Age thirty-five is better than 25 for many reasons.
One, my mid-twenties were rife with binge-eating and obsessive food thoughts and body hatred. I still have the thoughts and the hatred but with less frequency and intensity, and I have left the bingeing behind me.
Two, at 25, I still thought that just because I was good at something meant I should be doing it for a living. I kept saying to myself, “Ack! I don’t like this sales job either. I should get a different sales job.” Took me a long time to realize that it was the sales part, not the job part, that was making me miserable.
Three (and this is related to two), I’m getting better at determining cause and effect. That horrible gas and cramping? Yeah, don’t eat dairy, Ame. That crushing fatigue? You’re a glutard.
So, overall, my fourth decade is superior to my third.
There are lots of things about getting older, however, that don’t work for me. I have previously cataloged them. I’m getting gray hair and crows’ feet. (Yet I still get zits.) If I sit on the floor for more than five minutes, I have to kinda work out my knees—which snap, crackle, pop—before I stand up. I’m still pathologically incapable of finding an appropriate mate.
The thing that has caused me the most distress, in this journey toward the geriatric, is the urgency with which I now have to pee. A decade ago, I never woke up in the middle of the night. Now, it’s twice, thrice, even frice sometimes. During the day, I used to notice a gentle pressure in my bladder and know that I’d need to find a bathroom in the next hour or two. Today, it’s no pressure…no pressure…and then ABSOLUTELY NON-NEGOTIABLE.
Last night, I learned a little lesson. In case my cause/effect analysis goes on the fritz, I’m writing myself a little note here for reference.
Dear Amy, If, when babysitting, you’re playing Ghost in the Graveyard outside in the crisp February air after dark, and you are the Ghost, and you hide behind the composter, and the kids find you and scream at the top of their lungs, you will pee a little bit in your pants.(And jam your ring finger on the composter.) Love, Amy