Tomorrow I turn 37. I would like to say that I have mixed feelings about this. But I don't. Actually, that's not true. I DO have mixed feelings about it--I just don't have any GOOD feelings about it mixed in there. My range of emotions on the subject range from Meh all the way down to I Can't Fucking Believe How Old I Am and How Each Year Seems to Be Spiraling Away from Me More and More Quickly.
The Meh aspects of it, I'm sure, come from the fact that 37 is one of the most pointless ages possible. To my brain's way of processing and categorizing the world, which has been nurtured by years of tireless pop culture study, 35 is the last year that people can be considered "young." If you're watching a movie or television show and there is a charismatic young person on it, that person will invariably be portrayed as 35 or under.
These people, then, are generally lumped into one of three categories: young parent (under 30 only, there are few parents between the age of 30-40, as there is no "ideal" age for their children--kids need to either be very young and cute or teenaged and sassy), not-quite-old single hipster (up to age 35), or young married person (again, under 30 only--after that the couple either has kids or CAN'T have kids, if they could have kids, they would have kids or if they didn't want kids they would not be married).
The next category of person skips to not-quite-middle aged. This category of person ranges in age from 40-45 and falls, again, into one of three categories: parent of a teenager (with the possible addition of very young children--TOO young children for any thinking adult over 40), professional single person (too busy and awesome to bother with a family, but very possibly starting to regret that decision now), and pathetic single person (too stupid/ugly/awkward/shy/misunderstood to have a successful relationship).
There is no middle ground. People are either young, nearly old, or old. And 37 is one of those years that falls into none of these categories. 37 year old actors and actresses play 30 year old characters (except in the case of the guy who plays Herrick on the BBC version of "Being Human," who is only a couple years older than me but LOOKS like he's easily in his late 40s to early 50s).
In reality, though, it is starting to feel very solidly like the not-quite-middle-aged-but-it's-GOING-to-be-middle-age-in-the-blink-of-an-eye category to me. And that's where the I Can't Fucking Believe How Old I am and How Each Year Seems to Be Spiraling Away from Me More and More Quickly feeling comes into play.
I mean, really? 37? By 37 I shouldn't even be able to remember my 10th birthday it should have been so long ago, right? My teenage years should not only feel like a lifetime ago, they should feel like someone else's lifetime because I am so far removed. College should be a fond memory of fun times had that I tsk tsk at when I consider either how much time I wasted or regret the fact that I didn't waste enough of it. BUT THEY DON'T. I vividly remember turning 10. I can still easily recall the terrible feelings of angst and longing from high school. And college seems like just yesterday (though I do somehow manage to feel, at the same time, that I wasted too much and not enough time in college). But they've been AGES ago.
And now, Gabe . . . you know, the kids who trapped himself in the rocking part of a little wooden rocking chair when he was 18 months old--who I had to cut out with a hacksaw right after taking a hilarious picture of his predicament . . . is four and only one year away from kindergarten. He likes "big kid" TV shows and plays with army guys in a way that suggests he's starting to understand what armies actually do.
Gabe related side story. He learned a valuable life lesson this morning and his reaction to it is very much in line with my last statement about him and army playing.
At some point last night, a toothy critter ate our three baby chickens. Of the first three chickens that we got, only one of them ended up being a female. It's illegal to own roosters in the city limits (with good reason, they are loud and annoying and we don't have a problem getting rid of them because they are bothering us, never mind how the neighborhood feels about them). But we didn't want to leave our one female chicken all alone, so Libby picked up three new babies, hoping we'd get at least one female out of the group again. Gabe named them Evil Doctor Porkchop, Megatron, and Spider-Man. We'd had them at least two weeks and they weren't THAT small anymore.
But some creature of the night managed to pull them ALL out of their cage THROUGH the chicken wire. Yeah, nature is gruesome and awful (and chickens are goddamn stupid as they had a boxed in shelter they could have been hiding in, yet they didn't).
When Libby explained to Gabe what had happened, his first reaction was to think that she was joking. He laughed and accused her of being silly. When she insisted that she wasn't, he got upset. He cried. And then he got MAD. Really mad (he's been starting to show signs of "grown up" anger lately, which I'm a little sad about as he's been such a sweety up to this point). He claimed he was going to "destroy" the fox that killed his chickens (we do have a fox in the "forest" behind our house, but it was probably one of the neighborhood cats that got the chickens, as there are quite a few of them that wander into our yard at all times of the day--the fox or foxes tend to keep to themselves and there is no shortage of easy to get at bunnies in the neighborhood to keep them filled up). And I'm pretty sure he would have picked up a stick and started rushing through the back forest looking for the fox if he'd had his druthers.
So there was that.
What was I talking about? Ah, who cares. It's time for my Metamucil and The Wheel comes on in a few minutes.
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