I’d like to join the party
But I was not invitedWhy are we racing to be so old?
–Elvis Costello/Two Little Hitlers
As it turns out, sometimes not getting what you want can be a blessing in disguise. We have probably all figured that out on our own.
Not being invited to parties in High School may have been like that for me. It wasn’t fun to be the smart girl in High School who never got invited to any of the stuff the cool kids were doing, but it kept me more or less out of trouble and kept a rein on the amount of booze I ingested. I still managed to get into a fair amount of mischief, but it was a very reasonable amount. An amount that I could handle. It worked out. I did my more serious partying in college when I was probably better able to moderate my intake and not drive drunk.
I didn’t do so much partying in my thirties, and I’m not really sure why that is. Partly because of personal issues causing me to retreat into a massive shell that it took me a long time to dig out of. Partly, possibly, from a mis-guided effort to be a grownup. Grownups, you know, don’t carry on and carouse. They stay home and do, I don’t know, grown up things. Grow old and bored, mostly.
Well.
That is no longer how things work around here, and hasn’t been for quite a while. I have long since gotten over any hesitation I may have had to have a good time. I’m going to be old soon enough, but why does that mean I can’t still have fun? Short answer: it doesn’t. I can have as much fun as I want to because I am a grown up. Not in spite of it, because of it!
Now that I’m older (so much older) I’m sure my liver is a little unhappy with me. I keep giving it tequila and IPA. I’m sure it expected my good times to go way down when I hit 50, but that doesn’t seem to be happening.
Wait ’til it hears what we’ve got planned for it at retirement!
My liver is NOT going to be happy with me.