Alarming Female

What Age Do You Act?

When I was 26 the year was 1986 and I was one year into my second marriage. I hadn’t had any children yet and was working for a local interior design company as a “project manager” (glorified secretary/tech writer). Said company turned out to be crooks but I did meet a good friend working there and we’ve remained friends all these years. Our two youngest sons are just a few weeks apart in age and like brothers.

At 26 I was trying really hard to grow up and be an adult. I longed for what I saw as the stability of staid married life and was hoping to “start a family,” which meant, to me, adding children to our marriage.

From my perspective, being grown up meant listening to classical music radio and NPR during the workday and playing King’s Quest on our 286K computer at night. We had friends over for dinner and went to movies and stayed home with the VCR and leaned into responsible adulthood. I gave up crochet for the more “refined” craft of needlepoint, and didn’t know the first thing about knitting.

B-O-R-I-N-G.

I should have been going to kickass concerts then, but all I managed was Elton John or Neil Diamond or Diana Ross. I didn’t get introduced to Green Day or Violent Femmes or Nirvana or Red Hot Chili Peppers or the Ramones or the Beastie Boys or even really much of The Clash until years later.

I was older then.

People who are content to be right where they are and who can enjoy themselves without wanting to hurry time or slow it down must be very happy.

I’m trying to learn to LIVE IN THE NOW. But the me I am now still wants to go to concerts; even at “my age” I want to enjoy all that music I missed back then plus the new music I hear about all the time. Rodrigo y Gabriela, anyone? If you’ve never seen or heard of them, follow that link and be amazed. Stunning.

Btw, that’s me in the pic, though about age 5, not 26. Heh.