Chapter 46: In which the blogger considers herself lucky

Aw, Christ, I’ve been dreading this post more than I’ve dreaded this, my 46^th birthday.

People have told me that I don’t look my age, which, if they are to be believed, is fucking great, because I don’t feel 46 either, mostly because I’m still so completely clueless so much of the time. When I was younger, I would have thought that someone aged 46 would be much more pulled together than I am. I would have thought that they wouldn’t talk out of their fucking ass as much as I do. I also would have thought they would have gained a bit more discretion about when to offer their opinion and when to keep their fucking mouth shut. Most of all, I would’ve thought that, even with an inclination not to suffer fools gladly, that I would have, over my many many many years on this mortal coil,* acquired a bit more patience.

I am thankful that I have not gotten any more conservative as I’ve gotten older. Nothing’s worse than a person who becomes a Republican because now that they have a little bit of moolah, they’ve decided that joining the party of selfish bastards is the best way to protect what they got. Way to have values, dude.

My apologies to my Republican friends out there who truly feel their party.

I am also thankful that I am as sensible now about religion as I was when I declared myself an atheist at eleven years old. I got into trouble then, in sixth grade, got targeted by a vengeful, religious nut of a teacher, stayed out of school in protest, was pressured by my beloved Granny to quit my protest before I ruined my life, was threatened by the principal, and when I did return after being assured that the harassment would stop, I was ostracized by many of the Christian kids, who decided to make that nutcase their martyr.

Some of you no doubt will react to the above information by thinking “Ah, that’s where the bitch got that huge fucking chip on her shoulder.” And I’ll cop to that. But also this: it taught me that religion is a dangerous weapon in the hands of the small-minded and the fearful, because it enforces the belief that questioning authority can imperil your immortal soul. Your immortal soul. Doomed to struggle forever in the lake of fire. Because you dared to think that your science teacher seemed a lot more informed about dinosaurs than your creepy little piggy-eyed preacher and his scary Sunday school-teaching wife who probably doesn’t realize that she purses her lips whenever she looks at a black person.

My apologies to my religious friends out there. Especially the ones who, if I asked for their coat, would offer me their cloak as well.

One thing I’ll say about getting older, is that I have moments of extreme clarity that I don’t think were possible for me when I was younger. The longer I live, the more I am learning that my ideas about who I am, and what I need, are mostly what stand in my way, and that there are so many impasses that I have gone around simply by stepping back and seeing a way through that I can only imagine I was incapable of seeing in years before. That’s not just wisdom, that’s experience. And it’s experience, not courage, that allows me to feel safe when I do something new and previously unconsidered.

Also, there are so many things I thought I needed in my life, things I needed so as not to be thought frivolous, things I needed to keep me believing that I was loved, and I have dragged them around with me for years - and let me tell you those motherfuckers are heavy - and now, as I regard them one by one I realize that, very simply, wow, I just don’t need them anymore, and I probably never really did. And sweet holy shit it feels so good to let them go. So even though I have a mortgage and bills and motherfucking earthquake insurance payments, I feel so much freer now than I did when I was in my twenties. I wish I looked as good, but that’s okay. There’s got to be some redeeming aspect to each stage of our lives, and I get that. So, while my ass may be a lot, well, assier than it was when I was a skinny young shithead, I’m a helluva lot more fun to be around.

And I can live with that.

*allusions to Hamlet, and the crippling self-centeredness that their use implies, are also counted among my faults.