She's Got A Point

i was reading city wendy the other day--i like her blog a lot because she usually makes me smile, strikes a chord, and i find her writing very enjoyable to read. one of her posts that resonated with me had to do with wondering when she turned old. while i'm a good eight years older than wendy, i've been wondering the same thing.

and it's not so much about the creaky bones. it's about how one's life gets into a predictable, and dare i say it, boring routine--where one day seems like the last, and you can say the same thing about the weeks and months that fly by in a blur.

i miss the saturdays of staying up past midnight, playing video games, watching skinomax, going to late-night movies, etc. which is why i was so pissed at us for going to bed at yes 9:00 p.m. this past saturday. granted we were bored after watching, why i don't know, an update on "dog: the bounty hunter." while we used to watch the show, it fell off our radar when better and more interesting programming caught our interest. but, i digress.

wendy talks about feeling crabbier, more responsible, and less tolerant of things that she used to accept with ease. the funny thing for me is that i'm probably as crabby as i've ever been, but it seems less to me a lot of the time. for example, i used to hate talking to anyone in the morning until i felt like it. but i don't have that luxury any more and i've learned that even if you don't feel chipper and cheerful, it's better to act like you do. i definitely feel more responsible--maybe because my life has evened out so much from the drama that used to occupy my early and mid 30s. and probably most of my 20s as well. i just didn't really mature until recently, or at least that's the way it feels to me. maybe the adorable one will argue that point, but it's hard to say.

the strangest piece is that i used to be highly critical and very intolerant. of a lot. and everything. maybe it's age. maybe it's mellowing. but a lot less stuff gets me wound up, freaked out, and stressed. somehow i let a ton more roll off my back, which really, i never thought would be my personality.

the thing that really got to me though was wendy's point about being ordinary. which is she is not. not by a long shot. but she brings up an issue that's been weighing heavily on me, and i think, the adorable one. we're heading, no, it feels more like hurtling, toward the big 4-0 with alarming speed. we're both in good, decent jobs. we both make decent (not great) salaries and have health coverage. we live in a nice house with two adorable kitties, have super friends, and terrific families.

and for most people that would probably be enough. for us it's not. i think we feel that to some degree life is passing us by. okay, i feel like that a lot of the time. part of it is that neither one of us is in a job that is fulfilling or particularly motivating. yes, we're both fortunate to work for good companies, for which we are grateful. and i get that i've written countless posts on this very topic.

it's just hard at the end of the day to look back and wonder what we really accomplished. another day another dollar? check. two to three hours spent in front of the boob tube in the evening? check. laundry put away? check.

so what's my bottom line? i get that routines, aging, and crabbiness are part of life. and i'm good with that. it's the unordinaryiness (is that even a word?) that i'm strugging with. because i'm not okay with being bland. or feeling like my life is boring (which is it).

the trick is to do something about it. and there, i'm a more than a little bit lost. which is the point, all along, that scares me the most.