I look how *I* feel.
To the three people who might actually ever read this blog... I have an announcement. Next week I will turn one-year-from-the-new-thirty.
While it might not be the-big-four-oh just yet, OH MY GOSH. Never before have I felt so very one-year-from-the-new-thirty...
My back and neck persistently ache. My hands are getting wrinkles. The silver stands out in my hair more every day. I really will need those dreaded progressive lenses at some point. The TV is ALWAYS too loud. I refuse to pay full price for anything. Overspiced food and bad coffee give me heartburn. I go to bed early and get up early. And I absolutely do not understand today's youth.
None of this is a result of nine months of travel. It's a result of being one-year-from-the-new-thirty.
Friends my age are still having babies. I don't know how they do it. Finding the energy is one thing. Patience is a whole other story. Some days I barely have enough of that for myself, let alone my partner in crime, and heaven help anyone else around me (including those of the vertically-challenged, non-communicative, poopy-diapered variety).
Lack of patience isn't due to nine months of travel. I can only hope that my lack of patience is due to being one-year-from-the-new-thirty. Right? The whole "life is too short to waste on nonsense" thing that makes it okay for your grandma to do whatever she damn well pleases after eighty years on this earth thank you very much? (If not, I am just a jerk. I hope it's the former.)
Friends older than me are having babies and I don't even have an address right now. This IS a result of nine months of travel. Once in a rare while, this makes me feel irresponsible and makes me wonder if I am missing something. Perspective comes in the form of a screaming kid on a plane, or the thought of sending someone to college when I'm almost 60... or the fact that I while I generally enjoy their presence I have actually never wanted to have children. (Perhaps all I am missing is that nagging biological clock that other women seem to have? I'm okay with that.)
Most of the time, though, this makes me really happy - mentally picturing where I am on the globe, tasting authentic foods, constantly being outside of my comfort zone, seeing things no one I know has seen or even heard of in some cases, knowing that at any given moment only one other person knows exactly where I am (whether we know exactly where we are or not). My friends have their priorities and I have mine. And that's how life should be.
So I will ignore my aching back, and I will shush my quiet-but-ever-present fear of lack of steady income, and I will put off wondering what the hell I am going to do with myself when I do get home, and I will enjoy kid pictures on Facebook from across the globe.
And I will have a kick-ass one-year-from-the-new-thirty birthday somewhere in Spain. Or maybe Portugal.
Almost ten years of blogging later, we're still not there yet. But we're definitely enjoying the ride...
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