Musings on getting older and also booze
I think I am smack-dab in the middle of my mid-life crisis at the moment and I try not to allow it to get to me too much but it creeps its way in on a regular basis. I think this is quite normal where at a certain point in your life you start to think more often about your own mortality and if you are lucky enough at my age to still have both of your parents be alive, then you especially start to worry about their mortality.
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I had memories of this SNL skit being good but then I went back and watched a couple of them... not good!
I am not a momma's boy. I haven't lived with my parents or really even been all that near to them since the 90's but we stay in touch. There certainly isn't any sort of animosity there but like a lot of people I start to worry every now and then about whether or not I have done enough as their son over the years or if I am going to end up having some regrets once they are gone.
I think that most people probably go though some level of this as they get to their 40's and I should just be thankful.
The really silly thing about your mid-life crisis is that it is for the most part just unnecessary worry. I think that I am kind of doing as much as I can as far as my family is concerned seeing as how there is an entire Pacific ocean between us and I do make the flight over once a year and stay for a month. But I will wonder.
Time will lead to death for all of us and I think that I will just have to cross that bridge when it comes to me for both my parents and as well for myself.
The other things that worries me constantly is the fighting of getting older. I look a lot better than Mike Myer's character above, but I also keep trying to fight the inevitable ticking clock that is aging by doing thins like keep trying to mess with my thinning hair and not to much avail. I don't think it helps a great deal that basically everyone that is on TV has perfect hair and that hair transplant surgery has become just the norm.
I was reading something the other day about someone who works in Hollywood and they were asked about who has hair transplants (among the men) and this stylist or whatever they were laughed and said "everyone." If you see anyone that is over 30 years old and they have a full head of hair as well as really thick hair, there's your sign that they have had a transplant.
I don't really want to join that group but if you follow me you know that I have already investigated it. It's quite expensive but I suppose it is about as much as other surgeries. I think the hair transplant has become the "boob job for men" in that it is becoming increasingly common.
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My hair isn't even that bad though. I'm quite similar to this guy here. I have good hair coverage but it is thin and this is annoying. I haven't been a terribly stylish person for most of my life but I don't know why but this is definitely bothering me and I should just stop talking about it and spend the $3000 and get it over with so I can stop my bitchin!
Another thing that I worry about that isn't vanity driven is my own finances: I feel as though I have prepared relatively well and if I were to all of a sudden find myself unemployed and unable to make more money I think that at my current rate of spending that I would be just find for say, 20-25 years. That's great and all, but I always want to have a bit more. There's about a 25 year age difference between me and my parents and they are still doing pretty well. I can think of nothing worse actually than to get towards the end of your life and realize that you don't have enough to make it.
There there is my evolving relationship with booze that has become apparent to me in my older years (i'm not even 50 yet so perhaps I am jumping the gun on feeling this way.)
I spent most of my life being a party guy. I was able to recover from hangovers like clockwork and even when I had a 9-5 a regular part of my day was having drinks during the week. I was able to keep this in check and in a lot of ways it furthered my career because I would meet people while having drinks that became part of my network. These days though, the networking is done and I often find myself sitting somewhere with people and we are just drinking because we have nothing else to do. This was the case last night and I was so upset with myself after I left, primarily about the huge amount of calories that are involved in 8 beers, that I got home and put on my running shoes and then went on a very ill-advised 40 minute run.
I ran until my phone said I had burned off the beers and I guess this is a good thing. Fitness experts would probably vehemently disagree. But here comes the next thing: hangovers. I simply do not handle them very well anymore and a great solution to that is just to not drink. I'm afraid I do not possess the ability to sit with friends and just have a couple of beers and call it a day. I'm either in for the long haul or I am not going to participate at all.
This is kind of anti-social I guess because I only know a handful of people that don't drink. Most of the people I know that is basically the only thing that they do. I can tell when I arrive home when I have overdone it and try all these silly things to circumvent the inevitable hangover and sometimes they work, sometimes they don't.
I can think of no one thing that negatively impacts a person's life more than a hangover and it is particularly stupid because it is completely avoidable. I just can't imagine hanging out with these people while having a soda water or something like that. Maybe I should experiment with exactly that though.
I don't know how many of you guys out there in your 40's and 50's feel this way on a regular basis but it's such a silly thing but still affects almost everyone. I wonder at what point you just give in and no longer worry about it.