It's been awhile since I've blogged. Why? I've become so average. So settled in my middle aged (post 40, oops, post 50) life. There were several points in my life where I felt exceptional, where through smarts, looks or luck I managed cool escapes, minor crises, learned life lessons. Yet now, I sit in traffic, punch in-punch-out, and contemplate that a well lived life is rewarded with averageness.
The reward is a quiet middle class life, with very little drama. Where grey hairs add up with gray days. Where a days work is rewarded with a quiet evening in front of TV news watching with detachment as society becomes steadily unhinged. At the same time feeling protected in my bubble of liberalness, middle classness, whiteness.
So what do you do? Maintaining fabulousness is work. It requires tension. It requires risks, it requires drama. By this time in my life, which includes lots of therapy, its supposedly antithetical to what I want in my life. Even creating the image of being fabulous is hard, social media is a cruel mistress, it requires constant feeding and attention. I'd rather jump into someone else's selfie than actually taking the time to lift the phone, press the little thingy that changes the camera to my face, and actually make some kind of smug happy face to impress myself or others. Also, I work at home, so I don't even to make the minimum effort to look respectable, let alone impress anyone at all.
The beauty of this averageness is that I don't need to put up with anything uncomfortable at all. Most of my interactions are professional ones via phone or email, so conversations are professional and detached. Friendships are baked in and gently maintained with just the right amount of attention to maintain a dignified intimacy, nostalgia replaces the need for alcohol fueled revelry. Caring about social issues are from a detached standpoint, albeit still a passionate one. I'm no longer two paychecks away from homelessness.
Yet the tension remains, jump in again to activism? Fashion? Edginess? Could I pull off skinny jeans? Do I knit a pussy-hat and wear it to the supermarket? Be the creepy old guy at a club, buying drinks for cute tourists with daddy issues? (Hey, they're in Miami to get laid!) What do you do to stay relevant in your own life? That sofa is so much more inviting than a bar stool, dance floor or even laying out in the sand.
Yet the tension remains, jump in again to activism? Fashion? Edginess? Could I pull off skinny jeans? Do I knit a pussy-hat and wear it to the supermarket? Be the creepy old guy at a club, buying drinks for cute tourists with daddy issues? (Hey, they're in Miami to get laid!) What do you do to stay relevant in your own life? That sofa is so much more inviting than a bar stool, dance floor or even laying out in the sand.
The answer is yes. You protest and pass out on the sofa after. You ride 165 miles on a bike to Key West to fight HIV and pass out on the hotel room after. You say "fuck the skinny jeans" they look stupid on anyone older than 13. You join a gay swim team and compete in Paris at an international swim meet. You have a threesome with someone younger than your grown children. You enjoy the veneer of averageness, but I remember that saying: "it's about the life in your years, not the years in your life." Stay Fabulous friends.
