Turn! Turn! Turn!

voltee ♦ December 8, 2014 ♦ 2 Comments

Item: Blazer. Color/Fabric: Brown, virgin wool. Designer: Max Mara. Where Purchased: The Salvation Army. Years Owned: 2.

Sometimes, things are just harder than they should be. Sometimes I get stuck trying to write something that just won’t work, no matter how hard I try. And then I am blocked, unable to move past it, unable to write about anything else, until I defeat it. This jacket is one such thing.
So… I have been attempting to write this post since my birthday, which was almost six months ago already.
Sometimes six months pass like a heartbeat.

Sure. I had a smidgen of difficulty with my birthday. It was a hard one for me. A milestone, perhaps not to everyone. But a milestone to me.
I could tell that there was a problem when I could not find any clothing, or shoes, or bags, or jewelry to buy with my birthday money. And not for lack of trying! I absolutely tried my very hardest, poring over beloved website after beloved website, eagerly seeking out every summer clearance event or Christmas in July special. But nothing excited me.
The only things that made my blood race and my heart throb were fancy creams and serums, with names like Beauty Elixir and Time in a Bottle.
Yes. Something has indeed changed.
Growing up, I was the oldest in my class, and it was awesome. I was more mature, closer to everything than all of the other kids. I loved it!
Now, though, it’s not so great. I am more mature, closer to- well, everything, than everyone I graduated with.
Ouch.  I hate it.

If it was only that, I think I could handle it. But this is the year that I officially lost my hipness.
I am still in mourning, and having a difficult time coming to terms with its loss.
Allow me to explain.
I wore this blazer to a performance of Hair that my husband was in, his second show with the electric, energetic Castaway Players (which you can learn more about here). I went with some of my loveliest and beloved-est friends, Maria, Molly, and Vicki. Instantly, we were all hypnotized by the magnetic energy that was consuming the stage, and feeling rather…old. And somehow, by intermission, we had cast our own version of the show, Hip Hair! It was so-called because all of us were over a certain age, some of us may or may not have had surgery on our hips, and many of us were, in fact, questionably hip. We laughed so much at our aged-ness, and our brilliant casting, and it made a wonderful show even more wonderful!
And later, when I discovered that the Roundabout Theatre Company had something called Hiptix, an attempt to fill their theaters with young, hip, 35 and under patrons, I laughed even more.
But I didn’t know how much it would hurt when I officially lost my hipness. I wondered how it would happened. Would my log in just suddenly stop working? Would I get an email stating, “Dear Mrs. Dotson, I regret to inform you that you are no longer hip, and have lost your privilege to $25 theater tickets”? Would some smug Roundabout Theatre employee casually rip up my cheap tickets in front of my face?
In the end, nothing happened. I keep waiting for some sort of reckoning that apparently will never come. But still, I am struggling, unable to accept that I have been on this earth for as long as I have.
Why, though? I am not afraid. So then what exactly is my problem with aging? I’ve realized it’s a combination of many things. One, sure, yes, the relentless, irreversible ticking of a certain clock.   There’s that.  Two, the fact that my life looks nothing at all like I thought it would at this age. Which, if I am honest, has something to do with reason number one. Three, the fact that nothing can stay the same for long, and that with every passing year, month, day, I am hurtling faster towards some sort of traumatic catastrophe. It’s inevitable. And already happening.  This fall, my heart broke in two places.  And I wonder how many more cracks it can stand.  The last reason involves concerns over the changing of my appearance.
And that last one truly baffled me. I’ve never been especially fond of the way that I look. So why should I care if it should change?
Somehow, I realized that maybe this is the true matter at hand. If I never had much love for myself in the first place, how much more hateful and critical will I become when I am no longer young (or hip?)?

So I guess I’ve let myself drift into Autopilot again.  I had a some lovely distractions, a few shining moments when my heart felt truly young, and I flew.  I flew!  The return to earth again, though, has been jarring.  And now I’m just drifting through days again, not writing anything, not creating anything, hardly even being.  Waiting, still, for some sort of reckoning, or maybe just closure.  Something to tell me to move.

I guess the answer is that I am the one to decide.  It’s time, finally, to grow up.  I know that is not the same as growing old.

But I’m not entirely sure what it means to me, to grow up.  Does it mean I will write more?  Does it mean that I will write less?

I don’t know.

But I do know that today I am younger than I’m ever going to be.