another year older and deeper in debt

Not really on either count, but it’s got a catchy melody and the lyrics have a ring to them. I will, however, be another year older in a week. I find this terrifying, yet inevitable. Like Weekend At Bernies, IV.

See what I did there? I made a bad joke to cover my anxiety about entering the later half of my mid-30’s.

I wonder if I’ll have my act together by next year? I wonder if I already have my act together, I just don’t realize it.

I’m haunted a lot. Not in the ephemeral casper kind of way, but in the actual gnawing raw emotions, jaws clenched at night, permanent scowl lines kind of way. What this has to do with my birthday, I’m not entirely sure, but I believe it ties in to the “do I have my shit together, yet?” thing. I’m haunted by the past and the potential for the future. Should I have done this, might I had done that, why did I do those things?

etc

As I get older I begin to realize that you never really lose any of those same things that got to you as a kid…the only difference now being that you better know how to handle the situation through a vast array of experiences to draw from. It has very little to do with capabilities or skills or maturity, and a hell of a lot more to do with sheer rote memorization. When I was younger, writing a check was terrifying. I’d never done it before and it was so unequivocally adult that the anxiety over it was trebled jut by parental association alone.

Now though, of course, writing a check is not only not terrifying, but positively boring and annoying. Because I’m better equipped to “handle” it? No, because I’ve done it a billion times. Are adults more capable in surviving the “real” world? Sure, but only because they practiced for it.

The point? I don’t have one. I’m getting older, I miss a bunch of people, and I wish I had more time on the tail end of my life. Otherwise, I’m feelin’. fine.