Thirty Faux Pas

It’s my birthday this week. I used to really look forward to birthdays but now I just view them as a horrific reminder of the passing of time. People say to me “You’re only as old as you feel” – really? I feel about 100 so that’s not going to really give me an accurate assessment of how old I am eh? Apparently it is not polite to ask a lady how old she is but I am going to be possibly impolite and tell you all that I will be 34 this week. 34! I remember being 16 and thinking that everyone who is over 20 was decrepit! In my twenties I viewed anyone in their thirties as ancient. Now I’m in my thirties I have considerably altered my perception of age. For example, due to ‘old age’ I managed to tear my Achilles tendon last year by walking...just walking...not doing anything too strenuous, I wasn’t sprinting or anything or even larking about – I just walked and it tore! I thought that this was just due to me being particularly unlucky and clumsy but then I found out that my husband who is ten months younger than me tore a muscle in his neck when he was drying his hair after a shower! Again, he wasn’t doing anything he hadn’t done a million times before and he is fairly fit but while rubbing his head lightly with a towel he managed to tear a neck muscle! Terrifying stuff. This would never have happened in our twenties!

It’s funny as my dad is 65 and he doesn’t moan half as much as me about getting older. He is more mobile than me and given the slightest opportunity he is up ladders, drilling things and dashing up and down stairs with cupboards and so forth, stopping only for a cigarette and a cup of tea.

There are just little hints everyday that tell me I’m getting older, aside from the random injuries performing simple tasks. For example, during a rare shopping trip yesterday I picked up a pair of boots and said to my husband “What lovely boots, with the low heel I bet they’re really comfy” and within a moment I realised that gone are the days when I would pick up a huge pair of boots with metal heels and flames up the side and think – ‘they’re probably really uncomfortable but they’ll look great!’. I haven’t worn a dress in around a year as I just can’t be doing with faffing around with stockings or even worse – tights. Plus, if I have to wear high heels I spend most of the sitting time sliding them off under the table as I find heels so uncomfortable due to the whole Achilles tendon soreness that still persists over a year after the injury.

I find myself getting grumpier by the day. Yesterday while getting off the bus a lady who was waiting to get on the bus stood right in the middle of the doorway so attempting to get past her was ridiculously tricky. Why do people do that?!?! She could see that there were people trying to get off the bus so she made herself as big as possible to prevent it from happening! Almost deliberately! I’m not going to elaborate on the thoughts that crossed my mind – those are between me and my psychologist – but I was perhaps irrationally cross over something very small.

In my youth I was always up to date with what was in the charts, always. Music is important to me and I always followed the music charts. Over the past few years however I have found myself getting further and further out of touch until I genuinely couldn’t tell you what is Number One in the charts these days. I probably couldn’t name five songs in the charts. I could name a few artists but not the songs. As I type I am listening to a music station on the internet that solely plays music from the 50’s and 60’s and I wasn’t even born in those decades. The current track is by Pat Boone.

I bought a pair of slippers yesterday in the aforementioned shopping trip, to keep my feet cosy. They’re not the novelty style of slipper – no Bart Simpson with the feet holes in his mouth – these are sturdy, comfortable slippers that even had a label on them reading ‘full support’. I can’t help but think that I’m forcing old age upon myself. I sigh with pleasure upon seating myself in a comfy chair. I don’t like going out when it’s raining. Parts of me make cracking noises when I stand, twist open a bottle or turn over in bed. I don’t like going out on a Saturday night to the pub as it’s too busy – plus I can’t drink alcohol at the moment which is a little frustrating if everyone is drinking around me and I am the only sober person.

When I see something I really like, instead of just going out and purchasing it on a whim I now consider if I really want the product or need it, I then consider what else I could do with the money if I don’t buy it and then I look up reviews on the internet to see how good it is and look into other brands, models etc to see which is the best product to buy; A far cry from the random purchases of my twenties. This is something that my husband routinely did even before knowing me so I lay the blame for this piece of behaviour squarely on his shoulders. The thing is that it is good behaviour, it means I don’t go wild and buy something on credit that I will regret later – which, believe me, is something I did several times in my youth. I may lack spending spontaneity these days but I don’t have half as much junk as I used to have.

I worry about pensions these days when ten years ago I was carefree, well as carefree as you can get with OCD. To be honest I didn’t think I would make it past my thirties, I’m not sure why, I just always thought that my anxiety, smoking and bad diet would finish me off before anything else got me so I rarely thought past my third decade. And now I am there I have distinctly started worrying about pensions and mortgages and all of the financial shenanigans that I never thought I would face. I never thought that I would get married so I surprised myself there – it is my third wedding anniversary this week also which, according to Wikipedia, means that we are to give each other leather gifts. This makes me think of the leather trousers I used to have in my twenties. And the Scarlet red PVC trousers that I had that made my boss remark that I looked like I had stepped out of a bondage catalogue, although how he knows that remains a mystery :)

I’m just not ready to give up some of the fervour of my youth. I still sing loudly in the shower, I recently purchased a pair of shoes that look very similar to the ruby slippers in ‘The Wizard of Oz’ and I intend to wear them with something that probably clashes enormously like I did in the olden days. I still enjoy putting up the Christmas tree and I get almost sick with excitement on Christmas Eve.

What’s more, I still get a little excited as time veers towards my birthday so hopefully I can muster up the energy to celebrate my birthday in style. That’s if I can be bothered to organise anything :)