Yesterday was my birthday. The big 45. Today, my dad asked me if I felt different being 45 than another age. I told him no, but in retrospect, I do feel different.
Being 45 is so …. weird. I don’t if there’s some certain way I’m supposed to be feeling at 45 or not. When I was 25, I thought 45 was old. But I’d don’t feel old. Somehow I know as a 40-something there are things that 20-something can do and get away with that I cannot. For example, I can’t go out drinking all night, come home at some wee hour of the morning, sleep for an hour or two and then get up, go to work and be able to function. I can have a couple of drinks and be okay – and when I say a couple, I mean it. No more than two on a school night.
Getting drunk like I did in my youth – back in the days when I could drink any guy under the table and still be standing later – yeah, those days are gone for so many reasons.
1. The hangover is so unappealing as an adult.
o I can’t stand that feeling like I’m going to barf any minute – and then don’t.
o I hate sleeping on the bathroom floor next to the toilet because my stomach is doing flipflops and somehow the cold floor is more comforting than my warm soft bed.
o I hate the headache that won’t go away no matter how many Tylenols or Advils I take.
o I hate that lingering feeling of having the life sucked out of me all day long and nothing relieves it. As I’ve aged, the rebound time has increased and I will honestly say the last time I was in hangover mode – it took me days to recover. Who has time for that?
2. Getting a DUI would just really suck: And I say this knowing many people that have gotten a DUI as an adult and it totally jacked up their lives. I had friend in Chicago that played Russian roulette everyday and drove to work on his suspended license because getting the temporary work permit meant that his job had the ability to find out – and he could have gotten fired for it. That’s just not a chance I could take right now – especially since I live in the middle of nowhere with no public transportation available.
3. Drinking costs a lot and for what? A few minutes of goofiness?
4. Being in your 40’s and being a bar slug has certain connotations that aren’t exactly appealing. I like going to the neighborhood bar with a friend for happy hour or drinks later in the night. But going to the bar alone screams so many things and none are nice.
Then there’s the wardrobe thing – At 45, I definitely have no business wearing a tank top as my only shirt-type article of clothing again in my lifetime …. the only exception to this would be as pajamas. The same goes for workout pants that have words written across the butt. I have a pair of Adidas ones that say Adidas – but again, I only wear them as pj’s. I would never wear them outside the house – unless the building was on fire. There are probably about 10 other articles of clothing that I should never wear again – but at the moment I can’t think of them specifically. Things that will never be on this list are my Chuck Taylors or my Harley Davidson motorcycle boots (something my sister hates, but she wears Timberline knockoffs – so who is she to judge).
Okay, anyway. So I feel different at 45 about some things. Probably not the right things. I definitely didn’t gain any more motivation to work out in the past 24 hours – in fact, I’ve given up on boot camp class already – but I did work out on the Wii 3 times since last week. I guess there’s trade off’s in life.
No comments:
Post a Comment