to be when I grow up. I still want to hang out and talk all night and learn more about the human condition. I still want to blow out of town on Friday afternoon and road trip somewhere weird and sleep in the car and live on Taco Bell because that’s all the money there is and laugh my ass off at the absurdities of the world at large.

The difference is that now I tend not to do those things, because the people I’m supposed to be friends with – people my own age – are all at home, mowing their lawns and raising their kids or going off to Vail for a week of skiing or whatever. I spend a lot of time thinking it would be cool to go do something fun, but I can’t define what that “fun” is exactly now that it is no longer synonymous with ‘getting wasted,’ and I don’t know who do it with anyway because I left my community and my friends three thousand miles ago.

I mean, I’m still thinking I want to live in New York someday, but then I wonder: who moves to NYC in their forties? Poverty in the city is one thing when you’re 26, but mightn’t it just annoy the hell out of me now? And it’s not like I’d be going there to make it in show business… it’s not impossible, but I suspect that if music or acting really were my dharma I’d have noticed it by now. (They’re mainly just very, very nourishing hobbies.) My money comes from working a regular day job, and I’d be working in New York if I lived there. Working and being poor. Do I still have the stamina for that?

And if not, why not?

~+~+~
After reflecting on this for awhile, it may be isolation more than anything else that’s making me feel awkward. I’ve only lived here for twenty-two months, and I don’t have any old friends here. I’m making new ones, but it’s hard since so many of my truly formative experiences aren’t common to this population, and it takes time to develop deep friendships even when I do find people to resonate with.

I’m lacking a network to reflect myself back at me. I’m displaced and can’t figure out how to define myself in personal way, so I’m trying to do it with meta-concepts. What does someone my age do? Act like? Care about? Are the things I think and feel appropriate? Do I give a shit? If so, since when?

What is maturity? What is responsibility? What is success?

Turns out I’m happy and I know myself. And no one’s gonna care if I ogle the occasional hot boy (no one but me, that is: the one who can’t believe she’s lived long enough to have become a dirty old woman). And why NOT move to New York in your forties? What the fuck difference does it make? I mean, I probably shouldn’t run around bra-less at my age either, but I do it anyway.

In context, with friends around me, I know what I am – that I’m smart, capable if somewhat under-driven, deep, trustworthy, funny, sexy, and loyal. But out of context, in a town where I know maybe a dozen people well enough to have their numbers in my cell phone, I seem to forget who I am and I begin to over-think my process and feel like a dork.

~+~+~
Actually, there have always been those rare creatures who really are ageless, those blessed eternally hip, who can hang with anyone and not look idiotic.

But there aren’t very many of them, and now that I’m getting old I have no reason to suspect that I’ve turned out to be one of them. And that, in essence, is really what this post is about, I guess.

That and the fact that nearly everybody I’m attracted to, on any level, is younger than I am, and I really do wonder if I’m stunted.

~+~+~
Overall, I’m pretty comfortable. I just spend too much time wondering if I shouldn’t be acting my age (whatever that means), and mourning the fact that I’m not still in my late twenties or early thirties. What’s wigging me out the most is that I even care, because I’ve never cared about appropriateness before and can’t figure out where this oddity is coming from.

I still wear whatever the hell I want to wear, but I actually wonder now if I shouldn’t be wearing something else… I remember how I judged dirty old men and [what eventually came to be called] cougars when I was twenty-something myself, and don’t want to be judged in turn for being old and inappropriate and reesty.

But on the other hand, if there’s some young chick looking at me with disdain because my clothes are too tight and my tits are four inches lower than they once were, what the hell? Do I even give a shit? Because I could still nab her damn boyfriend …if he’s even worth taking, that is.

~+~+~
It’s Friday night and I just got paid, but I don’t want to do any of the things I can think of to do (i.e., stay home and be alone, or go to the bar and see people). This is probably because I don’t quite have a community here yet and my options are so limited.

I miss Fairfield, sometimes. Not because I want to live there – I truly don’t – but because I knew people and they knew me. Of course, a lot of them were stoners and drunks and I spent thousands of hours watching people get wasted and getting wasted myself and that’s part of the reason I left: I didn’t want to live in a community of addicts any more. But I knew people, and they knew me, and I belonged. They knew me and wouldn’t care how old – or young – my friends and lovers were, as long as they weren’t assholes. There’s something deeply emotionally important in that, and I miss it.

My Saturday night, though, is booked! I’m gigging in the Tri-cities at Tagaris, a winery, with the Coyote Kings. And Left Coast Girlie’s gonna come! (I’m so grateful to be gigging again; it’s one of the things that makes me feel real.)