Note: this is unedited copy that came straight from my brain, local organic brain-to-table writing, and likely riddled with grammar and syntax errors. Proceed at your own risk.

Things that started happening inexplicably to me since I turned 40:

  • Seeing the wobbly erratic spotlight of a phone flashlight, being like “what idiot has their phone flashlight on and doesn’t know it?”, and then realizing it’s me. I’m the idiot.
  • Grunting to help things along – lifting something heavy, squeezing through narrow spaces, walking up a flight of stairs. Idk, it just feels like it helps. Related: clearing my throat just for fun, saying “huh” out loud to myself.
  • If I see an open seat, bench, or chair, I’m gonna sit in it. Even if it’s just for a minute. It’s not even because I’m that tired (at least physically… I’m emotionally tired from being a middle aged woman), I just… see a seat and think, “oh that looks nice” and need to sit in it.
    • Exception is the subway. Unfortunately, while I do have the soul and essence of an elderly person, I am aware that my outward appearance is likely still perceived as a young person.
  • Squinting even though I can see the thing okay – it just feels like it helps. What can I say, apparently I love furrowing a brow in my 40s.
  • Walking with my arms behind my back, halmoni style
    • This is so underrated and I genuinely enjoy this. Halmoni knows what’s up. It’s a natural chest opener and a huge alleviator1 for when your arms feel too heavy (again, from carrying the weight of the world).
  • I’m mildly cranky a lot of the time. Complaining about things like “car headlights are way too bright these days!!” and “there are too many loud private helicopters flying over Brooklyn!!”
    • I went to a backyard party several weeks ago and multiple loud private helicopters flew over us over the course of the afternoon and I took the opportunity to proselytize to the partygoers about the dangers of noise pollution and the private choppers taking rich people to and from the Hamptons are not supposed to take a flight path over residential Brooklyn but nobody enforces it. It was a pride party btw2.
    • Both of these things are objectively valid, by the way (headlights, helicopters). (And you better believe I signed both of those petitions because another thing I will do in my 40s is sign a petition to officially put my name on the record that I am ANNOYED!)
  • Having to wear house slippers 100% of the time. I bring them with me when I travel.
  • I don’t swear as much as I used to.
    • Not that I was a total potty mouth or anything before, but idk, cursing just doesn’t have the same punch that it used to. (There are some people supposedly running this world who I wouldn’t mind if someone put an actual curse on, though that’s unrelated.) Also, when I hear younger people swear I think hmm you are not communicating as effectively as you think you are.
  • Being ignored by younger people (non-derogatory and non-ageist; I don’t mean they’re ignoring me intentionally, I mean I am more aware of how I used to be so self-focused that I did not pay much attention to older people).
    • I was sitting adjacent to 3 young friends at a sushi bar (clearly they hadn’t made a reservation, because who would make a reservation for 3 to sit at the bar). They all had their phones out, and all ordered the same special roll, and were all gussied up to go out after. It was somewhat amusing to observe because I remember those days in my own life, and in my mind I was kind of thinking “excuse me young people, i’ll have you know i used to be very cool and edgy” but there is nothing that makes me sound older than saying things like “i’ll have you know i used to be very cool and edgy” and “gussied up to go out”. I should rewrite this in a tone that sounds less disparaging because that is not my feeling and intention, more to just kind of amusedly observe and recognize something I hadn’t thought about in a while.
  • In the past few years, I’ve made friends with some older adults (in their 70s and 80s) in the neighborhood and circles I run in. They’re super active, more social than I am, and it’s been really cool to get to know older adults as friends and people, instead of as a “young person” who is naive and inexperienced interacting with an “old person” who is wise and frail – we learn from each other and it’s refreshing to be around people who are living fully and also don’t really have a filter. Midlife can feel lonely for me and part of it is that there aren’t many visible examples of what it looks like to age, that aren’t stereotypical or flattened or negative, so I’m super grateful to have made these friends.

  1. Is “alleviator” a word? Probably not, and probably not in the way I meant it… looks like a portmanteau of “alligator” and “elevator”. Meh, I’m using it anyway. ↩︎

  2. Before you say “oh you must be real fun at parties”, I did get some people to listen and sign the petition, and one already knew about it and showed people how to check real time flight trackers to see what kind of helicopter it was, which I didn’t know about and appreciated!! If there’s one thing about older lesbians they will care about a cause and help you enforce it!!! One time I went to Hawaii and there was a sign on the black sand beach about how you had to stay at least 8 feet from the sea turtles and of course there were entitled tourists going way too close to the sea turtles and there was this older butch lesbian who basically just started enforcing the rule and speaking sternly to anyone who got too close and you could tell that the tourists had an attitude about it but they did back off, thankfully. To this day, whenever my partner and I see anyone protecting wildlife or standing up for the vulnerable or just generally getting shit done, we nod at each other and say “lesbian sea turtle energy” with great respect. ↩︎