Driving to dinner at a shmancy restaurant last night, I realized I was feeling some anxiety over the prospect of valet parking.
It’s not just because I would be turning my 14-year-old jalopy over to a valet parker accustomed to Mercedes, Jags and Beemers. That is its own special humiliation.
But I actually found myself worrying about doing it “right.” Wondering if I would seem like an impostor when the valet opened my door and when, later, I slipped him a tip.
Not that I care what a valet parker thinks of me. It's not that. It's just that I shake the feeling that I'm a callow kid trying to act grown-up.
Of course, I 100% look like a middle-aged lady. I get ma’am-ed everywhere I go. But while everyone else looks at me and sees a seasoned old broad, in my head, I’m just a little knucklehead trying to keep up with grown-up life. It’s weird.
Maybe it’s the life I’ve chosen to lead—childless, working at home alone, still rocking out too late some nights. Perhaps if I had to engage with the corporate world more often, the inner and outer mes would be better aligned.
I guess this is a callback to the column I wrote a zillion years ago for Salon about going back to school. (Ah, such a heartbreak—my editor on this column commissioned a series about going back to school in middle age but then immediately changed jobs and the new editor wouldn’t give me the time of day. She must have known I was just a dumb-ass kid pretending to be a professional writer.)
I guess feeling young is better than feeling old, but at what point, I wonder, will I actually feel my age—in a good way? Sometimes I get tired of feeling like a dumb-ass kid. I’d like to feel like a dumb-ass adult for a change.
7 comments:
You just described my permanent state. I feel like I'm playing at something and that something is adulthood. I sort of hope it never ends...sort of. It would be interesting yet sort of boring to feel confident about all the random crap that unsettles me.
I suspect it doesn't end. If I'm still getting unnerved by valets at my advanced age, is there any hope of change? I guess you're right though. It might be boring to just be a plain old grown-up.
I was just talking to one of my friends about this the other day cause I also never feel very put together. I'm always either mildly wrinkled or my hair needs a cut or...something. And I don't think that will ever end either. I do kind of wish that piece of my lingering childhood would go away -- I hate feeling awkward cause I'm sort of off on how I'm dressed or something like that. I guess I should just either get over it or buy some new clothes.
And avoid women's magazines, which are dedicated to making us feel mildly wrinkled and badly put together.
I was saving this link for flotsam friday, but it fits today's topic:
http://tinyurl.com/6hkro8
"Now the years are rolling by me, they are rockin' even me
I am older than I once was, and younger than I'll be, thats not unusual
No it isnt strange, after changes upon changes, we are more or less the same
After changes we are more or less the same..."
-The Boxer by Paul Simon
No one has ever said it better.
I reckon you're one great actress - since we first met you've always exhibited togetherness and stability. I guess it's somewhat different for aging guys- we can retain a childish spark, a 'devil may care' ( as my mom still points out to me) take on things that retard the stodgy side of adulthood. Check out Tom Waits' video for 'I Don't Want To Grow Up' -it would probably come across as unseemly if a grown woman performed it.
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