These past couple of weeks I've been cursed with a bit of writer's block. It happens to the best of us, I do suppose. Luckily for everyone a brief trip to one of my favorite Mexican restaurants provided my brain with a little kick start this evening. Let's hope the mojo hasn't left me in the last couple of hours.
(P.S. This restaurant is the real deal. If a Mexican restaurant doesn't have the standard 1-400 menu items that ALL Mexican restaurants have, combined with a complete lack of explanation for any of their menu items, then it's a real Mexican restaurant. Their pico de gallo is only rivaled by the P de G that I had in Mexico on my honeymoon, if that's any indication.)
Back to the issue at hand.
I walk in to get a couple of orders of chips and super awesome salsa and a couple o' tacos, and in front of me are three, I would assume, college-age kids. Having nothing better to do while I wait to order, I decide to put on one of my favorite faces: look like you're daydreaming but you're really eavesdropping. Luckily this wasn't hard to do, because the people in the neighboring Dollar General could have heard their conversation. While nonchalantly listening, a thought struck me that came as a bit of a surprise:
There's nothing uncool about getting older.
Now there are some aspects of aging really don't bother me.
Gray hairs? Bring 'em. I think a little salt n' peppa makes a person look distinguished, especially if that person is a man. Clooney, anyone? I'll probably end up dying my hair a bit when the gray ones come rolling in, but I don't see myself being 60 and putting on the Nice and Easy.
Wrinkles? They're a sign of wisdom, and I'm not going to inject $600 of botulism in my face every few weeks to get rid of the evidence of a lifetime of knowledge. It's a losing battle, and you can buy some really cool stuff with $600.
Bad wardrobe? (You know, pants to your boobs and the resurgence of shoulder pads.) Not going to happen. High waisted pants pinch my belly button and I've never liked shoulder pads, and yoga pants will never go out of style. Mark my words.
But I'll be the first to say that some aspects of aging DO bother me.
Weight gain. For most of my life I've pretty much had the same figure. (Small boobs, no hips--even after one kid. I thought I'd get at least one of them changed from the experience.) I'm going to go with genes on this one, but I think I may have inherited my dad's metabolism. The one where you, for the most part, don't have to worry that much about your weight. If I start to notice a slight weight increase, I cut back on my Oreo habit for a bit and eat a little healthier, and that usually does the trick. What scares me is what will happen to my weight as I get older.
I didn't have this mentality until I was a sophomore in high school, my hormones did weird things, and I gained twenty pounds in three months for absolutely no reason. I was just as active, ate the exact same, but gained weight. I eventually lost the weight (like, after a stomach flu in college things went back to normal again), but I've always had this fear in the back of my mind that I'm going to get to a point where I'll be back in that position.
Losing my "cool". I'm no Frank Sinatra by any means, but I'm not a complete lost cause socially, either. I like good movies, I listen to good music, I'm in the know. But I fear that as I get older some sort of switch is going to be turned on and I'm going to become this Lawrence Welk watching, Kenny G listening, what's up with the cost of brussel sprouts, anyway, kind of social nerd. And it just.can't.happen.
Anyway, back to the point: There's nothing uncool about getting older.
Listening to these, essentially, kids talking, I was struck by a couple things. Not necessarily about what they said but how they said it.
Younger people way over-pepper their conversation with verbal diarrhea. Of the unnecessary curse word kind. I don't think I've heard as many motherf*****r, f**k this, f**k that, s**t, d**n, s***ty f**k s**ts since watching
Goodfellas over 10 years ago as I did in the roughly 10 minutes I was subjected to their conversation. And I remember me at that age. I was a little heavy on the pepperage. It made me feel cool, like I was saying something really important. Listening to these kids tonight, though, made me realize something. It's not so cool. It makes you sound stupid. Sure, there are definitely times where I can see a little pepperage being appropriate. Say, when you accidentally run over your neighbor's cat, or you cut your finger slicing an onion, or your twenty-two month-old is about to throw a toy phone at your flat screen (this is hypothetical, but a valid concern). But every.other.word? It's excessive. Buy a dictionary or thesaurus, pick up a new read, and expand your vocab beyond your usual four-letter standbys.
Also striking: younger people have a tone of speaking they often employ that is intended to make them sound more important than they actually are. They talk louder. They over-inflect their voice. They often over-gesticulate while talking. All so they can sound like they know what they're saying and what they're saying is cool. Hate to break it to you, but it probably isn't. Case and point: I don't even remember what kind of boring stuff you were talking about, kids. I just remember how ridiculous you looked and sounded when you did it. I've seen myself slipping into this pattern in my old(er) age, but it happens in only two occasions: A) I'm nervous and trying to feel better about myself, and B) I'm drunk. And I can guarantee I'm not cool in either situation. Lesson I've learned: who cares how important I sound. If people care about you, it will only matter that you're trying your best.
As annoyed as I was at listening to these kids talking, I'm glad that I was forced to listen. It made me realize how far I've come from being a trash-mouthed, loud, flailing kid to the mild-mannered, decently-collected, reserved adult that I am today. Sure, I'm actually still pretty loud (it's a Southern thing), I'll occasionally throw out an f-bomb here and there (note point B above), and I've been known to flail wildly when excitedly talking about things that I'm really excited about, but I know when to turn it off and when to let 'er rip. To some that might make me sound boring, but it makes me feel mature. And in my own way, pretty cool.
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