Tuesday, November 29, 2011

boxes

Working at the new job I've been trying to keep my age secret.  Which is kind of not my norm, I've never been the person to keep secrets.  (Filters, what?)

It bothers me, that I was doing this.  So I've started to leak the news.  Yes, I'm 39 and on the verge of an AMAZING 40TH BIRTHDAY PARTY.   (Oh, it will be epic. NOLA trip and then NYC party.  I don't do small)

As the younger folks are finding out my digits they come by, ask for confirmation, then get that look...and I get why I'm bothered.

The box.

In the study of psychology you learn people need to categorize and stereotype in order to better understand the world.  Everyone draws the borders differently based on their experience, but the brain works in certain ways.  So it is.

I love me.  I love my life.  I love my friends.  I love all the choices I've made.  I am one of the rare people you'll meet who's dreams come true.  Move and live in NYC?  Check.  Run the NYC marathon?  Check. Experience broadway shows?  Check.  Have the most amazing adventure of a life with amazing stories as a result?

Super duper check.

Yeah, even in high school I never was the girl who dreamed of big weddings and kids.  They've never been on my radar, it just isn't part of my story.  Which is awesome to me because I have all this free time to do amazing things.  The problem is that people judge.  They have these ideas of who you should be based on their visions of themselves.

One of the main reasons I moved to NYC was because I've never really been like anyone else, and here it is just easier to live that way.  Hell, often you are rewarded for standing out.

But for some reason the next decade seems to be putting me back in the box.  The walls are finite.  You seem so much younger.  You don't act that old.  I thought you were xx.

You can't be that age because you don't fit my idea of that age.   Therefore you are "that age but"

Absolutely maddening.  I refuse to be defined by anything, especially my age.  And that is the truth.

As always, I don't want to be defined by anything at all.  Age or anything.  Just me.  Is that still possible?

2 comments:

Paul said...

Was it Dick Van Patten or Kirkegaard who said "If you label me you negate me"?

-blessed holy socks, the non-perishable-zealot said...

How I’d looove to kiss your feets and cuddle with you after I brushed my teeth in Heaven - though will we need to is the question HawrHawr Truly, I love you, miss gorgeous, and I don't wanna spend my eternity Upstairs without you. God bless you.