On being 23

Happy birthday to me!  Well, not quite. My birthday was yesterday, but you get the point.  I spent most of it with my dear friend Anita, and she treated me to Thai food, the Frida Kahlo exhibit at the SF MOMA, and lots of good conversation and walking.  I needed the walking since I failed to get up and head to yoga as planned.

As with every birthday, I attempt to paint the town red in some hyper celebration of sorts, but I always end up too tired to go anywhere.  I was supposed to go out with someone else but canceled when I finally felt how tired I was.  I’m getting old.  I’m sure I’ll need a walker and some depends by next year.

Since I’m so awful at doing the whole let’s-go-clubbing-get-sloppy-drunk-and-holler-”It’s my birthday get busy!” dance, that leaves a lot of room for introspection on my part.  And reviewing what happened this year.  If I had to use a word to describe it, 23 was rough to say the least. I spent most of the time in transition, from student to worker, from having money to being broke, from place to place, from people to people (romantcially, friendships or otherwise) and from thinking about me me me and what a disaster I’ve become to me me me, this disaster I’ve become and oh my god, I now have to worry about my career, love, family, finding someone I like and paying off bills and student loans.  This was so not fun.

And yet there were moments when I had a lot of fun.  I’m sure that in five years a sense of nostalgia will cast over this period of my life where I’ve woken up filled with dread almost every day.  It almost has a summer-camp feel to it.  I’m not quite at the point where I’d call myself a young adult yet but I’m closer to when I was in college.  Right now I’m probably at the best mental health that I’ve been in all my life, and things have gotten better.  I’m finally getting around to forgiving myself, accepting that I have needs and desires and every right to pursue those.  And I’ve gotten more comfortable with the fact that some stuff between people won’t work out, I may not jive with others, but it’s easier accepting this and moving on quicker than I may have otherwise.  I don’t feel as desperate to seek other’s approval or so quick to try to save someone from themselves and be that caretaker I’m so used to being.  Maybe it’s because I’ve matured, or gotten more comfortable with myself, or juggling all these new demands makes it difficult to deitize people the way I did before.  It’s probably a combination of all three.

And yet, there’s a piece of me that feels nostalgic and a little wasteful.  I wish I learned all this and nothing changed in the process, but no.  I lost the opportunity to communicate with several people, suffered a bad breakup, lost my best friend, and there aren’t many people in my daily lives that I talk to as a result.  I wish the price wasn’t so high.  Most of my college connections have vanished and most didn’t turn into friendships with longevity.  In retrospect I placed myself into those caretaker roles because they were familiar. But now my life is left with this empty vaccuum of expectations and almost no new people to fill them in.  So I’m here now, and even though I’d like to get out of this sea of confusion and get on with the chapter of life entitled “Christina behaves like a stable adult” I’d rather be here than try to desperately please someone where a potential interaction won’t materialize.

Even though I’m still in the Junior edition, the grown up version of life sucks!  It’s taking longer for me to figure out of I like anything, or with a person, trust them, and even if that happens, the other person may not like you back, and there’s no garuntee that any will be nice to you, or that the connection will be a long lasting one.  It’s hard to deal with that sort of uncertainty, and I am sure that in the process I’ve become more cautious and a lot more cynical.  I feel myself closing off which could be a result of independence, being smarter or not being open.

I don’t have the answer to a lot of questions but I could go on superstition.  I’ve found that with the exception of 8 and 9, the better years tend to be the even numbered ones.  17, 19, and 21 sucked.  But 18, 20, and 22 rocked.  So maybe 24 will be a great year just based on that.  I could ask for material things such as a car, a nicer place, friendlier roommates and a real job, but what I’d like to get out of 24 is to just be okay with myself and hope that decision making, whatever it is, will be easier and I’ll be more confident in the process.

Thoughts of the day: Age

I spend a lot of time thinking about age.  Partially because my birthday is coming up and it’s a preoccupation at my job.  In between the hours of nine to five, my interest is in older adults, seniors, geezers, whatever you want to call them.  I hunt for clues — those with grey, silver or dyed dark hair, who talk about golf lessons, grandkids and regularity, those with canes and weathered hands with paper soft ridges — I pay attention to them during business hours.  When fishing for volunteers, I can’t outright ask someone their age, but it’s on my mind often.  It’s how we find people.

But I find that numbers fill my head even during my free time.  I often wonder why I don’t get along with my roommates. When I did the first interview, my future roomies stressed that they were a young household.  They were into having fun, being energetic  and spontaneous.  Soon I came to find that meant X-boxing, MTV-obsessing, club hopping and shunning anything that was produced before 2000.  I find it to be closed minded and insensitive, but to them, they could just be sticking to their preferences and what they know, which there is nothing wrong with.  I think.

It seems when age is often discussed, certain characteristics are attributed to certain ages.  Youth is associated with spontaneity, fun, free spirits and idealism.  But youth is often ignorant and superficial.  And those who are old are refined, wise and experienced at best, but stodgy and boring at its worst.  The problem with both descriptions is that it stereotypes– it’s ageism on both sides.  And yet there’s a lot that goes on where those stereotypes are perpetuated.  Most of my volunteers are past the mid life crisis but a few did buy motorcycles and get tattoos on their 60th birthday.  Why in the world would you do that?  I find those going through the mid life crisis to be silly almost.  Getting a Harley or a Corvette, piercings and tattoos and sleeping with someone younger isn’t going to cause someone to be 15 years younger.  If anything, it seems as if one were denying their age by doing such things.  Growing old is about being graceful and comfortable with your age.  It’s something one should wear proudly.  And I’m not sure if those mid lifers remember what it’s like to be in their 20s — the confusion, desperation and sadness, the loneliness that creeps in when you’re always wondering if you’ve learned the correct rules and if you’re doing everything right.  That type of social awkwardness hopefully slakes away after a certain age, once one gains experience in life– but I don’t know if I’ll be one trying to reclaim my youth which at the time is confusing, exhausting and very very poor.

Then I have to say I can’t blame the mid lifers who feel the need to reclaim that type of youth.  Our culture places a lot of value on it.  I may get this wrong, but I think that America is the only culture the celebrates youth and that’s perhaps why my roommates revel in such an extreme portrayal of it.  But the celebration is often wasted. It just leads to a stereotype that to be young is to be free, fun, careless, is filled with passion and open opportunities to make the right choices (or any choice) and you’d still have the energy to bounce back from anything. This isn’t always true.  There are more nights when I want to quietly read (or watch Space Ghost to get in touch with my youth) than I want to party.  (In England in fact, they sell water bottles at clubs since clubbing is considered a marathon sport and they are right).  I don’t feel the need to constantly socialize and according to my boss, I have some “obvious social phobias”.  Whatever that means.  I think he just means that unlike the other Volunteer Coordinator, I am not that good at having fun.  So according to these traits, I am not 23, but probably in my 40s.

It’s silly to place such a high value on energy, fun, and spontaneity.  Like happiness or sadness, or any other trait, it comes and goes.  I wouldn’t try to show off my fun side at an interview if it didn’t call for it, nor would I be super serious at a dance club.  It’s appropriate to show different sides.  But youth, for all it’s cracked up to be, seems to be focused on bringing out those fun but superficial elements, and thus, any exploration of a more serious facet is pushed to the side.  It doesn’t look as pretty.

Try explaining this to some 40 something guy when he asks you out on a date.  It’s not pretty.  For the past few years it seems as though older men tend to ask me out, typically they’re in their 40s and up.  I gave one a chance, but there were a lot of things that got left out.  This particular guy (we’ll call him Photography dude because he loved to pretend to be a photographer) said he only dated girls who were 18-20.  Having met him at 20, I was obviously on the old side, although he was a decade older than me.  Anyway, Photography Guy said he loved younger girls because they were fun and free, they never pressured him about commitment, and they knew how to be in the moment.  This all works.  For about three months.  At the three month mark I had to ask why he never wanted to talk about anything deep, why he wouldn’t tell me what he did for work, and why if we were not dating was he pressuring me to get naked with him?  He never answered any of these questions, or perhaps he did, when he broke up with me because I was “too complicated.”

I later on assessed that situation as he wasn’t interested with me, but wanted to get in touch with his youth through me.  Instead of seeing me who liked art, tea and talking about all things under the stars, he just say a 20 year old girl who wouldn’t be as demanding as a woman his own age.  I think it has to do partially with getting in touch with that person’s youth, but more so with control.  A few months ago I tried to backpedal on this and went on a date with a successful fortysomething lawyer who confessed that since his divorce eight years earlier, all of his girlfriends have been under 27.  He liked younger women because they are more attractive, more fun, never been married and usually don’t have kids and carry less baggage than women his own age.  I think older men like to think of themselves as being more suave and debonair than their younger companion’s counterparts who are callow.  What they seem to forget though, is that their younger female companions are usually callow as well, and will have a lot less to offer emotionally, intellectually, etc. Thus the relationship might last a season like mine did.

So after the date with the lawyer I quickly concluded that I was the wrong girl for him.  He was looking for that stereotypical young acting woman, and I’m not like that all the time (and it bothered me that he stereotyped women his own age).  But older men are the only ones who come up to me.  My preference would be to date someone within at least a five year range. That way there’s still a connection where we’re both at the same stage in life but it’s still a little bit older than me.

What was the point? I don’t have one.  Maybe I am just not appreciative of youth because I am in the thick of it.  Or maybe I just need to go somewhere and watch Space Ghost.

Likes and dislikes

You need to get to know me a little better so here’s some good started info:

Dislikes:

My name.  Studies show that most people’s favorite word in the world is their name.  Same goes for pets.  There are those people whose faces light up when someone says their name, who loved to have it scribbled on certificates, who love to hear it during sex.

Then there’s me.

Every since I was in grade school I have hated my name.  Partially because it’s so damned long and made penmanship tests a pain.  When I was born my parents swore they were going to have a boy and as a boy my name would’ve been Timothy James.  I don’t know if that’s much better than what I have now, but my parents couldn’t think of a name.  My father wanted Catherine, but my mom said that was too serious, and now I have this unoriginal name which was the second most popular for girls of my birth year. 

The other dislike I’ve always had of my name is that it’s three syllables.  Studies also show that animals and people tend to best remember two syllable names or names with an even amount of syllables.  Most people don’t call me by my full name.  The closest is Christine (not my name) or they try to attach some nickname like Chrissy, or Christy, or Chris (also not my name).  I’ve always wished people would take the time to pronounce all three syllables of my name (besides, do they know how many hours I got grilled over penmanship for all nine letters of my name?) or that I was given a two syllable, less common name in the first place.

Summers in the Bay Area;  these are not summers at all.  Nature is bipolar around here. I have to dress in layers and steadily strip them off as the day progresses, then put them back on at sunset.  I don’t mind doing this; I just mind doing this in mid July when i have to wake up to grey ugly mornings without sunshine when all I want to do is sport a skirt.

Four and five letter monosyllabic adjectives:  These are like the, “I hope we can still be friends…” of words.  I should say I dislike most such as kind, nice and sweet most of all because they’re not descriptive and or creative and they usually fall into this neutral category. If someone uses those words, the context is normally, “I should like you, but I don’t, and I’m not revealing that much info, so the conclusion is that you’re nice.”  No fail.  Whenever someone describes me as sweet I cringe on the inside because I know they’re going to tell me something I don’t want to hear.  So let’s not use them.  And if you want to indicate you like someone, use another word — besides, there are better words for flirting.

Likes:

Watching old reruns of Chappelle’s Show:  Maybe it’s the nostalgia of being in college when most of that show was taped, but I love watching them still (especially season 1). Maybe because it reminds me so much of “In Living Color” and i can’t find those on DVD.  But it’s easy, thoughtful enough but not heavy, and almost everyone has heard of that reference, “I’m Rick James B —” to make a funny joke.

Sleeping:  It’s one of the few things in life where I do it for pleasure, and not for fun.  I can also escape everything around me for hours without the expense of a drug habit, and a time when I feel most conected to my body.

Old people:  As I’m sure one can tell, I don’t have the best management (and that’s a mutual dislike:  he says I have obvious social phobias) but I will miss my volunteers very much.  I know old people are stereotyped as either senile and rude or sweet and understanding, when really, they’re just people.  Sure they may have canes, or grab at you or talk too much, but that’s because they’ve been around longer than I have, so of course they have much more to say.  Perhaps there’s a certain wisdom that tacks on or bravado that slakes away with age, but they have been more understanding or compassionate than my 20, 30, 40 or 50 year old counterparts, and they’re one of the few reasons I’m at this job.  I know there are lots of people who fear getting old — if I’m 80 years old I’ll consider myself lucky to have made it to that point.