forty three

When I was a small child, I remember being in the grocery store with my mom and delightedly telling a complete stranger that my mom was 43 years old, for no reason other than it was a fact that I had recently learned, and I did enjoy sharing facts with strangers. (In this way, I am pretty much exactly the same as I was when I was little, except for being taller and having more gray hair.) I believe this was after the phase when my older cousin who sometimes babysat me had a friend who taught me all the words to “Purple Rain” and I would sing it to anyone who would listen. Also in the grocery store, because that was apparently my favorite spot to entertain people.

(This isn’t true. Anyplace was my favorite place to entertain people because I was a dramatic child, in the highly-performative-definitely-should’ve-taken-tap-dancing-lessons sense of the word.)

At the time, I am pretty sure I believed that 43 was absolutely ancient, because to a small child, it really is, but now I’m here and I still have impostor syndrome about adulthood, like, maybe if I just keep quiet enough about it, nobody will realize that I don’t know what I’m doing, but also I somehow have a mortgage! Ha ha I fooled somebody, or, I don’t know, maybe with that one the joke’s on me and I should come up with another example.

Anyway, I am not ancient yet, and instead am at the age where I have both zits and wrinkles and skincare is just a delight. I think though that I am at the age where I should start considering what type of crone I want to be when I do finally get there. I’m not exactly sure, and I still have some time to decide, but I do hope that it involves befriending the neighborhood crows.

I often do a year in review when I write these things, but there isn’t a whole lot to review. I still don’t leave the house a lot of the time. Did some camping, twice specifically during a new moon to be able to take photos of the Milky Way in some places with genuinely dark skies, and both times had unseasonably cold weather with lots of clouds, so thanks, that was awesome. Took my dog on one of the trips — it was the first time I thought he was grown up enough to handle camping and he did not seem to like it much, but it could’ve just been because we were all freezing.

Mostly, in the recap of this year, I can find hiking:

Other than that, I got promoted at work. I still don’t have to go back to the office, so I’m not going to do that. I still miss lunches out. I do get tired of going to my kitchen for lunch. But it turns out that is really the only thing I miss about having a job outside of my home, and I don’t miss it enough to go back to an office. Offices are a scam.

Like all middle-aged people, I also play Wordle now. (Currently on a 198-day streak, but I probably just jinxed myself.) I have a lot of houseplants, but I have even more yard plants and I am deeply not exciting. I have concert tickets for a show in November (The Smile) — the last show I went to was three Novembers ago (Wilco) and maybe someday I will be interesting again, but maybe being in my 40s means not being interesting anymore, I’m not sure. A few months ago I ran into my (very very unrequited) high school crush — we hadn’t seen each other since the 90s and the only thing that happened was we made polite small talk for less than five minutes. It was deeply un-cinematic in every possible way, which, as it happens, is completely fine, but still, yawn, etc.

Tonight the youngest kiddo helped me assemble my birthday cake for dessert tomorrow night — the same kiddo who, a few weeks ago said “That was a really long time ago” when we heard “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and I said “This song came out when I was your age” — and even though we weren’t in the grocery store, it all goes full circle, doesn’t it?