The big 3-0. I made it through a lot better than I would've thought, to be honest. Let's not go into all the reasons I should be besieged with torment that, despite my age, I have nothing in the way of functioning adulthood, to show for myself (even my existential angst is seeming a tad dated now-hmph!). But let's NOT going into details, or I may in fact fall into a delayed pit of despair. However, this little exchange between an old(er....as in hag-hmph!) neighbor lady and I, that happened on my birthday, pretty much symbolically captures whatever torment I may be carrying:
Me: Shikamoo. (respectful Swahili greeting towards elders)
Nice Hag: Marahaba. ( appropriate response) Blahblahblah (more Swahili)
Me: Uhmmmm......(that's all I got Lady!)
Nice Hag: Hahaha. How have you been? How was your vacation?
Me: It was very good. Are you coming or going?
Nice Hag: Going. I just arrived last night, and now I'm going out of town again.
Me: Oh, well safe journey then......
Nice Hag: How is your.....is that your sister or...?
Me: (thinking she is referring to Ms V) daughter.
Nice Hag: YOU are that Lady's daughter?!?
Me: Oh! Uhmmm, yeah.....
Nice Hag: Oh my Goodness. But she looks SO young! What is she doing with herself? You must be the first born then yes?
Me: Ha-ah-yes she looks very young. No, not the first.
Nice Hag: Second?
Me: Nooooo, I'm the third.
Incredibly old, surely half-blind, doesn't know how to mind her own business Hag: Wow! She must take very good care of herself!......You know YOU should take care of yourself too.
Me: Haha. Okay, thanks, safe journey then....(fucked up thing is, I totally saw this coming; I've had this exact conversation several times since moving back to Africa.)
Other than that lovely reminder that, along with generally sucking at adulthood, apparently I fail to even look like a daughter, my birthday was Momentously Marvelous. The first one with my daughter, you know. Ms. V has the endearingly ironic habit (one of many) that instead of saying "Birthday", she says "Happy Birthday" as in, she does not recognize that the former is the noun referring to the anniversay of one's birth, and the latter is merely a suggestion. So in lamenting not having got me the present she wanted because she'd wanted to get in Uganda where it would be a fifth the price of here, she said, "....but I forgot that it was going to be your Happy Birthday...." In lamenting that I didn't have a cake to cut (which I ended up getting to my surprise) and that it was a boring work Monday, she said, "Ohhhh sorry, you're Happy Birthday is just working, and you are not cutting a cake on your Happy Birthday!" And so forth. It trips you out to see the "Happy" as a necessary part of the "Birthday"; I like it; I think I shall take up this habit for good.
Speaking of habits, I'm currently off the sauce. In actuality these extra pounds I've put on are starting to weigh on me (ahahahahaha-whatever! I thought it was funny) I haven't been this big for years and years, since I originally lost a shitload of weight and totally transformed my body/lifestyle. I'm thick; like high school thick. But as Old Lady Hagsville reminded me, this shit doesn't not hang so well on my tri-decade-been through the ringer-body. So, though I would love to go all Rocky and shit, hit the gym and run my ass off (literally-hehe-see above) that's just not going to happen. Firstly, there's too much pressure in trying to be fit again after you've been out of it for awhile. It's like, you can still remember how cool and svelte you felt (and how big your Ego was) but you're also very aware of the specific differences between your body now and then, and the amount of excruciating effort it will take to go back to then. Secondly, uhmmmm, I don't remember the second part, I'm still distracted by the thought of all that effort (ugh).
My only alternative, to at least kick start my weight loss, is to cut back on my caloric intake. Now, back in my most recent old life, I was a swinging (as in hip not kinky) bachelorette living on my own, and as such had no time for eating much more than takeaway chicken, beer, and chocolate. I would go to my mama's house cause the house girl made some mean greens, so all in all, it was a wonderfully balanced diet for both body and soul. But in this life, I am a caretaker and cannot very well give my child beer for lunch (I am way to pretentiously pious for that) though I'm sure she'd go in for the chicken and chocolate. So the booze has got to go on hiatus from my blood stream (however I have now just tripled my chocolate intake so I dunno how well this is working, though I have lost the beer bloat).
And though alcohol is not the problem.....per se (What are you, a lie detector?? Pffft) it won't hurt to keep away until I can really sink my mental health roots back into fertile ground. However, it surely won't last (the sobriety, not the good mental health) cause frankly, I'm way to humbly harebrained for that (Teetotalism, like Veganism, takes SO much dogmatic Ego to maintain IMHO). And here are two articles that say I'm right.
Okay, okay, those articles said no such thing, but definitely interesting reads re: a different perspective. And how cool is psychology for affirming even the worst behaviors as being understandable vis a vis "human nature".
Speaking of which, I gotta go stuff a chocolate Easter egg into a shot glass for my mid-morning fix.
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