love and sex and aging
When I was a kid I was obsessed with love. I was in love with love. With the idea of it. Someone actually was kind enough to point that out to me a long time ago. Anyway, back then sex didn't matter very much to me. Being loved and loving someone back was what mattered. I held monogomy in the highest regard.
Now, thirty is approaching me like a semi going the wrong way down the highway. Denial is wearing off. It's going to hit me. I will very soon be a man in my thirties. It freaks me out. And suddenly I'm checking out every woman I see.
I seem to have done things backwards. When I was a teenager I wanted to fall in love, get married, buy a house and have kids. That's all I wanted out of life. Now that I'm at an age where I'm supposed to want those things all I want is to party and get laid.
I think I'm a few years ahead of most of you here so I doubt anybody will really relate to the terror of my departing twenties. But I'm curious if anybody relates to this feeling of having done things backwards. And, in general, if anyone is as horrified by the concept and process of aging as I am.
I also wonder if this is basically an early mid-life crisis. And if it is, I wonder if I'll get over it and be essentially fine when I turn 40 or 50. Or if this panic will precede every passing decade. I have nothing to compare it to yet because, like most people, I was very pleased to get out of my teens. At that point there are imminent age related benefits to look forward to. And then they suddenly run out. Sure, my dad seemed excited to start getting senior discounts, but I think he was just trying to look on the bright side. I bet he'd take smooth skin and his original hips over cheap bacon and eggs if given the choice.
I'm also freaked out about having kids. If I don't do it soon I'll be an old dad. Lots of drawbacks to that. It's weird how this stuff all just rushes in at you. Early twenties you're carefree and everything is ahead of you. Late twenties all this shit gets a bit too real and it feels like time is running out. Or is that just me? Actually, I already know my best friend from high school feels the same way. But I'm curious what others think.
I feel like I just need one more decade. If I could start at 20 again I think I'd be ready for 30 next time. Maybe what I should take from this is start preparing for 40.
“Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves.” – Bill Hicks